This tool allows you to create and provide feeds of your content to other sources.
- Log into your admin dashboard and click on the Syndication link in the left sidebar.
- To create a new feed, click the Add New Syndication button at the top.
Syndication Info
- Add a title to your new feed. You also have the option to add a description. We typically include the URL where the calendar feed will reside on the partner’s site as well as the name and email of the person you are working with on this project.
- Change the Status from OFF to ON.
- Individual Selection Mode. Select ‘Yes’ if you want to manually select your events. Otherwise, keep it turned OFF. Most feeds have the individual selection mode turned OFF and use the category and org/venue filters to refine the results. If you do TURN ON the individual selection, please see instructions further down this page.
- Enable Spotlight & Featured Events. If you are creating an iFrame calendar widget and would like to feature spotlight and featured events, turn ON this radio button. Most feeds keep this feature turned OFF.
PLEASE NOTE: Once you’ve made these three radio button selections, click the Publish button to the left to save before moving on to the next step.
Syndication Settings
The next section of this form is the Syndication Settings. This is where you will select your filtering criteria like events categories, city, zip code, organizations, venues, etc.
- Event Categories. Select the primary and secondary event categories you would like to include in your feed. You also have the option to “Blacklist” any category types.
- Date Range. We typically select the FIXED number of days or months but if you are featuring events within a specific date range like “Arts in April” then select the start and end date date range.
- Organization or Venue Filter. If you want to display events that are limited to specific presenting organizations or venues, you can select those orgs.venues here. For example, your feed is for a downtown association and they only want to display events taking place at their downtown venues.
- City or Zip Code Filter. If you want to display events that are limited to a specific city, cities, or zip codes, you can select that criteria here. For example, your service area cover multiple cities but your feed partner wants a feed of events for their city only. Once you click the City radio button, a list of cities within your service area will display with checkboxes. You will have the ability to select that specific city for the feed. If you do not plan to use the City/Zip filter, keep it set as “Reset”
- Neighborhood. Unless you currently use our Neighborhood tool to filter your events by region, you can skip this section.
- All Fields or Select My Own. All Fields means the all the event detail fields are automatically included in your feed. Select My Own allows you to select specific event detail fields for your feed.
- Create iFrame Widget. If your partner’s website is NOT a WordPress site and they can not use an XML feed,
- Management Options. Select the sort order of the events in your feed – alphabetical, start date ascending or end date ascending.
- Enable File Caching. Select yes or no
- Number of Events per Feed. The maximum number of events per feed is 500. If you think your feed will have more than 500 events, you can increase the number but it may not perform well. Contact us if you have questions.
If you TURN ON Individual Mode:
- Select the events you want to appear in the feed by clicking the appropriate check boxes. To see more events lists, click the Show More Events link.
- Set the date range. You can use a Start and End date or select a fixed number of days/months.
- You may also select specific orgs or venues for your feed. For example, if you are creating a feed for a partner that only wants events for a Performing Arts Center, you can select the venue within that Performing Arts Center from the venue listing.
- You can also filter your feed by City or Zip Code. Otherwise, keep it set as “Reset”
- Create iframe widget – if you need to provide an iframe of the feed, click on the Yes radio button. If an XML or RSS feed is requested, confirm that the radio button is set to NO.
- Management Options – select the output order – alphabetical, start date ascending or end date ascending.
- Enable File Caching – select yes or no
- Number of Events per Feed – The maximum number of events per feed is 500. If you think your feed will have more than 500 events, you can increase the number but it may not perform well. Contact us if you have questions.
Syndication Results
These are the various URL links we provide for your feed partners. We offer:
- XML – This is a feed of all the ‘raw’ data.
- RSS – Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an XML-based format
- iCal – This feed generates an iCal feed of your upcoming events which can then be used to import event information into popular calendar and scheduling applications such as Google Calendar, Outlook, ThunderBird, etc.
- WordPress Calendar – If your partner’s site is on WordPress, then our WP Calendar Plugin is ideal. Your partner will need to download the plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/artsopolis-calendar/). You’ll also need to provide them with the two URLs (event and category) that display under the WordPress Generation header.
- Email Template Generation – These feeds provide you with limited event data, as follows:
- Simple HTML – Includes Event Title, Presented by [org name] at [venue name], and Date(s)
- Plain Text – Includes Event Title, Presented by [org name] at [venue name], and Date(s)
- Expanded HTML – Includes Event Title, Summary, Presented by [org name] at [venue name], [venue address], Admission Info, and Date(s) at Start Time(s)
- Expanded HTML 2 – Includes Event Title, Day(s) of the Week, Date(s) at Start Time(s), Admission Info, Presented by [org name] at [venue name], Full Description, and Image
- Click the Update button.
* For instructions on how to add your feed content to Mailchimp and Constant Contact templates, click here.
Questions or suggestions? Contact: networksupport@artsopolis.com