Snap WebEvents, Experience the power of event publishing  

Administrator Manual
Version 1.2

Download this manual in PDF format

Welcome to the Administrator’s manual of Snap WebEvents. Please take the time to acquaint yourself with the main features of the Snap WebEvents calendar. This introduction will walk you through the main features of the calendar including:

Note: This is a web application and so it is advised that you don’t use the “Back” button in the Administration Options pages, especially when adding or modifying data. Doing so might damage the functionality of the application and/or might create multiple instances of the same information. Use the links provided instead.

Note: The administration section of the system only works with Internet Explorer 5.0 and above. The public/external sections work with all the popular browsers.

Snap WebEvents calendar interface

The following interface highlights the location of the main features introduced in the Manual.

Event view modes

Snap WebEvents features four viewing modes: Monthly, Weekly, and Daily.

In order to move between the different views click on the proper view tab in the top bar.

You can also select a date.

Sorting events by categories

Events in the Snap WebEvents are associated with categories; this enables the user to view all the information or to view events by categories. Choose the category you wish to view in order to see just the events in that category.

You can only see categories you have permissions to see.

Search options

Events can be searched from the main screen by keywords. The system looks for the word searched in the title and description of events. Just type in the word you want to search for and click on the “Go” button (you can also press the ‘Enter’ key to perform the search).

Click on "Advance Search" to search by title, dates, contact name, details and categories.

Login

Login as an administrator by clicking on the login icon at the bottom right corner of the screen. The system comes preconfigured with the username: admin / password: admin. We recommend you change the password immediately.

After successful login you will see at the bottom of the screen (under the calendar) a welcome message.

Log out

After you login, the system will keep you logged in for a year (from the same browser and computer). If you share your computer with other users you might want to log out every time you finish working on the calendar.

To log out of the system click on the logout image at the bottom of the screen.

Navigate the Administrator screens

In addition to the different options you will see at the top of the page links that look like this:

These are called bread crumbs and they can help you navigate the different administration options. The last bread crumb will always tell you which page you view now, the one before it will tell you where you came from and so on. You can click on the links to go directly to a previous page or back to the calendar.

Administration Options

In order to get to the Administration Options, login as administrator and click on the link “Administration Options” in the welcome message section. There you will find the various options available to your administrator level.

The system supports three levels of administrators.

  • Main Administrator – Can change all the settings in the system. Can add and delete administrators. There should be a limited number of Main administrators in the system.
  • Events Administrator – Can manage all events and authorize events. Can add and delete only Category Administrators. Can add and delete categories. Most administrators should be at this level.
  • Category Administrator – Can only add events in specific categories. Can only edit and delete events added by him. This administrator can also be in “supervised” mode – events aren’t added to the calendar until they are authorized by a higher lever administrator. This can let the Events administrators spread the work load but still have control over the events’ content.

The administration options screen will change according to the level of administrator that is logged in the system.

Administration Option for Main Administrator:

Administration Option for Events Administrator:

Category administrator can only add/edit events, so there is no "Administration Options" link that he can click on, and he only sees the "Add Events" link.

Change colors and fonts of calendar

The "Change colors and fonts of calendar" option is only available to Main Administrators.

This is where you can change all the colors and fonts of the calendar. You can also change the title graphics and the various text and links in the footer (the last line in each page). If you want to integrate the calendar in your site, this is the place to use the same color palette as the rest of your site. This will insure a seamless experience for the users when linking from your site to the calendar.

You can’t remove the link to Sharper Applications web site. Doing so (by modifying the source code) will violate your license agreement.

When you enter this page you will see two frames. The left one will let you change all the different properties. The right one (preview frame) will give you immediate feedback on how your changes will appear to all the users. This lets you experiment until you find the color palette you want to use. Only when you click the “Save Settings” button, will your changes be saved, so feel free to experiment – you can always restore the page to the default settings.

The calendar in the preview frame is not functional and does not use real data. It only means to give you a quick preview of how the calendar will look if you choose to save your changes.

When you change the text fields in the left frame, you will need to “step out” or “lose focus” from the field in order to see the changes in the preview frame. To do that, simply use the TAB key or click outside the text field.

Some of the fields can appear to have no effect but this is when the text they are supposed to change doesn’t exist. For example, if the footer text and URL fields are empty, the entire footer will not be displayed and the different colors will seem to have no effect. Once you enter one of the text fields, the footer will appear in the preview frame and you will see the chosen colors.

You can always go back to the default settings by clicking the “Restore default settings” button at the bottom of the screen.

After you are happy with the calendar style, click the “Save Settings” button to save your settings and return to the Administration Options page.

Note: The administration pages won’t use most of those settings and colors, only the public part of the calendar. This is done to prevent scenarios that make the calendar unreadable – in that case, the administration pages will still be visible and you can revert back to a more friendly color palette.

Change beginning of week

The "Change beginning of week" option is only available to Main Administrators.

You can change the day of the week according to what is considered the “start” of the week in your country or location. You can choose to start the week on Sunday or Monday.

Administrators management

In this page you can view and manage all the administrators in the system.

