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Calendar Requests

If you are using KeepandShare to publish a Public calendar on your website, Calendar requests allow the viewers of your public calendar to easily send you an email requesting that you add an event or appointment to your calendar.

Public or Private: Calendar Requests are most often used when calendars are shared publicly, but they also work just fine for private calendar sharing.

Watch this video to learn about Calendar Requests:

Examples of using Calendar Requests:

  • Events: A church publishes a church events calendar, and wants church members to be able to easily email new events to the church office.
  • Events: A city culture and arts organization publishes a "What's happening in town" calendar, and wants restaurants, bands, art galleries and the like to be able to easily email new events to organization's office staff.
  • Appointments: A hair dresser lists their booked and free times, and customers can see the open time slots and send an email request to the hair dresser to book a particular time slot.
  • Appointments: a professor publishes a calendar of times she is available to meet with students for half hour time slots. The students view the public calendar to see what times are free, then they can click and fill out a request form, and the requests are emailed to the professor's secretary who puts the student's name into the calendar if the time slot is still available.

Calendar Requests do not allow viewers to make changes to your calendar. All the viewers can do is send you an email with a detailed request. Viewers are prompted to fill out a detailed form that tells you the exact day and time they are requesting, and they can give you details of the event or appointment and also their personal contact information. By making you the 'gate keeper' of the calendar, you do not allow the public to edit your calendar.

Only For Premium Accounts: Calendar Requests are available only for Premium accounts. Click here to view a summary of the many benefits of upgraded accounts for Calendar users.

Why Use Calendar Requests

Calendar Requests make it easy for your public to request events and appointments from you, while keeping your email address private and secure at all times. Only you are allowed to actually edit your calendar. They are ideal for any organization publishing a public events calendar or any business or office that schedules appointments.

Consider the disadvantages of other methods of allowing the public to make requests:

  • Give the Public 'Edit' rights: Yes, you can give the public the right to edit your calendar, but then anybody can edit the calendar. You risk accidental deletions and malicious graffiti on your calendar.
  • Put your email address on the web page: Yes, you can publish your email address to the world. But then the spammers will grab your email address, and when real public send you emails, they'll forget important information because they are not filling out a form.

How to Use Calendar Requests

To Turn On Calendar Requests:

  • View your calendar and click 'Customize & Share' on the blue bar.
  • Find the 'Setup Calendar Requests' section in right column and click on the blue link (it will say 'None', 'Event' or 'Request').
  • Choose the type of request
  • If you want to customize any of the text strings that appear to the user, make changes in the rest of the form.
  • Put in at least 1 email address. This typically is your own email address. You can provide a 2nd email address - for instance, if you also want the Church secretary to receive the calendar request.
  • Click 'OK' to close the Calendar Requests form.
  • Click 'Save and Exit' to commit the changes of the 'Customize & Share' screen.

Viewers can bring up the request form by two methods:

  • If a viewer clicks on a day in your calendar, the Day Editor pops up and will include a gray bar with your prompt string.
  • If a calendar is embedded on your website using the month, week, day or event views, a button is displayed in the calendar header. The button is labelled with your prompt string.

You can Customize the Button and Forms

Remember, when you turn on Calendar Requests, you can customize the string used in the button, as well as the title and description at the top of the request forms.

Sample Request Forms

Here is an events sample form. This is what a viewer of your calendar will see when they click to submit. You can customize the top title and sub title. Note this form prompts for 'Event Title', 'Event Description' and 'Event URL'.

Here is an appointment sample form. This is what a viewer of your calendar will see when they click to submit. You can customize the top title and sub title. Note this form prompts for a 'Requested Time' and 'Comments':

Testing

Remember, the buttons and links to submit calendar requests are only displayed if your calendar is both shared with the 'Public' and being viewed in a browser where you are not logged in to your account.

If Calendar Requests are not working, return to the 'Customize & Share' screen and make sure they are set to either 'Event' or 'Appointment', and make sure you click 'Save and Exit' to commit your changes.

To Turn Off Calendar Requests:

  • View your calendar and click 'Customize & Share' on the blue bar.
  • Find the 'Setup Calendar Requests' section in right column and click on the blue link (it will say 'Event' or 'Request').
  • Choose the type of request to be 'None'.
  • Click 'Save and Exit' to commit the changes of the 'Customize & Share' screen.

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