Looking to incorporate a community-driven events calendar on your WordPress website? Allowing users to contribute events can greatly enhance engagement and foster a vibrant sense of community. In this article, we will walk you through the process of creating a user-submitted events calendar in WordPress, all while ensuring that users do not require access to your admin area.
Why Utilizing Crowdsourced Events Benefits Your WordPress Calendar
Crowdsourcing events for your calendar offers various advantages, including attracting new visitors, encouraging community engagement, and maintaining an up-to-date calendar. By enabling your community members to contribute events, they can gain free promotion while keeping others informed about local happenings. For instance, imagine running a non-profit organization with a membership website. Allowing members to add fundraisers, seminars, and webinars to your site’s calendar creates a sense of collaboration and support.
The Challenge of Enabling User-Submitted Calendar Events
Unfortunately, WordPress does not provide built-in functionality for users to submit calendar events or upload files from the front end. A traditional solution would involve creating individual accounts for each user, granting them access to the admin area. However, this approach is time-consuming and poses security risks.
Introducing WPForms for User-Submitted Events
Enter WPForms – a powerful contact form plugin trusted by over 6 million businesses. With WPForms’ Post Submissions addon, you can create forms that accept event listings, PDFs, articles, and more directly on the front end of your website, without providing access to your admin panel. Please note that the Post Submissions addon and premium features are only available with the WPForms Pro plan.
Getting Started with WPForms
To begin, install and activate the WPForms plugin on your WordPress site. Navigate to WPForms » Settings and input your license key found in your WPForms account area. Click ‘Verify Key’ to proceed. Next, go to WPForms » Addons and search for the Post Submissions addon. Install and activate the addon to start accepting user-submitted events on your website.
Creating an Events Calendar with The Events Calendar Plugin
For creating an events calendar on WordPress, we recommend using The Events Calendar plugin. This feature-rich event management system allows you to effortlessly create and manage events, venues, and organizers. It seamlessly integrates with WPForms as well. Begin by installing and activating The Events Calendar plugin on your WordPress site. Visit Events » Settings to customize your events calendar. Adjust the number of events displayed, enable the block editor, manage comments, set the event URL slug, and more. Ensure that the time zone settings are correct for accurate event timings.
Create a User-Submitted Events Form
Now, let’s create a form that allows users to submit events to your calendar. Head to WPForms » Add New to launch the form builder. Provide a name for your form, then select the ‘Blog Post Submission Form’ template. This template, although designed for blog post submissions, can be customized to suit event submissions. Using the drag-and-drop builder, add fields such as event title, description, date and time, location, and any necessary details. Rearrange, add, or remove fields as required to match your specifications. Pro Tip: When adding the Date / Time field, activate the ‘Disable Past Dates’ option in the Advanced Options tab to prevent users from submitting events with past dates. Proceed to Settings » Post Submissions in the form builder. Enable ‘Post Submissions’ and map your form fields to the relevant fields used by The Events Calendar plugin. This ensures seamless integration between WPForms and The Events Calendar. Customize other settings, such as confirmation messages and email notifications, to streamline the user experience and event submissions.
Embedding the User-Submitted Events Form
To make your form accessible, you need to embed it on your WordPress website. WPForms offers multiple options for embedding forms, including using the WPForms block, a shortcode, or a sidebar widget. In this tutorial, we will utilize the Embed wizard. Click the ‘Embed’ button in the form builder, then follow the on-screen instructions to create a new page or select an existing page for your form. Customize the appearance if necessary, and publish the page to see your form in action.
Moderating User-Submitted Events
To moderate events submitted by users, navigate to the Events page in your WordPress dashboard. There, you will find a list of user-submitted events in a pending state. Review the details of each event by clicking ‘Edit’. Ensure that all required information is provided, make any necessary changes or additions, and publish the event to make it live on your calendar.
Conclusion
By leveraging the power of WPForms and The Events Calendar plugin, you can easily enable user-submitted events on your WordPress site without compromising security. Empowering users to contribute events fosters engagement and ensures that your calendar remains up to date. Unlock the potential of user-submitted events on your WordPress site and watch your community thrive!