The list lets you quickly find out the passwords for either all the administrators (Main Administrator) or for Category administrators (Events Administrator).

You can also quickly e-mail an administrator by clicking the link to her e-mail.

You can edit and delete either all the administrators (Main Administrator) or Category administrators (Events administrator).

You can always edit your own details, but you can never delete your own account.

You might wander why the system lets you view passwords of other administrators and why those passwords aren’t encrypted in the database. The reason is to allow the higher level administrators to quickly retrieve forgotten passwords of other administrators. This system is only open to people that are pre-screened to use it, so some level of trust is already there. If you forget the main administrator password, it’s possible to retrieve it from the database as well. Of course, access to the database should be protected from everyone except the Main administrator.

In order to add a new administrator, click the “Add Administrator” link at the top or bottom of the list. This will bring you to the Administrator details page which will be explained in the next section.

If you click the “Edit” link from the list, you will also get to the Administrator details page.

If you click the “ Delete” link from the list, you will be asked to confirm that you want to delete this account from the system.

Reminder: It is highly recommended that once you install and enter the system with the default administrator account, that you change the default username and password.

Administrator details

This page displays the various details for a new or existing administrator.

You need to choose the level of the administrator from Main, Events or Category administrators.

If you want to add a Category administrator, you also need to specify which categories are associated with this administrator, and whether or not additional approval is needed before events become public. This is useful if you want to maintain complete control on all events details, or to train a new administrator. If you choose this option, Main or Events administrator will need to approve all the events this category administrator entered before they will appear in the public calendar.

Once there are events needing approval, “You have X events to approve” link will appear above the “Administration Options” link in the main calendar page.

Once you have finished entering all the information, click the “Save” button to save them and return to the Administrator list.

Categories Management

Categories can only be managed by main administrators and events administrators.

There are two types of categories in the system.

Events in Public categories are visible to all users.

Events in Private categories are visible to main administrators and events administrators. They are also visible to Category administrators that are assigned to that category. All other Category administrators can’t see those events as well as all anonymous users.

A category can have a custom color selected as well. This helps differentiate between events in different categories in the calendar and also changed the color of the category in the Categories drop down list in the calendar.

Clicking the “ Delete” link will let you delete categories that don’t have events associated with them. If you want to delete a category that has events in it, you will have to search for all those events and change them to not include the category you wish to delete.

Clicking the “Add Category” will let you add a new category in the Category details page.

Clicking the “Edit” link will let you change the category details in the Category details page.

Category details

Here you can enter the name, color and status of the category.

In order to change the color you can either enter its RGB code in hexadecimal notation (#000000 is black, #FFFFFF is white) or simply click the colors icon and a pop-up will appear with a wide selection of colors. Click the color you want and it will update the correct color code in the text box.

In addition, you can select the default option for "view in upcoming events" option in the “Add event” page. If this option is checked, whenever you add an event in this category the "view in upcoming events" option will be checked as well. Is may be useful to uncheck this option in very often-used categories. For example, you are adding a Sports category to your calendar and you have a scheduled run every day. As your upcoming events section only lists a limited number of events, you want only unique ones to appear there and not the daily run. Now, if you uncheck this option, all new events in this category will default to not appear in the upcoming events list (you can always override specific events). If you check this option, all new events will default to appear in the upcoming events, and you’ll have to uncheck it for each event you add.

After you are done, click the “Save” button to save the category and return to the Categories list.

Private categories

In order to see events that are categorized with several private categories, a user needs to have the proper permission to ALL private categories.

Let’s look at a little example.

We have 3 private categories: Travel, Sports and Food.

We also have 2 Category Administrators: Thomas and Michelle.

Thomas has permissions to the categories Sports and Travel.

Michelle has permissions to the categories Food and Travel.

Thomas enters a new event. It belongs to both Travel and Sports categories.

  • Main and Events administrators can see the new event.
  • Thomas can see the new event.
  • Michelle can’t see the new event.
  • Anonymous users can’t see the new event.

Add event

You can reach this page either from the Administration Options page or from the link at the bottom of the calendar page. In some views, you will also be given the option to add an event by clicking a link to “Add Event”.

Click on "Add Event". This will bring you to the "Add Event" page.

There are very few mandatory fields in this page and you can leave all the rest empty if you wish. This lets you enter all the information you have at that moment and add more information (like a web site URL) later.

Add event screen includes:

  • Title (mandatory field) - the name of the event. In month view only the title will be displayed. Maximum length 150 characters.
  • Category(mandatory field) - every event must be linked to at least one category. Next to private categories will be the mark “(!)”. Category Administrators will only see the categories they are approved for.
  • Details – the content of the event can be formatted with font size, font colors and alignment. Maximum length 65,535 characters.
  • Event URL - the URL (Unified Resource Locator) or simply the web address will automatically appear as a link that opens in a new window when users are viewing the event.
  • Contact name - who to contact for further details. Maximum length 30 characters.
  • Contact phone - Maximum length 15 characters.
  • Contact email - the email will automatically appear as a link when users are viewing the event.
  • Start date and End date (mandatory fields) - each event will have start and end date. These fields are very important for correct event dates, so here are the details.

