Overview
Plan-It Purple and My Plan-It
Who to contact for help
How to view Plan-It Purple
How to view My Plan-It
How to submit an event
     How to create a calendar group
          How to get to the Create a Group page
          The purpose of the Create a Group page
          How to use the Create a Group page
          How to edit calendar group information
     How to choose who sees your events
     Submission tips
     How to submit a recurring event
How to use the Administer My Groups page
     How to change event information after submission
     How and why to duplicate an event
     How to create your own calendar page
Frequently asked questions

OVERVIEW ANCHOR
Overview:
Plan-It Purple, the online public calendar of Northwestern University, provides a simple, user-controlled way for members of the Northwestern community to publicize announcements and events to the Northwestern community and the world.

Plan-It Purple is an ongoing collaborative project that offers many features to allow viewers of the calendar and providers of events to view information according to their preferences.

My Plan-It is a customizable, NetID-authenticated service, allowing students, staff, and faculty to subscribe to event groups and to create personal calendars according to their interests. Subscription information is private.

Any questions or comments about Plan-It Purple or My Plan-It should be directed to the Plan-It Purple editor at planit@northwestern.edu.


Plan-It Purple and My Plan-It:
Plan-It Purple:

• on-line calendar for staff, faculty, administrative units, and students
• available to the general public
• viewing does not require a NetID
• not customizable

My Plan-It:

• on-line calendar available to students, faculty, staff, and administrative groups
• available to members of the Northwestern community only
• customizable, offering personal views
• viewing requires a NetID and password

Plan-It Purple and My Plan-It share a database of events and some administrative pages. Events submitted to either calendar view can show up on both.

Student groups with questions or concerns about either My Plan-It or Plan-It Purple should contact: planit-student@northwestern.edu

To get help:
Faculty, staff, administrative, graduate and professional student groups: Contact the Plan-It Purple editor at planit@northwestern.edu.

Student groups with administrative questions (example: status of group approval): can also contact planit-student@northwestern.edu
If you have questions about policies governing use of Plan-It Purple, consult the policy page.

How to view Plan-It Purple

Plan-It Purple has its own search engine for specific searches.
The main page of Plan-It Purple allows the user to sort events:

  • by date, including day, week and month:
-by day. Click on a day in the thumbnail calendar in the upper left corner of the screen. You will see a week's worth of events beginning the day you selected.
-by week. Click on the "W" next to the week you are interested in.
-by month. Click on the name of the month you are interested in. To advance a month, click on the arrow next to the month's name or use the pull-down menu beneath the calendar to skip ahead to the month you are interested in.

  • by campus: Chicago, Evanston, or both.

  • by group: student groups, non-student groups, or all groups.


• by event type. Choices are listed on the top of the screen. You may pick a category of types (Arts and Entertainment) or a type itself (Dance.

If you select "Chicago campus" and "Film," you will only see films on the Chicago campus.

Sort the events in the event table by clicking on the title of the column by which you would like to sort. For example, if you select "Event Group," the events already in the event display table will be sorted alphabetically by event group.

How to view My Plan-It

To view My Plan-It, you must log in with a NetID and password.

Once you log in, select "Customize My-Plan-It" from the left side of the screen. This will take you to a page that will allow you to subscribe to the groups you are interested in.

After you have subscribed to certain groups, you will only see events posted by these groups on My Plan-It.

Other groups may place special high priority events on all My Plan-It calendars. If you are not interested in viewing these high priority "Northwestern Universal" events, you can filter them out by selecting "My interests only" from the left side of the screen.

Search: My Plan-It's search engine offers you two choices. You can search all of the events in Plan-It Purple, or you can search for events sponsored by the groups to which you have subscribed. Choose your search option from the radio button beneath the search field.

You may change your subscription choices at any time.

How to submit an event to Plan-It Purple
To submit an event to the calendar, you must
1. have a University NetID and password
2. be a member of a group or department at Northwestern (see the policy page for details).
3. be registered with Plan-It Purple as a group administrator (someone who is authorized to make submissions to the calendar on behalf of a group. Groups may have more than one administrator).

How to create a calendar group

  How to get to the "Create a Group" page
• Click on either Administer My Groups or Submit an Event on the left side of the screen. The first time you submit an event to Plan-It Purple, you will be taken to the Create a Group page.

  The purpose of the Create a Group page
• This page will take you through a one-time only registration process.

• Upon approval of your group by the calendar editor, you will be able to submit events to the calendar. The Plan-It Purple editor will approve and advise faculty, staff, adminstrative, graduate and professional students and advise undergraduate student groups. The ASG Technology Director will approve undergraduate student groups.

