osnicky59

Forgot the link.
Sorry.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7avonk2iqdoalk6/TestEvent.zip?dl=0

Hi Zortman,

I think I know where the disconnect is.
Do NOT user Excel or any kind of rich text format to reformat data or even as a source for import. What the plugin needs is a simple piece of text with no formatting at all.
No special characters. No bold. Excel adds all sorts of rubbish.

Copy and paste or meticulously recreate the text at the end of this message in a simple texteditor. If you are on Windows this can be Notepad. In Mac this can be Textedit. You CAN use Word, but make sure you paste as unformatted text, which is an option in your Word Edit Menu > paste special > past unformatted text or something like that .

If in Word, save this as a .txt document (File > Save As > Plain text). Where the file is stored and where you can save the name, change the .txt to .csv and continue save and decline to save as regular Word document. In Textedit on Mac there is a simple option that says: convert to plain text.

Once you have a true CSV file, use this for the upload.

One step that I myself totally overlooked when starting to work with the plugin, was to double check the field mapping.

In Events, when importing, first enter that the file you are importing is of type CSV (Import origin = CSV file)
Then choose “Events” from the next pop up.
Then select (or upload) the CSV file.
Then click Preview.

In preview, you will see headers that represent the destination of each comma separated piece of your content. You can scroll all the way to the right. You will see your content and with a bit of luck can make sense of what it is and adjust the headers by clicking and choosing another destination from the pop up.

Once this is done, proceed to the upload and things should land where they need to go.

I work with Iconic One as a Theme and it goes smoothly. Not sure if your theme or other plugins get in your way, but I can guarantee that this document has the correct syntax. But of course you might have to learn to be really precise in where commas and quotes are placed. This is why I have software that does this for me, based on values in a database that I created (FileMaker).

Comma separated means: each value that you want to land in its own box (e.g. the name of the event) is separated from the next one by a comma. However, that is not enough. All content needs to be started and ended with a quote: “Like this”.
So you content looks like this:
“First value (can be a long sentence as long as there are no quotes in it, even hard returns are accepted)”,”Second value”,”third value”

No additional spaces. An empty box is written as “”.

Time and date are to be literally written as in my first response.
The values are just plain text. They are not in any way or shape to be formatted as official date and time fields because that just causes chaos. Not just in the plugin, but in all things computer. They are the hardest types of information to program consistently. So writing it consistently and predictably is best done in plain text.

10 positions for times (“10.00.00” for ten in the morning or “09.30.00” for half past ten in the morning, the separator is a .)
10 values for dates (4 digit date, 2 digit month and 2 digit day separated by a – so: “2020-12-01” is the first of December in 2020).

Your Excel to CSV shows questions marks, misses proper currency notations. Excel is a monster that pretends to have a brain. Forget about it, unless you want to see the otherwise quite hard to read csv content in an organised way in Excel. Each “value” between quotes translates into a column. Good way to look at it for your checks, but do not save it AS Excel or even FROM Excel.

So here is your code:

Event Name,Event Start Date,Event End Date,Event Start Time,Event End Time,Event Category,Event Venue Name,Event Organizers,Event Description,Event Show Map Link,Event Show Map,Event Cost,Event Currency Symbol,Event Currency Position,Event Featured Image
“Late Night Party”,”2019-08-02″,”2019-08-03″,”20.00.00″,”01.00.00″,”Nightlife party”,”Party Haus”,”relevant organiser name”,”Party description”,”1″,”1″,”5″,”$”,”Prefix”,”pdf or jpg image name.pdf”

For clarity stick to the order as given above and in my previous reply and make sure ALL values are surrounded by 1 double quote “like this” and make sure all values are separated by a comma (no additional spaces). If the value is empty, just write “”

Try it. I just did and the syntax (the way it has been formatted with quotes and comma’s) works.

Note:
The Event Calendar can preserve locations used earlier. So if your Party Haus is a new location, you might have to complete the details for the address etc. manually the first time.

Click this link for a compressed archive with the upload document and the result in the website.

Good luck!

Hi Zortman,

I seem to have solved the issue by adjusting the time AND date formats from my database.

This is the order and content of the CSV file. If you can replicate the same order and the same notation of date and time, it might solve your issues. Oh, and as an afterthought, I have had to revert back to the classic mode (which is a bit annoying but at least it works) because most of my issues seem to be linked with using blocks (WP Plugin CO-Blocks, based on Gutenberg).

