This guide refers to Events, however, the process is the same for Courses - in cPortals events and courses are technologically-speaking the same thing. You may wish to choose different settings depending on whether this is an event you are advertising for another organisation or an event/course you are running that you want to take bookings for.

N.B. Page Edit should always be turned off when adding or editing events.

• Go to the relevant Events or Courses page
• Click the Add event button
• Give your event a concise but descriptive title (remember it should make sense out of context)
• Select the date and time your event takes place
• Type the event's venue in to the venue box
• If you have one, upload a suitable picture - remember you must have permission to use the image
• Add a summary of your event into the Summary area - this will be displayed in listings and should be a brief description i.e. a snapshot of the course/event which gives people an overview so they can quickly decide whether they want to read more or not
• In the Full Description box write a full overview of the event - this is the text people will see when they click on the event. N.B. This is not displayed in listings.
• Add the relevant Tags to your article, separated by commas
  • Apart from giving users an easy way to find related content, tags define where on the site, in addition to the main news page, the article is displayed e.g. any articles tagged Archery will appear on the Archery page.
• If required, add a link where people can get more information
  • Link to Page allows you to choose a page on your website
  • External Website allows you to link people to a third-party website - remember to test your link using the Go button
• If required, upload an Attachment for your event (e.g. a document, pdf etc.)
• Depending on how the events area has been set up you may see a Booking Information section - if this section is present but you do not wish to take bookings, simply leave Accept Bookings set to No
• Click Save - your event will be published on the live site

N.B. If you wish to take bookings but you do not see the Booking Information section when adding your event, please speak to your site administrator who can enable bookings for you.

To add a bookable event, the process is exactly the same as a non-bookable event, however, when we come to the Booking Information section we have a couple of options:

• Accept Bookings: Yes - this uses the site's in-built booking system and will automatically handle capacity/attendee limits meaning when an event is fully booked no further bookings can be made. Please note that unless you have a payment gateway set up you can only take bookings for free events, not ones which require payment. If you are unsure whether your site has a payment gateway, please ask your site administrator.
• Accept Bookings: External Website - this will send people to a third-party website to complete their booking. As this is not within cPortals this means that you will have to manually manage the attendees/capacity.

Whichever option you choose, you should fill in all the required information so that people get a consistent experience.

• Event Capacity and Capacity Type - the maximum number of individual attendees or groups
  • If I were organising a tournament for 6 netball teams I would set Event Capacity to 6 and Capacity Type to Groups.
  • If I were organising a seminar and my room capacity was 20 people I would set Event Capacity to 20 and Capacity Type to Attendees.
• Price and Pricing - the cost per individual or per group
  • I want to charge £20 per team for my netball tournament so I set Price to 20 and Pricing to Per Group.
  • I want to charge my seminar attendees £10 each so I would set Price to 10 and Pricing to Per Attendee.
  • My event is free so I leave the price at 0
• Attendee limit
  • If I am taking group bookings, this is the maximum number of people allowed per group. In my netball example, I would probably set this to 7, meaning someone can book one team with a maximum of 7 people.
  • If I am taking individual bookings, this is the maximum number of places that can be booked in one go. In my seminar example I might set this to 4 per booking so that no one can book all 20 places at once.
• Booking Notes - any additional information you want to give people about their booking.
• External Website Booking Page
  • If you have selected Accept bookings: External website this is where you paste the link to the booking page on the third party site.
  • If you have selected Accept Bookings: Yes (i.e. you are using the in-built booking system) you should leave this blank.
• Once you have filled in the Booking Information fields click Save to push your bookable event to the live site

To make amendments to existing events simply go to the event itself and click the Edit button. When you have made your changes click Save.

N.B. due to the way some browsers cache information you may need to hard refresh your browser to see the amended version. For more details on caching and how to hard refresh your browser please see the Refresh Your Cache website.