• The approval process will take a few days. You will receive an e-mail confirmation when your group has been approved.

  How to use the Create a Group page
• We recommend that you provide more than one administrator for your group. You will need to know the NetIDs of all administrators.

• To expedite the approval process, please provide the official name of your group and be as specific as possible in describing your group. Student groups who are unclear should check with their sponsor for their official name or visit http://asg.northwestern.edu/groups/.

 •To make your events more accessible to the genaral public, avoid using acronyms and abbreviations to describe your group.

 •To assist those looking for your group in the calendar, name your group in the most common-sense and obvious manner possible. For instance, avoid beginning your group name with "the" or "Northwestern," because most users will not look for your group alphabetically according to these terms. Groups are listed alphabetically on My Plan-It.

     •When listing your department's Web site on Plan-It Purple, be sure to begin the web address with http://. The link from Plan-It Purple to your Web site will not work properly unless the address begins in this way.

How to edit calendar group information
• Groups may be updated at any time.

• After your group has been approved, select "Administer My Groups" from the left side of the main calendar page.

• On the Administer My Groups Page, select Edit Group.

• Student Groups may not be able to edit all of their information. In order to make changes to fields you don't have access to, please email your changes to planit-student@northwestern.edu

How to choose who sees your events

When you submit a new event to Plan-It Purple, you have three options to make the event more visible at the University. You may choose from these options in the last question on the Event Submission Form:

1. Send your event to the Observer, the faculty and staff newspaper.
2. Request to have your event forced on to all My Plan-It calendars.
3. Request to have your event featured on the front page of HereAndNow Online.

     Sending your events to the Observer
For information about submitting your event to the Observer, check the policy page.

      Forcing events on to all My Plan-It calendars
For information about how to make your event a Northwestern Universal event that appears automatically on all My Plan-It calendars, check the policy page.

 Featuring your event on HereAndNowOnline
Posting on the front page of HereAndNow Online is for groups who wish to reach student audiences. There is a limited amount of space on HereAndNow Online, so not all requests will be approved. In particular, recurring events and events that do not pertain to students will not be displayed on HereAndNow Online.

Submission tips
• Be as concise as possible in choosing a title for your event. Choose a title that describes the event in the broadest useful terms (example: "Program of African Studies Lecture") rather than a lengthy lecture title, which can be included in the description field.

• Include a link to the campus maps in the field provided. Provide a street address for campus buildings and avoid abbreviating building names for people off campus who may not be familiar with these abbreviations.

• If your event has different prices for different audiences, clearly state which price is for which audience in the field provided.

•Do not include anything other than price infromation in the price field. If you put other information in that field, such as registration information for a free event, a $ will appear next to your event on the main Plan-It Purple page, indicating that there is a fee. Include such information in the description field instead.

•All of the text entered will automatically wrap around to the next line. There is no need to hit return to go to the next line.

• Choose an event type carefully to reflect what kind of event you are submitting. If you have suggestions for event types that should be included in the calendar, e-mail the calendar editor at planit@northwestern.edu.

•Do not post the same event more than once to Plan-It Purple. The Plan-It Purple editor will remove repetitive submissions.

•If you have questions about whether your group is authorized to submit an event to Plan-It Purple, consult the policy page.

How to submit a recurring event
A recurring event is one that happens more than once. Examples of recurring events are a lecture series that happens each Thursday, a play that is presented several times within a few weeks, and an art exhibition that runs for six weeks.

The recurring event function of Plan-It Purple was designed to save event sponsors time. Alternatively, you may choose to duplicate an Event Submission Form.

To submit a recurring event:
1. Answer Yes to the question Is this a recurring event? under Event Date on the Event Submission Form.

2. Fill out the rest of the Event Submission Form. You will enter the event dates on the next page.

3. If your event happens at different times, create a new recurring event for each time.

4. When you are done with the Event Submission form, select "Post Event to Calendar."

5. You will go to a page that provides three different ways of entering the dates for your event. You only need to fill out ONE of the three areas of this page. Choose from the following options, according to your event:

• On-Going Events: you can choose a start date and an end date. You can also define whether your event happens seven days per week or on weekdays only. This option offers the least flexibility, and is recommended for on-going events like art exhibitions.
  
• Regularly Recurring Events: you may define when your event happens according to a regular pattern (example: every other Monday). Enter the first date for your event, and then select "Repeats Every Week" or "Repeats Every Month" from the pull-down menus provided.
  