First declare the field tags, then the content, all between double quotes. As you can see the

Event Name,Event Start Date,Event End Date,Event Start Time,Event End Time,Event Category,Event Venue Name,Event Organizers,Event Description,Event Show Map Link,Event Show Map,Event Cost,Event Currency Symbol,Event Currency Position,Event Featured Image
“Event“,”2020-03-07″,”2020-03-07″,”13.00.00″,”15.00.00”,”Category”,”Location name“,”Organizer”,”Event details”,”1”,”1”,”0”,”CAD “,”Prefix”,”name of pdf file“

As you can see the date starts with the 4 digit year, then the 2 digit month, then the 2 digit day, separated by a regular hyphen (-). The time, highly unusual I think, is also in 2 digits per hour, minute and second, separated by a regular . (full stop).

My database’s output would be different from a data and time field but this is what the events calendar accepts and puts in correctly. Time is displayed auatomatically in am/pm notation.

Good luck!

Nicky

I just looked at the classic page and I can work with that. Thanks for you help, Andras, much appreciated. If the glitch is solved, I hope to hear about it.

OK I will reset it to no blocks. But can you shed some light on using the block versus classic? I thought that the Calender was encouraging us to use the Gutenberg block. There is even a very enthusiastic EBook about in on their site and I read it. The rest of my site has been built with blocks and it seems much simpler than the classic approach.

Thanks!

Well, just did the test and it still shows the same error. It does understand am/pm apparently, as you can see in the screenshot but the line in the top of the page still shows the same confusing ‘error’. I have just uploaded it as a draft, don’t want it in the live site. If I am to do further experimenting will do so on my staging site.

I have also included, in the dropboxlink, the csv file for this event, with the new date and time formats as per your direction.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ipjoyjvg5gddoes/TestUpload_newDateTimeFormat.zip?dl=0

Thanks for looking into this – it is a bit baffling. I think that I could live with having to double check it but after I corrected dates and times, I want them to stay corrected and not revert to the faulty display in the back end.

I also don’t quite understand the following (separate) issue.
The event details always come up in a classic block. I have set the Events Calender to allow working with blocks. I am using co-blocks, and I can successfully convert the classic block to co-blocks manually, but it does not happen automatically.

The same is true about that block below, shown in gray, that contains a ‘summary’ of the event details. It is a bit confusing.

If you can direct me to a better way (for the free version) then that would be wonderful.

And if there is any change of donating us a non-profit free pro version …. that would brighten up the gray rainy day that we are having over here in Canada! ??

Hi Andras, thanks for the input.

I can adjust the time format for the csv file, but my readers need pm/am format and not military time. It is just not used here in Canada and confuses most people. So if I have output that looks like 21:00:00, how do I ensure it comes up as 9 PM?

I am working on a test right now. Will let you know the results.

Thanks!

Hi Andras,
I am glad somebody reacted to my post, even though it happened a month ago.
Now that you did reply, let me bring to your attention another issue I have experienced.

I create my events (usually) per csv upload from another platform.
When I inspect the mapping in preview everything looks fine, but in the final upload I am having issues with the start/end date and time, especially for full day or multi day event.

What is the best way to tackle this?
Example: an event runs from 20-22 March. The first starts at 8am and the last day ends at 3pm. In the mapping all looks well but then, when I upload the details are not correct.

Whatever I do, I have to keep correcting the details.
Yesterday I made a screenshot of what is published (see Published.png).
When I went to the backend, I did not see that reflected (BackendIncorrect.png).
I then corrected for it to show up correctly (BackendCorrected.png).

When I got back to the back end today it was as I found it yesterday: BackendIncorrect.

Of course, the only thing that matters is how it is published, but I cannot figure out why this is happening.

My questions:
1. What happens during the upload with the dates and times that make these not show up correctly?
2. I have not found a field mapping to indicate ‘multi day event’. is there one?
3. I write times in am/pm notation: 1 PM and 3 PM. Does that need to be changed?
4. How come that the backend reverts to the wrong display of data after correcting it the day before?
5. IF I have to always manually double check dates and times, where do I enter it? In the location of screenshot “Time1.png” or in the location of screenshot “Time2.png”?

Any input on your part is very much appreciated. It is hard to find support for the free version of the Calendar. I would love the Pro subscription but I built and maintain this website for a non profit that at this time does not have the means for it (al-anon.alateen.on.ca)

Thank you in advance!

I have zipped the screenshots, which are available for download here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/15o9uj3p0ok7utz/EventsCalendarScreenshots.zip?dl=0

It IS a great plugin!
I had quite a bit of trial and error before I got it right. So if the before is not fixing your problem, double check the content of the csv file.

I myself have the following order for the content:
Time, date, meeting name, location (just the name), Address (of the location, all in one piece of text),region (=city/town), Location notes, group name, District, Group Notes, Meeting Types (what is in the tick boxes when you view the meeting in WordPress)

I draw the meeting details from a separate database that I use for other purposes as well. In my program, the group and meeting name are the same. But it took me awhile to understand that, in order for the district to show as a column header, I needed to repeat the name. Apparently, in AA (where the plug-in was born), it happens often that a group organises multiple meetings and that the meetings have their own names. That is what I refer to as the ‘meeting name’.

