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Drupal CMS: Add an event to the UCL public events calendar

Learn about adding an event to the UCL Minds public events calendar (ucl.ac.uk/events)

Events must be uploaded and published to a departmental Drupal website first before it can be added to the UCL Minds public events calendar. After the event has been published on your site, you can then request for it to also appear on the public events calendar. The event will go to the CAM Events team for approval for inclusion on the calendar. The event should appear in the calendar a few hours after the Events team have approved it.

Drupal Site Owners and/or Web Content Managers will consider how events should be published to the departmental website before they can appear on the public events calendar. They can decide on:

Option 1. Asking colleagues to contact a Drupal Editor within the department to upload the event
Option 2. Allowing all staff to create events

Your Web Content Manager can advise on which approach has been decided. Follow the instructions below depending on the approach your department is taking:

Instructions: Option 1. (Drupal Editors create the event)

  1. Contact your departmental Drupal Editor and inform them that you would like an event added to the Public Events Calendar
  2. Web Content Manager: create the event on the departmental site.
  3. Once you’ve published the event (for yourself or a Contributor), go back to editing the event in Drupal and tick the ‘Corporate event’ box in the ‘Feedable Syndication’ section and publish. The event will then go to CAM Events Team for approval for the calendar.

Event review and approval process:

  1. The Events team will review the request. The estimated turnaround time for the Events team to review the request is three working days. If it has been approved, then it will appear in the public events calendar within a few hours.
  2. Web Content Manager/Contributor: go to the event in Drupal and check the ‘Feedable Syndication’ section to see if the event has been approved or rejected.
  3. If the event has been rejected, you will see the reason why in the ‘Feedable Syndication’ section (e.g. no image). Make the corrections, tick the ‘Corporate event’ box and publish. This will then go back to the Events team for review and approval.

Instructions: Option 2 (All staff can create events)

If you’re not already a Drupal user, your Web Content Manager will need to arrange for you to get Contributor access to your departmental site. Once you have access and are ready to create your event. Contact your Web Content Manager for advice on how to create an event in Drupal.

  1. Use Chrome, Firefox or Safari, NOT Internet Explorer.
  2. Go to your departmental webpage.
  3. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page.
  4. Click on the cross next to ‘Contact Us’ in the footer.
  5. Login to Drupal by entering your UCL credentials.
  6. On the top toolbar, click on 'Content'. Click on '+ Add content'
  7. Click on 'Event' to bring up the event content type.
  8. Complete the necessary fields - see Further guidance on fields below for an explanation of each field
  9. Click on 'Revision information' in the left-hand menu, choose 'Needs Review' from the 'Moderation state' drop-down menu. Your Web Content Manager will review and publish the event.
  10. If your event has been rejected, your Web Content Manager will contact you. Make the corrections, click on 'Revision information' in the left-hand menu and choose 'Needs Review' from the drop-down menu. Click on 'Save.'

Further guidance on fields

Title: the title will appear above the event and will become the clickable link that takes you to the event in feeds and search engine ranking pages.
A title can only contain 100 characters. Make sure you use keywords.

Content intro / summary: this is important for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as it is used by Drupal as the metadescription used by Google and other search engines. This will also be the content snippet that's used when the page is listed on results pages. 

Featured image: this will appear above the event in feeds and as a thumbnail in social shares. You can either upload a new image or search for one in the Library. Ensure you have the necessary copyright and consent to use the image. We have the following guidance on imagery:

If you would like your event to be included on the public events calendar, then you must include an image that is optimised for the web and is ideally 800px x 500px in size, or as close as possible to this width size on a ratio of 16:10. If you do not include an image, then the Events Team will reject the request. 

Description: this should be a description of the event, the topics covered, etc.

Date / Time: complete the start and end date and time for the event.

Key information: this will include event details such as the intended audience and cost. Start typing in the department name in ‘Organising department’ and select the department from the drop down. Key Information: this will include event details such as the intended audience and cost. Start typing in the department name in ‘Organising department’ and select the department from the drop down. Booking link is the main call-to-action for registration or payment.

Feedable syndication (visible to Web Content Managers only): tick the ‘Corporate event’ box if you would like your event included on the Public Events Calendar. Once your event has been published on Drupal, the Events Team will review the event and will approve or reject the request.

Contact details: this is required.

Location details: including Room, Not at UCL, Building, First Line (only if Not at UCL has been selected), City, Postal Code (which will automatically pull in a Google map, Country, Contact department, Free event).

Speaker details: you can add the name, organisation, job title/role, link, biography, organising department, organiser email, event series.

Show events in this series tick box: tick this box to add the event into it's own event series. You'll need to enter the Event Series tag in 'Categories' below.

Categories (Audiences, Event Types, Event Series, Org Units, Subjects and Communications): to understand about categories, read the information on tagging and feeds. 

Sidebar: this is useful if you want to provide extra content. You can use all the functionality of the text editor.

Help and support

For support in creating your event on Drupal, contact your Web Content Manager.
For events related queries, contact UCL Events.
For questions about the Drupal calendar, contact Web support (web-support@ucl.ac.uk).

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