Get Started Lesson 5: Connect with customers through event and calendar actions

Time to complete: approximately 30 minutes

Tip You can print a printer-friendly version of this lesson by choosing Print from your browser's File menu. If you prefer to work with the lesson on-screen, it's probably easiest to have two browser windows open, one for the lesson content and the other for Trumba Connect.

Trumba calendars are interactive. This means that customers can take actions with your calendar and the events they find there. For example, customers can add events to their personal calendars or arrange to be notified if the time or location of an event changes.

These types of actions increase the likelihood that customers will attend your events. They also build on-going connections between you and your customers.

To experiment with calendar and event actions, open two windows in your web browser. Display each of the following websites in one of the windows:

We've organized your exploration of calendar and event actions around five results that you can expect from integrating a Trumba calendar into your website. The calendar and event actions that your customers take make them more likely to:

Attend your events.
Share event information with their colleagues.
Locate events that interest them.
Stay informed about upcoming events.
Build connections with your organization.

Attend your events

Customers are more likely to attend your events if they:

See the events on their personal calendars.
Receive email or cell phone reminders.
Are notified if the time or location changes.

Add events to your personal calendar and more

See how event actions built in to every Trumba calendar make it easy for your calendar visitors to add events to their calendars, set reminders, arrange to be notified if events change, and more.

On the Trumba University Alumni calendar, select an event by clicking the check box to the left of the event description. At the top of the calendar, click Add to My Calendar.
The event actions window opens with the Add to My Calendar event action selected. To add an event to your personal calendar, select the personal calendar program that you use, then follow instructions.
Tip If your calendar program isn't listed, you can click a different option in the Event Actions list to download the event information in ICalendar (.ics) file format or send yourself the event information in an email or text message.
To arrange to be notified if an event time or location changes or if the event is cancelled, in the Event Actions list, click Notify me of changes. Type you name and email address.
To receive a cell phone text message reminder, in the Event Actions list, click Remind me by txt msg. Type your cell phone number, choose your wireless carrier, and indicate when you want to receive the reminder.
Tip Click Remind me by email to receive an email message reminder.
Close the event actions window.

Tip Confused about an event action? Click Help in the top right corner of the event actions window.

Share event information with colleagues

Word of mouth remains one of the best ways to spread information about your events. We'll show you two ways that Trumba calendars make it easy for customers and people who visit your website to share information about your events with others.

Forward event information to friends

One of the event actions that's automatically available on all Trumba calendars is forward to friends.

On the NYTimes.com Automotive Events calendar, click the check box next to an event to select that event.
In the Other event actions list at the top of the calendar, select Forward to friends.
In the event actions window, type your name and email address. Type the email addresses of up to ten other people. Type a message if you want, and then click Send Email.
You'll see confirmation that email messages were sent.
The colleagues and friends you listed receive an email message that looks something like this:

By clicking the icon to the right of the event description, recipients can add the event to their personal calendars, forward to more friends, and take other event actions.

Make your spuds available to other sites

You may remember from the second lesson in this series, that adding a calendar spud to your website is as easy as copy and paste. Trumba® Connect provides code that you paste into the HTML code for the page on your site where you want the spud to appear.

You can make that same code available to people who visit your website, making it easy for them to give your events more publicity.

On the NYTimes.com Automotive Events calendar page, click Autos in the top navigation bar.
On the Autos home page, scroll down until you see the Automotive Calendar and Car Club Directory spud.
The spud looks like this:
Click Add This Calendar to Your Site to display this spud's code. Copy the code and paste it into the HTML code for a page on your site.
You'll see the Automotive Calendar and Car Club Directory spud displayed there.

Locate events

With Trumba Connect, you have several ways to give your customers control over the events they see on your website calendar. When they have control, they're more likely to find and attend events they care about.

Control the display of events

Experiment with the different options that you can offer visitors to your calendar for controlling the display of events.

