Adding events

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“Events” represent anything which is happening at a particular time and place. ChurchSuite has extensive documentation on adding an event, but we’ve summarised some important things we do at Whitkirk here.

1. Use the checklist
2. Event visibility
   1. Show in My ChurchSuite
   2. Show in Embed
   3. Show in Connect
   4. Show in “Featured Events”
3. Events and bookings
4. How featured events fit into our data ecosystem
   1. Flow diagram

Use the checklist

If you’re planning an event, you should always make use of the event planning checklist.

Event visibility

Switching specific options on for events will make them behave differently in various systems. You can find more in the ChurchSuite guide on visibility of events.

Show in My ChurchSuite

We do not currently use My ChurchSuite – you are free to ignore this checkbox.

Show in Embed

You should tick this checkbox for any event which should be public knowledge. This includes things like our public services, occasional services which are publicly attendable (eg weddings), public meetings, study classes or courses, and events we want to promote (run by ourselves or someone else – see external event publicity guidelines).

You must tick this checkbox if you want an event to appear anywhere other than in ChurchSuite, even if you also make something ‘featured’.

Show in Connect

We do not currently use Connect – you are free to ignore this checkbox.

Show in “Featured Events”

The “Featured Events” checkbox signals that we want to actively tell people about an event, rather than relying on them passively discovering it by looking at the calendar. Once this box is ticked we will import the event into our other communication channels and begin to actively promote it where appropriate.

Ticking this checkbox is not enough - the event must also have ‘embed’ ticked.

Why is my event not showing up?

Once you have ticked a checkbox it can take up to 24 hours for an event to finish working through our systems. If you need something done faster than this, you can contact the Technology Team to expedite the process, but this depends on volunteer capacity.

Even after an event has been imported, each ‘channel’ has its own set of rules about what it displays and when. If an event isn’t showing up where you expected, reach out to the Technology Team and they will be able to investigate, make recommendations, and update our rules if necessary.

Events and bookings

Creating an event does not also create a booking.

Events which happen in one of our buildings must also have a matching booking. This helps prevent collisions, as well as making sure we can accurately report on our resource usage. For help, check the ChurchSuite instructions for adding linked bookings to events.

How featured events fit into our data ecosystem

Featured events in ChurchSuite are different from other events in that they are automatically ingested into our other systems. ChurchSuite is our ‘one truth’ when it comes to events we want to tell people about – if an event isn’t listed in ChurchSuite and marked as both ‘embedded’ and ‘featured’ it won’t appear on our “What’s On” page, or on any notice sheets or emails.

Flow diagram

This diagram gives a high-level overview of how event information flows between systems. Dashed lines represent manual stages, solid lines are fully automated.

flowchart TD
  CS[/"`ChurchSuite calendar`"/]

  POOS[/"`Printed order of service`"/]
  ENS[/"`Emailed notice sheet`"/]
  ONS[/"`Online notice sheet`"/]

  TT[/"`Table talkers`"/]

  ChurchSite[/"`Church Website`"/]
  CCSite[/"`Community Centre Website`"/]

  subgraph Comms Utilities

    NSNotices[("`Notice sheet notices list`")]

    CUEventImporter[["`Comms Utilities Event Importer`"]]
    CUSheetGenerator[["`Comms Utilities Notice Sheet Generator`"]]

    subgraph Herald
        TTGenerator[["`Table talker generator`"]]
        OOSTextGenerator[["`Printed OOS text generator`"]]
    end

  end

  subgraph "Codename 'Laurence'"
    UnifiedEventsImport[["`Events importer`"]]
    UnifiedEventsList[("`Unified events list`")]
    UnifiedEventsImport --> UnifiedEventsList
  end

  CS -- Featured events --> CUEventImporter
  CS -- Featured events --> UnifiedEventsImport
  CS -- Embedded events --> ChurchSite

  CUEventImporter --> NSNotices

  NSNotices --> CUSheetGenerator

  NSNotices --> OOSTextGenerator

  OOSTextGenerator -.-> POOS

  CUSheetGenerator --> ENS
  CUSheetGenerator --> ONS

  NSNotices --> TTGenerator
  TTGenerator -.-> TT

  UnifiedEventsList --> CCSite