    If an event is not a repeated event in a single day, those two fields should have the same date in them.

    If an event is not a repeated event that spans more than one day, the start date should be the first day of the event and the end date should be the last day of the event. This will make the event appear in the calendar once for each day in the event’s time span.

    If an event is a repeated event, it is crucial to enter the first date the event starts repeating in the start date field and the last date this event happens in the end date field. Failing to do so (i.e. keeping the default dates) will cause your event not to repeat.

For example, you want to enter an event for the monthly club meeting that happens every 1st Sunday of the month. To create a year of such events, enter today’s date in the start date field, the next year’s date in the end date field and set the repeating options you want. This will create 12 events in the calendar, each at the 1st Sunday of each month.

  • Time - time can be specified for each event. The time will be shown in week and day views. The time of the event will not influence the order in which the events are displayed. You can change the order manually in the day and week views.
    The time is a free string up to 10 characters in length. You can use exact times like 10:30am, or an approximation like “at sunset”.
  • Show in upcoming event – when the box is checked the event will be shown automatically in the “upcoming events” section in the homepage. Categories in private categories will not show in the “upcoming events” section even if this option is checked.
  • Repeating options – an event can be repeated daily, weekly, monthly or with no consistent order.
    The last option is pretty unique and lets you enter a set of dates that don’t have a preset formula. Let’s say you have a visiting lecturer that will give a lecture on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. By using the “no consistent order” repeat option, you can enter those exact dates and you don’t have to enter the event three times, just once.

Once you are finished adding the event, click on the "Save" button. You will be taken to the page you clicked "add event" from.

If you wish to add several events in a row, you can click on the “Save and add another event” – this will save the event and will clear the form for you to enter a new event.

If the event is entered by a Category Administrator which requires approval, the event will not be visible in the calendar until a higher level administrator will approve it. Once you are logged in, look at the welcome message. If you have events to approve there will be a link there to show you those events. After clicking the link you will see all the events’ information and can decide if you wish to approve them immediately, edit them or delete them. To approve events, select the “Approved” check box and click the “Approve selected events” button.

Editing events

In order to edit an event you need to click on the edit tool that will show up next to the event’s title in Day view, Week view and Single Event view (when you click on an event from the Month view).

After you have clicked on the edit tool you will see all the event’s information and you can change anything you wish. Just remember to save your changes.

If the event is a repeating event, any change to the event will change all its occurrences.

Category administrators can only edit events they entered themselves.

If there is no edit tool you are either not logged in, or you don’t have enough permissions to edit this event.

Deleting events

In order to delete events you need to click on the delete tool that will show up next to the event’s title in Day view, Week view and Single Event view (when you click on an event from the Month view).

After you have clicked on the delete tool you will be asked to confirm the event’s deletion. Choose “Yes – Delete” and click “OK” to delete the event.

If the event is a repeating event you will be asked if you wish to delete all the occurrences of the event or only the one you clicked on.

Category administrators can only delete events they entered themselves.

If there is no delete tool you are either not logged in, or you don’t have enough permissions to delete this event.

Reordering events

You can reorder the events in the same day by clicking the change order up or change order down tools. Changing the orders gives you the option to determine which events are more important – usually repeating events can be placed lower as people expect them more, unique events should be placed higher. In addition, the Month view only shows three events for each day (this number can be changed as well) so it’s important to show the most important events at the top.

Create an “Upcoming Events” box

This option is only available to Main Administrators. This option requires some advanced knowledge of HTML and is intended for your site’s Web Master.

The Upcoming Events box is code that you can put in other pages of your site in order to show the next few events and their dates. This is especially useful on your main page – it makes your users aware of the calendar and the events you planned and also gives them a link to the complete calendar if they want.

An example of this feature can be seen at the Jewish Community website in Austin, TX

http://www.jcaaonline.org

Note: In order to execute code, the page you wish to display the upcoming events must have an “.asp” extension and not “.htm” one. You just need to change the extension and the links that point to your main page.

The most important information this code needs are the location of the database and the Snap WebEvents application relative to where you are going to put this code at.

For example, let’s assume the database is located at “/data/calendar.mdb” and the application is located at “/events/”. Your main home page (where you wish to show the upcoming events) is located at “/main.asp”. You should enter “/data/calendar.mdb” as the database location and “/events/” as the application location. That’s it.

You can also put the full URL (starting with http://) of the database and Snap WebEvents application.

You can choose to show the upcoming events of specific categories as well. This is useful if you have other pages in your site that are related to specific categories and you wish to only show the events of those categories.

For example, let’s say you have a “Sports” category and a special section of your site is devoted to sports. You can show in this section only upcoming events in the “Sports” category and still show in your main page the upcoming event for all categories.

Note: Events in private categories are not visible in the upcoming events box.

Once you enter the needed information, click the “Create Code” button. The needed code will be created in the big text field at the bottom of the page. Copy the code and paste it as an asp page. Then use the "include" command to include it in the page you want it to show up.