On the Trumba University Alumni calendar page, on the menu bar at the top, click Calendars By Design and then click All Control Spuds.
Notice the View Chooser above the calendar. Choose a view from the drop-down list to display the events in a different way.

When you publish a calendar, you choose the default view and the other views listed in the View Chooser.
Notice the Calendar List spud to the right of the calendar. By selecting or deselecting different departments in the spud, you can limit the events you see. Try clearing the Student Development check box and then selecting it again.

The colors in the Calendar List spud correspond to event colors and each color represents one category of events.
You probably already noticed the Search spud to the right of the calendar.
Type one or more terms into the search box, and then click Go. For example, type "tai chi".
To see all the events again, in the orange box above the calendar, click Clear.

Tip You can also create a Filter spud during the calendar publishing process that allows your customers to filter events by different criteria. Experiment with the Filter spud to the right of the Trumba University calendar.

Stay informed

Your customers are busy people. You can't expect them to keep returning to your website to see if you've added any new events to your calendar. If you're a Trumba calendar publisher, you automatically give your customers easy and convenient ways to stay informed about upcoming events.

Subscribe to calendar email

If you have a scheduled calendar email set up for your website calendar, customers who visit the calendar can add themselves to that email distribution list with just a click. (If you don't know what a scheduled calendar email is, see Lesson 4 in this series.)

Go to the Trumba University Alumni calendar.
Click Subscribe just above the calendar.
On the page that opens, select Weekly email, and then type your name and email address. Click Subscribe to Weekly Email.
Click the close box to close the window and return to the Trumba University Alumni calendar.

Tip If you followed the steps above, you'll begin receiving a weekly email message containing upcoming events from the Trumba University Alumni calendar. To stop receiving the email messages, click an opt out link at the bottom of any message.

Subscribe to an RSS feed

Customers who use the most current versions of common Internet browsers or RSS client software (RSS readers) can subscribe to an RSS feed of your website calendar. When you add or update events, RSS subscribers automatically receive notification in their browsers or RSS readers.

I'd like more information about RSS readers and feeds

On the NYTimes.com Automotive Events calendar, click RSS above the calendar.
In your browser, you'll see a list of events and a link to subscribe to the feed. If you subscribe, when new events are added to the calendar, they'll automatically appear in the feed.
Tip If your browser does not display feeds, a window opens that shows the code for the feed. Copy the URL in the brower address bar and paste it into the appropriate place in your RSS news reader.

Build connections with your organization

When your customers can add your events to their calendars and take other event actions and automatically receive information about upcoming events, they are more likely to feel connected to your organization.

In this exercise, you'll learn how:

Customers can participate in developing your website calendar.
You can track customer interactions with your calendars and events.

Submit events

If it makes sense for your organization and the events you promote, you can add an event submission form to your website. The form makes it possible for site visitors to submit their own events. After an event is submitted, you have an opportunity to approve or reject it before it goes live.

See how submitting an event looks from a customer's perspective.

On the Trumba University Alumni calendar page, click the Event Submission button at the top right side of the page.
On the event submission form, under Event Information, you have the opportunity to choose a category. Try selecting different categories and see how the fields in the form change in response.
Fill out the required fields.
Click Next.
You'll see a summary of your event information. If you click Submit, both you and the calendar publisher receive email notification that the event has been submitted.

Track customer interactions

Trumba Connect provides up-to-date, detailed reports about how often customers view your calendar, which events are most popular, what actions customers take with events, and more.

We provide you with a Publisher Dashboard where you can view your calendar activity.

While you're not likely to see much activity for the test calendars you published during these lessons, you can at least see where to track activity in the future.

Go to the Trumba Connect home page. Click Sign in to sign in to your Trumba account.
At the top right corner of the window, click Publisher Dashboard.
The Dashboard lists the calendars in your account and provides summary statistics for each published calendar's activity.

For example, this partial calendar views chart appears in a very active calendar's Dashboard.
Click Return to yourcalendarname to return to the editing environment.