I also had some trouble with the linking of the pages because I created my new website from a staging site with a different address. So the link thing could certainly be at play here. There is a plugin that can help out with that: it can replace text strings on your website. So if you know that you have an old link that may cause your issues, you can look for that link, literally, and replace it with the correct one. A lot of providers will help you do this, provided you have paid support.

I hope it helps and that you work it out because this plugin makes our lives as web coordinators so much easier!

Hi, thanks for the feedback.

I knew I had seen an export option: thanks for pointing that out to me. I totally overlooked it.

I will keep your feedback in mind when it comes to importing and no, I do not re-import for every little edit. But is sure is a time-saver for more structural edits!

I am using the plugin to publish over 300 meetings and multiple districts in an area. We have only just launched a month ago and had nothing to start with, except some Excel Sheets and MS Access query output. I dreaded having to enter all those meetings manually and then I discovered your plugin. I was so happy you had importing options! As I was having the info vetted, I played around with this feature and only recently stumbled upon the tutorial that talks about the CSV format. It solved the problem of showing maps in the details view and some other things that I had been unable to figure out. But now I am happy as a clam!

One of the things that made me use my FileMaker solution is that it helps me ‘groom’ the details as I receive them into a consistent format. Not everything in the plugin is present in the materials of my program, so I do the tweaking in FileMaker so that I can produce output that fits the plugin like a glove.

I heard about the plugin from an AA fellow and he just used it for his District. And for that purpose doing the initial entry of his 20-some groups was not an issue at all. But he blanched when I said I had over 300 groups… ??

But me? Happy as a clam and I tip my hat to you guys who built this. One of our program-miracles to have this available. Many newcomers will benefit from it!

Thanks for that explanation and making me aware of it.
So, would this also hold true for a first time upload of a new group?

Fortunately my hosting plan included very regular backups and of course, my offline FileMaker system IS my backup…

I am fairly new to website building and if I were to limit corrections and changes to existing listings, I would need a lot more editing, sorting and finding tools.
I am not sure that this is even possible in a WordPress Plugin.
My maintenance in FileMaker is pretty fast, if only because certain known information is auto-entered. Once I have a location, I don’t need to re-enter it for the next meeting and stuff like that.

Looking at the workflow in WordPress: I simply have too many groups to make that work when there are a lot of changes. Go to the list. Find the meeting. Go to the details of the meeting. And then? there is no way back to the list as I had assembled it, for instance, with meetings of one particular district or city. This has little to do with shortcomings on the part of the plugin: it is just how the standard WordPress pages seem to work when you are editing.

Ideally the only reason for me to do all the work online, I’d have to be able to either easily switch between two windows without the found set changing, and, from the details view, have that breadcrumb think that leads me to the details of the next one in line.

It is not at all a must-have in a general sense. It is just at the top of my wishlist.
And the other thing is to have the ability to offer visitors of the site to build their own list of meetings and download it as PDF.

But although all info is in Sequel databases, I am aware that it is not easy to give us something like that in the front end. FileMaker is just an odd player in database land and I make the most of that…

So, another question:
If I have a lot of changes, like recently a change in how we describe the open or closed status of a meeting, I tend to delete all meetings and start with a fresh import. I am guessing that this is safe to do? I already did that multiple times when the site was still under construction and I have to say that the plugin handled it well. I was not very successful in deleting existing listings myself, but when, at the moment of import, I ticked the box to ‘delete everything’, I had no issues. Don’t want to jinx it, but I thought the plugin did (and does) an awesome job.

Finally, is there any way to produce an export of the meeting details online? Not a backup that I cannot read, but output from the live website?

Thanks for all that you do!

Also, even if you do all changes manually, would adding something to the group name not do that trick? If is is a city or any of the other fields that are available already in the interface (front end) you can use the open search to find it.

I initially did not know how to get the district in the search bar. No matter what I tried it would not work. So I added (D) to the group with the relevant District #. At least the free search would then work and I could also use it myself in the backend. Find all groups for one district in one simple search by (D1) etc.

Later I was told by the support people that I can include this in the import csv. The only thing that I had not understood was this: you need to repeat the name of the group:

Time,Day,Name,Location,Address,Region,Location Notes,Group,District,Group Notes,Types

I put in the group in ‘Name’ and in ‘Group’. It is the second one that will then ‘understand’ that I have a group with a meeting and that, in the case of my program, they are identical. Up until now I do not have a group with two meetings that each have their own description. I have a ‘Thursday and Thuesday” group. But not GroupA with Thursday meeting (group A) and Tuesday meeting (group A) but apparently in AA or other programs this does happen. Only when I adjusted my database output in this way did I get ALL the fields that can be visible by default in the searchbar.

