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Creating the Registrar’s Annual Academic Calendar

Home » Creating the Registrar’s Annual Academic Calendar

The development of the annual Academic Calendar is a key responsibility coordinated by the Registrar’s Office to ensure timely communication of important academic dates and institutional deadlines. The UTC Web Team (both Marketing and the Web Dev Team) provides support to implement the Academic Calendar each school year during the previous spring.

The Registrar’s Office Responsibilities

To initiate this process, the Registrar will provide three CSV files (fall, spring, and summer) containing the foundational data needed to build the calendar. These spreadsheets will be uploaded to the Localist calendar. These spreadsheets should include the following. (Where prompts are in quotes, the words must match exactly.):

  1. Title
  2. Description (optional)
  3. Date From
  4. Date to
  5. Start time (if applicable): ex., 10:00 am
  6. End time (not usual or recommended, but if applicable): ex., 10:00 am
  7. Event website
  8. Keywords: “Academic Calendar”
  9. Department: “Registrar”
  10. Allow User Activity: “N”
  11. Allow User Interest: “N”
  12. Visibility: “Public”
  13. Owner Email: “[email protected]”
  14. Experience: “In-Person”
  15. Event Types: “Academic Calendar”
  16. Topics: “Academic Calendar”
  17. Audience: “Current Students, Grad Students, Undergraduate Students, Faculty & Staff, Executive Leadership, Faculty, Management, Staff, Families, General Public, Prospective Students”
  18. Photo URL: “https://localist-images.azureedge.net/photos/44031580074721/featured/33ff2cc587c38886df5d46e088d1544e17838066.jpg”

Each spreadsheet requires careful analysis and coordination to ensure all dates align with institutional policies and operational needs. Specific actions will be taken to consolidate, validate, and sequence this information accurately. Once finalized, the calendar serves as an essential reference tool to support academic planning and operations across the institution.

Marketing Responsibilities

Marketing is responsible for uploading the CSV files and ensuring that all the events are uploaded correctly. They are also responsible for adding “tags” to each event as follows. They can be added as a single item or in combination:

Fall:

  • full term-f[YY]
  • part term 1-f[YY]
  • part term 2-f[YY]

Spring:

  • full term-sp[YY]
  • part term 1-sp[YY]
  • part term 2-sp[YY]

Summer:

  • full term-sm[YY]
  • part term 1-sm[YY]
  • part term 2-sm[YY]

Other items to check for:

  • Missing dates
  • Duplicate text in the description (ex., “No Classes”) may exist in both the title and the description. The description should be removed.
  • Breaks and holidays missing end dates, “Through [MM-DD]”, for extended off-times. These should be added to the description. Ex., For the fall break, the end date would look similar to “Through Oct. 15” in the description field.
  • Duplicate events
  • Time entry error: ex., “9:00 am to 9:00 am”. Only one is needed.
  • Ensure that the correct “AM” or “PM” are listed.
  • Tags are wrong. Be sure to check the Full Term, Part Term 1 and Part Term 2 AND the years. These get reversed or have the wrong year at times.
  • “Registrar” is missing from the “Department” field.
  • If the title includes the term either in parentheses or not–ie., (Fall 2025)–please remove.
  • If “Faculty submit grades…” and “Grades available to students…” are on the same day, please make sure the times “9:00 a.m.” and “5:00 p.m.” respectively are entered to ensure the correct order of events.

The Web Development Team Responsibilities

The Web Development Team will need to work both on the Localist website to create the widget as well as the Drupal website to create the page and add the widget.

Widget Settings: Overview

To create a widget, you must have admin permissions in Localist. You will need to go to “Content > Widgets > Public Widget Builder” or go here and enter the following:

  • Template: UTC List Classic Registrar
  • Number of Results: 100
  • Days Ahead: 365
  • Experience: In-Person
  • Keywords and Tags:
    • full term-[f, sp, sm][YY], ex., full term-f25
    • part term 1-[f, sp, sm][YY], ex., part term 1-f25
    • part term 2-[f, sp, sm][YY], ex., part term 2-f25
  • Content must match: “At least one place, group, keyword or tag, and one filter item”
  • Preview
  • Generate Embed Code (this provides the code to copy to your clipboard)

NOTE: BC these calendars are usually created in May, 365 days past May of the following year past will not show, for example the summer school terms. This will be corrected in the Drupal side, when you set the data range parameters.

Double check duplicate events, duplicate texts in the description, missing events, missing “Through” dates in the description, and poorly formatted timeframes, ex., “9:00 am to 9:00 am”. You may want to use the “Other items to check for:” checklist above in Marketing responsibilities for guidance.

NOTE: IT IS MUCH EASIER TO MAKE ANY EDITS IN LOCALIST BEFORE YOU COPY THE WIDGETS TO DRUPAL.

Drupal Side—Cloud Test Set-up:

  1. In text editor, convert to “Full HTML”, click “Source”, and create three blocks with headings centered in a blue bar each:
<h3 class="text-align-center blue-bar">Fall 20[yy]: Aug. [dd]-Dec. [dd], 20[yy]</h3>

<h3 class="text-align-center blue-bar">Spring 20[yy]: Jan. [dd]-May [dd], 20[yy]</h3>

<h3 class="text-align-center blue-bar">Summer 20[yy]: May [dd]-Aug. [dd], 20[yy]</h3>
  1. Click “Source” again to get back into the text editor window.
  2. Create an accordion in each. You will need three rows for each accordion. For each of the three accordion titles, type the following:
    • Full Term
    • Part Term 1
    • Part Term 2
  3. Add an extra empty paragraph for spacing.
  4. Click “Source” to get back into the source code window. You’ll need this to paste the widget code in between the <dd></dd> tags.
  5. From this point forward, you will need to have both the calendar widget page open and the Drupal layout builder page open.

Back to the Localist Widget page:

  1. Enter the Keyword and Tag: full term-f[YY]
  2. Preview
  3. Generate Embed Code: Copy that code to your clipboard.
  4. You will repeat this for each of the following terms in the Keyword and Tags field of the Widget Page:
    • full term-f[YY]
    • part term 1-f[YY]
    • part term 2-f[YY]
    • full term-sp[YY]
    • part term 1-sp[YY]
    • part term 2-sp[YY]
    • full term-sm[YY]
    • part term 1-sm[YY]
    • part term 2-sm[YY]

Back to the Drupal page:

  1. In the first accordion (in “Source” mode) paste your widget between the and tags.
  2. In the <script> tag, look for num=100.
  3. Type in the following parameters:
    • For fall full term, part term 1, and part term 2, use:
      &start=20[YY]-08-01&end=20[YY]-12-31
      (Aug. 1 through Dec. 31)
    • For spring full term, part term 1, and part term 2, use:
      &start=20[YY]-12-15&end=20[YY]-5-15
      (Dec. 15 through May 15)
    • For summer full term, part term 1, and part term 2, use:
      &start=20[YY]-05-10&end=20[YY]-8-31
      (May 10 through Aug. 31)
    • Make any adjustments as needed.
  4. Click Update.
  5. Save Layout.
  6. Check your block.
  7. Double check the calendars and make any edits.
  8. Get approvals.
  9. Once final approvals are made, copy code to the live site.

NOTE: If for whatever reason you need to make an edit in the Calendar, and you’ve already placed the widget in Drupal, you can simply change the “num=” parameter to anything greater than 50 and save your layout.