• Irregularly Recurring Events: you may select individual dates for your event from the 24 calendar interfaces provided. This option provides the greatest amount of flexibility for events that do not follow a simple pattern.

6. Fill out the appropriate part of this page, and click "submit dates" only on the part of the screen you have filled out. Disregard the two parts of the screen you have not filled out.

*** Note: After you have submitted your recurring event, it is possible to go back and modify individual events from the Administer My Groups page. This option is recommended for providers who want to add specific information, like a lecture title and speaker, for each event.

How to use the "Administer My Groups" page

This page is the central place where event providers can see and change their event and group information. This page also allows you to create a calendar for your group.

How to change event information after submission
• If you need to make any changes to an event you submitted, use Administer My Groups.

• Administer My Groups will show all events submitted for your group. If you need to change information, select modify next to the appropriate event. You can make your changes on the form you filled out and hit "submit" at the bottom of the page. Your changes will show up on the calendar immediately. To delete an event, select delete next to the appropriate event.

• If you need to alter a recurring event, you may change the entire series of events or just an individual event. To modify all of the events, select modify next to the event. To change individual events, select This is a recurring event. Select modify next to the specific event you need to change.

For example, if your recurring event is a lecture series, you may change the individual descriptions to include lecture titles and information about the speakers . After you modify the instance of the recurring event, it will show up in two places in the Event Information table: it will appear as a new event with the new information and as part of the recurring events series. This method of displaying events is to help you keep track of your events—the event you changed will only show up once on Plan-It Purple.

How and why to duplicate an event
Next to the events you have already submitted, you may select "duplicate" to copy the submission for you filled out for this event. You can enter new information on this form to submit a new event without affecting the original event you copied.

This feature is intended to help you avoid having to re-type information that does not change each time you submit an event. You may prefer to duplicate an event rather than using the recurring event feature.

How to create your own calendar page
Plan-It Purple enables you to display the event information you submitted on your own calendar page. To create your calendar, go to the Create a Calendar page, which you can get to from the Administer My Groups page.

This page allows you to do two things:
  1. Pick which events you want to display on your calendar
  2. Design your calendar

First, select which events you would like to display by choosing a start date and choosing whether to show only events that have not occurred yet or all events.

You may display events for more than one group on your calendar. To select more than one group, hold down the control key (for PC users) or the command, open apple key (for Mac users) while you click on the group name. Once you choose other groups, you must also select your group!

Next, you will be asked to decide how you want your event information to look. Currently, you have two choices:

The List:
This layout will display your events "stacked" one on top of the other in chronological order. You may include all of the information shown in the example, or you may choose to display less information. To hide one of the fields (e.g. audience), uncheck the box.

The Table:
This layout displays your events as a table. This option gives you a more compact look than the list design, but it does not display event descriptions. The event titles link to the descriptions you provided in Plan-It Purple.
You may choose the number of columns in your table. To hide one of the columns and the information in it, uncheck the box next to the column name.

After you select which events you want on your calendar and how you want those events to look, you will have two choices:

1. You can upload your own HTML file with a tag indicating where you want event information displayed.
- or -
2. You can design your calendar by choosing among the banner, layout and footer options offered.

To upload your own HTML file:

1. After you have chosen which events to display on your calendar, you will be asked to upload your own HTML file. You only need to do this if you have designed your page in HTML and do not want to use the design options offered.

2. In your HTML file, you should indicate where you want the information to be displayed with the following HTML tag, which does not need to be case sensitive:
<!--Northwestern Calendar goes here-->

3. If you have links to other pages in your HTML file, provide the complete URL to ensure that the links function properly. You may also use a base tag.

4. Select "browse" to find your file and upload it.

5. When you are done, select "Preview Calendar" at the bottom of the page to see what your calendar will look like. Ignore the banner and footer choices.

6. Your images may not show up on the preview screen of your calendar. As long as you have changed your links to absolute links (i.e. all links on your HTML file should start with http:// and give the complete location of your image files), they WILL appear on your calendar. In addition, you should change all LINKS in your HTML file to absolute links. Relative links will NOT work.

7. Choose "create calendar" at the bottom of the preview screen to finish the process. You will be given a Web address for your calendar. You must now go back and change ALL links on your site that link to your calendar to this address. Even if you make changes to your calendar, it will permanently exist at this address.

If you want to use the design options offered:
Do not upload an HTML file. Go through the remainder of the page, and choose a banner and a footer.

Banner:
You may choose from three designs provided for you, or you may upload your own banner design.
If you choose to upload your own banner design, you should do the following:

1. Create a JPEG or GIF file of your banner.
2. Select "browse" to find the file on your computer. When you have found the file, double click on it.

