Events Manual 3.0 Feature Tutorial

The Events Manual Feature is great for creating custom events and keeping people up to date about your events, schedules, and happenings.

Tim Tietz avatar
Written by Tim Tietz
Updated over a week ago

What is the Events Manual Feature?

New Update: Events Manual 3.0 now has the ability to host virtual events without the need to have a Google Maps API

The Events Manual Feature is a great way to keep people up to date about your events, schedules, and happenings. It allows you to display calendar events for your users and manually customize them with a title, description, and even embed images, video, forms, and more with the built in text WYSIWYG editor.

Using this feature is particularly useful if you have information you don’t want to make available to the general public through a public calendar. But if you would like to bring in all of your events with one calendar feed, we have an Events Feed Feature that can do that for you.

What are some use cases of the Events Manual Feature?

Some use cases of this feature include:

  • Internal apps: give a detailed list of your itinerary, deadline schedule, or important dates

  • Conference apps: list out your event schedule with speaker and keynote information

  • Production apps: provide showtimes and dates for concerts or screenings

  • Church/Non-Profit apps: give your community detailed event information about service times, classes, and outreach opportunities.

  • Virtual Meeting - Allow users to connect from around the Globe in a Virtual Meeting room

What is the Event Manual Feature’s primary function and what are the steps to accomplish it?

The Events Manual Feature’s main purpose is to give you the ability to add a list of upcoming events to your app while giving you additional customization control over them than what you have with the Events Feed Feature. Let’s go over how to create a new event in the Events Manual Feature:

How to Create a New Event

Step 1: Click “Add New Event”

When you’re ready to add an event, click on the “Add New Event” button.

This will take you to the event editor.

Step 2: Add images to your event (Optional)

When you open up the event editor the first options you’ll see are for the event’s Image Carousel and List Image. You don’t have to upload images for either of these, but it helps to give a higher quality look to your app. 

If you would like to upload an image to use for the Image Carousel or List Image, all you need to do is click on the “Add Image” button to add an image to the Image Carousel, or on the gray box next to “List Image” for the List Image image. Both will open up the Media Library where you can select an image from your already uploaded images, upload a new image, or use a stock image.

Images uploaded to the Image Carousel will appear above your event’s information. You have the option to add an additional action to the image with the Action Builder.

The List Image will appear next to the event’s title when users navigate through the events listed in your Events Manual Feature.

Step 3: Fill out the Event’s Information

The only fields that are required for you to create an event are:

  • Event Title

  • Start Date

  • Start Time

  • End Date

  • End Time

Note: If you select “All Day” for the event, you don’t need to enter in the start or end time.

While those are the only required fields, we recommend that you use the other fields to pass on additional  information regarding your event, such as the event’s location, description, and contact links.

If this is a repeating event, click the checkbox for “Repeat” and choose from the options such as how often it repeats, how many times it repeats or if there is a date on which it stops repeating, and more.

To ensure successful virtual meetings, follow these steps:

  1. Click on the virtual Event Type option.

  2. Add a title in the "online location title" section.

  3. Insert the meeting URL in the designated field.

For the location, you can override your actual address or coordinates by entering text into the “Address Title” field.

If you type in an address, the latitude and longitude will automatically be filled in, so you don’t have to worry about adding that information if you know the street address for your event.

Step 4: Click “Done”

Once you have completed setting up your event, click “Done” at the bottom of the event editor to save your event.

Congratulations! You now know how to add events to the Events Manual Feature. We can’t wait to see all of the cool events that you add to your app!

What are some Pro Tips you should know about to take your app to the next level?

Having worked with apps for years, we’ve learned a thing or two. So, to both help your app stand out and accomplish your primary goals, here are some tips you should consider.

Pro Tip 1: If you have an iCal feed, use the Events Feed Feature

If you have a calendar that produces an iCal feed (most calendars do since it’s an industry standard), and you want a simple feature that only displays your events,  you should check out the Events Feed Feature.

Pro Tip 2: Use images to make your event stand out

High-quality images that represent the event you’re promoting can have a great impact on how people perceive the event. You can create your own graphics or choose from a variety of stock images in our Media Library.

Pro Tip 3: Use Push Notifications to drive responsiveness or send reminders

Let’s face it, sometimes your audience needs a little push to take action or be reminded about an event. With Push Notifications, you can do exactly that.

Related Articles

In addition to this article, we recommend checking out the following related articles so that you have a better insight into how to use the system to its fullest advantage:

If you still have questions, No problem! Reach out to Support@BuildFire.com and we will be happy to help!

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