My reasoning for the separate database was also that I am now able, based on the same source data, to produce reports for my Area within seconds that do not per se abide to certain rules. This is not a plug for my way of doing things or even for FileMaker. That just happens to be the tool I am very familiar with. It has a reporting feature that does not touch the data, it is not query or something like that. It is very visual and it acts as a window to the data and I can change that window. I can stick with groups in one district, or I can find al groups whose name starts with A and stuff like that, and then still show the report in the same format.

I don’t blame WordPress or the meeting plugin for not being able to do that. It would be nice, but it is not their primary purpose. Their is to display and make accessible data in the realm of the internet. I am excited though to see what the future will bring.

Can somebody tell me why I would not use the upload? It works beautifully. I seldom have to do a complete replace of all groups, but depending on the type of change that is needed, doing the import is quicker with less chances of errors. Curious to hear why you were advised not to do this.

Hi Viv,

The quickest way I have found to do this is to add something to all of those meetings either in the group name or the meeting name. I am using the District for it. My naming structure is Namegroup – town – (D1) for District 1. Or something like that.

When you have a look at the documentation, you will see an example file for uploading meeting details into the plugin through a comma separated file (CSV).

Your upload syntax should something like this:

Time,Day,Name,Location,Address,Region,Location Notes,Group,District,Group Notes,Types
“7 PM”,”Tuesday”,”GroupName – City (D1)”,”Location Room – City”,”499 Dieppe Road
City ON L0M1C0
Canada”,”City”,”Wheelchair Accessible”,”Groupname – Borden (D1)”,”District 1 – Muskoka”,”Group ID: 00000, District 1 – Muskoka. Meeting type: ProgramName. Focus: Regular. Open to whatever is relevant to you”,”Wheelchair Accessible”

If you were to set up an Excel sheet to keep all of this info in the correct columns, it would all come over into your website.

Then, you will see the District in the dropdown with city/towns as an alternative search method. Or the type of meeting. In the backend in WordPress you can perform a search by (D1) to find all meetings of that District. If you wish to make a further distinction, add your own shortcode. (D1) (something else). As long as it makes sense to you and to the general audience.

In your real import, you would not have a blank line between the column names and the actual content. So paste the below into a simple Texeditor, make sure to remove formatting, and import it like this:

Time,Day,Name,Location,Address,Region,Location Notes,Group,District,Group Notes,Types
“7 PM”,”Tuesday”,”GroupName – City (D1)”,”Location Room – City”,”499 Dieppe Road
City ON L0M1C0
Canada”,”City”,”Wheelchair Accessible”,”Groupname – Borden (D1)”,”District 1 – Muskoka”,”Group ID: 00000, District 1 – Muskoka. Meeting type: ProgramName. Focus: Regular. Open to whatever is relevant to you”,”Wheelchair Accessible”

I hope this is what you are looking for?

Nicky D

I am not sure this is what you are looking for but…
Wordpress is a content management system for websites and I find that it is based on maintenance per individual post (=meeting). The meeting tool gives us a wonderful way to interact with it though, namely via importing. My whole back-end is based on this feature without which it would be a lot harder to do quick updates.
In the back end I have a (Claris) FileMaker solution in which I keep track of meetings and events on the website I built using the plugin. I prepare changes in that solution following the syntax the meeting plugin needs in csv format and the update op 300 plus meetings is done within minutes.

So if you have an office that needs to work with data that are also present on your website, why not run things around? take your local LA office as the basis for all data, built a suitable interface with the website and boom, you are in business.

I build with the FileMaker platform professionally so that is why that was my tool of choice for added functionality outside of the website. FileMaker has excellent features for data management. And, very important to our website, it is easy to use the data in it to create lists of meetings per district or any other kind of report.

And, if the meeting plugin people are reading this: the feature that I find lacking most in the plugin is the ability for website visitors to create a selection of favourite meetings and then print them in a readable layout. If you ever wanted feedback on how I use FileMaker to fill that gap for inspiration for an added reporting feature in the plugin, let me know.

I am aware of the PDF generator that exists as a separate plugin. But it does not cut it for me and ideally I would want that functionality to be available from the plugin.

I don’t develop in PHP so have nothing useful to add from that perspective, unfortunately. But I can certainly help with different use cases if you ever wanted to take the plugin into that direction.

Other than that, hurray for the plugin and its import features. I hope they will never be removed: it is the heart of my management system!

Keep up the good work!
Nicky