Layout:
Currently, you may choose from two different layout designs.

Footer:
You have three options:

1. Use a generic footer and add your e-mail address to it.
2. Write your own footer in HTML code in the box provided.
3. Use no footer.

When you are done designing your calendar, you may preview it or create it. When you preview your calendar, you may remove certain events from your page. Removing events from your calendar page will not remove them from the database. Removed events will still show up on Plan-It Purple. You may also change the order in which the information is displayed on the preview page.

After you have created your calendar, you will be given a Web address for your calendar, which you can link to from your group or department home page.
You may modify or delete your calendar on the Administer My Groups page.

If you need help with this process, contact the calendar editor at planit@northwestern.edu. The editor is available to provide individual assistance with this process.

Frequently asked questions
What is Plan-It Purple?
Plan-It Purple is a customizable online events calendar for Northwestern University.

What is a group?
A group is a campus organization that submits events to the calendar. A group may be very large or comparatively small. The Plan-It Purple editor (and the ASG Technology Director for student groups) must approve a group before the group can submit events to the calendar. The approval process will take a few days.

Student group approval is only given to recognized student groups. Departments recognizing student groups are:

What does the calendar editor do?
The calendar editor may be reached at planit@northwestern.edu. The editor is responsible for reviewing and editing events in the calendar, recruiting and approving faculty and staff groups, group management and consultation. The ASG Technology Director and Manager of Student Computing approve student groups using the calendar. You may contact them at planit-student@northwestern.edu

Why are there two different people to contact for help?
The calendar is administered by two people working together: the Plan-It Purple editor and the ASG Technology Director. The Plan-It Purple editor works with faculty, staff and administrative groups, and the ASG Technology Director and Manager of Student Computing approve student groups. Any questions about the features of Plan-It Purple should be directed to the Plan-It Purple editor.

What do I do if I want to submit information before I belong to an approved group?
In the rare case that you need to submit information before the approval process has ended, e-mail your request to planit@northwestern.edu. In order for your request to be considered, you must have already submitted a request to create a group.

What is a group administrator?
A group administrator is someone who is authorized to submit events on behalf of a group. A group may have, and is encouraged to have, more than one administrator. Because administrators use their University NetIDs and passwords to submit events, administrators need not share or compromise the security of their individual passwords.

What is the Administer My Groups page for?
This page allows group administrators to do anything they need to do OTHER than submit an event. You can change your group information here, edit or delete your events, create your own Web calendar, and get copies of Event Submission Forms you already filled out.

What do I do if my group has submitted the same event twice?
Group administrators are advised to check the Administer My Groups page before submitting an event to make sure that another administrator has not already entered the event. If an administrator notices that the same event has been submitted twice, he or she should go to the Administer My Groups page and delete one of the events.

How do I change an event once it has been posted?
To change an event, go to the Administer My Groups page, which you can get to from the left side of the main screen of Plan-It Purple (and all of the other Plan-It Purple pages as well). Select "modify" next to the event you want to change. The form you filled out for this event will open. Make your changes, and select "post event to calendar" when you are finished. Your event will change immediately.

What if one of the administrators in my group is no longer at Northwestern?
If you need to add or delete group administrators, select Administer My Groups from the main calendar page. Remove the administrator from the list of administrators and submit your changes.

Is it possible to submit an event to Plan-It Purple anonymously?
No. All entries are associated with a university NetID. Any entries made in bad faith can easily be traced back to the person making the submissions. The calendar editor reserves the right to edit or delete any entry submitted to the calendar.

What is a NetID? How do I get one?
Your NetID is your electronic identity with the University systems. Information Technology/Technology Support Services may have assigned you a NetID when you opened your e-mail account. A NetID usually has 3 letters followed by 3 numbers (example: abc123) or is related to your name. All students, faculty and staff are eligible for a NetID. If you do not have a NetID, contact Information Technology, the Information Center to obtain one (send e-mail to: email-accounts@northwestern.edu).

Which password do I use when I submit events and create a group?
The password associated with your University NetID. Typically, this is the same password you use to check your e-mail.

What should I do if I get an error message?
To help the calendar editors help you most efficiently, you should copy the error message you got in its entirety and paste it into an e-mail to planit@northwestern.edu. Please provide an explanation of what you were doing when you got the error message.

How do I submit events to the Observer?
On the event submission form, you may elect to send your event information to the Observer, Northwestern’s faculty and staff newspaper. The deadline for submissions is three weeks prior to the publication of the Observer. The submission form will tell you whether your event meets the deadline requirements.