Calendar Policies

Requesting a Group Calendar

The Texas A&M University web calendar platform, LiveWhale, is available to all university units as the official calendar platform for university-led or -sponsored events/activities. It is managed by the Texas A&M Division of Marketing and Communications Digital Experience Team. To request a group calendar, email digitalexperience@tamu.edu with the name of your organization and the contact information for the person who will be the primary contact for the calendar group.

User Management Access

Only administrators from the Web and Digital Experience teams can manage and add users to the platform. Listed below are the criteria addressing user access.

• Training is a requirement for new user access and is hosted weekly by the Digital Experience Team.
• Editor access is granted to those who have yet to receive training or need to follow an internal approval workflow within their respective unit.
• Publisher access is granted to those who have received training, except for student workers who will have editor access only.
• Curator access is only granted to one user per calendar group, if a curator is needed. This type of user access is reserved for those with the responsibility of coding and developing websites. If additional support is needed, for example, a backup, the Digital Experience Team can provide the necessary guidance.
• Calendar groups are limited to 10 users to maintain consistency in the group’s management.
• The primary contact for the calendar group helps determine user access.
• The Digital Experience Team will complete a user audit every six months to ensure each calendar group member is adhering to the requirements of using the university calendar platform.
  • Access will be removed if users become inactive, leave their role within a group or leave the university.
• Changes in user access needs for each calendar group must be communicated with the Digital Experience Team to maintain secure calendar groups.

Event Publicity

University-led or -sponsored events are publicized through the Texas A&M Events Calendar, the main university website, Texas A&M division, department and unit webpages, the official Texas A&M University mobile app and digital signage screens.

Administering Your Group Calendar

For general instructions on adding and managing your events, see the LiveWhale calendar documentation provided by the vendor, as well as the University Calendar Best Practices page.

Types of Events

The Texas A&M Events Calendar is intended for university-led or -sponsored events that are:

• Open to the general public or to interested members of the university community such as faculty, staff or students.
• Led or sponsored by an officially recognized Texas A&M academic unit, department or administrative unit.

The following event types are not approved for posting to the calendar:

• Events that lack appropriate sponsorship by a Texas A&M entity or lack a clear connection to the university.
• Student organization events are not permitted in the university calendar. However, these events can be submitted to getinvolved.tamu.edu for consideration.
• Internal events, such as classes, department meetings or an invite-only audience, should not be displayed on the university calendar.
• Fundraising efforts not tied to an event are not permitted on the university calendar.

Texas A&M reserves the right to edit or delete event listings if they do not meet appropriate criteria, including language that does not meet the university’s editorial style requirements, university policies and procedures, or violates local, state or federal law.

Submitting Events to the Main University or Student Interest Calendars

Requesting your event to be posted on the main university or student calendars does not automatically guarantee that it will be approved. Staff from the Division of Marketing and Communications review and approve the list of submitted events daily. These events must meet the criteria outlined in the Shared Calendar and Featured Events Policy.

Main University Calendar

Events you add to your group calendar will be posted there by default once published. To have your events added to the Main University Calendar, you must use the “Suggest event to main university calendar” checkbox in the Sharing and Privacy section at the bottom left of the add/edit event page. Checking this box does not immediately add the event to the university calendar; it instead puts the event into a moderation queue.

Student Interest Calendar

University-sanctioned, student events will need to be shared with the Student Interest calendar group. This calendar group is linked to the student persona on the Texas A&M University Mobile App and designated digital signage displays. To have your events added to the Student Interest Calendar, you must use the Sharing and Privacy section at the bottom left of the add/edit event page. Checking this box does not immediately add the event to the student calendar; it instead puts the event into a moderation queue.

Adding Calendar Events to your Webpage

The calendar platform offers several ways to post events on your webpage. The preferred method is to use native widgets.

Data Feeds

The calendar platform’s REST API exposes calendar information in JSON format. You can then use this data feed to write event information onto your webpage.

• Texas A&M Calendar Feeds

Calendar Platform Widgets

You can use the calendar platform’s native widgets, which do not require you to create a script to read and process a data feed. Widgets allow you to create the display that you want inside the platform’s administrative interface and embed it onto your webpage with a small piece of JavaScript code. You do need curator privileges to work with widgets, so please contact digitalexperience@tamu.edu if you wish to use them.