How to deal with rescheduled events in Yesplan due to COVID-19?

COVID-19 has not only shaken up daily life, it also has a major influence on event planning. Events all over the world are being rescheduled or cancelled. In this blog we will tell you everything you need to know to keep your event planning organised despite multiple cancellations.

You will learn: 

• How to move events
• How to keep track of events that were cancelled due to the corona virus
• How to follow up on changes in your calendar 

Getting started

It might be a good idea to check in on your staff to see if they can access Yesplan. In a lot of countries there is a work from home policy, so people might be using their personal laptops. In order to make sure everyone can access:

1. Send out an email to your users with the correct URL of your installation.
2. Users can use the “Forgot your password?” function to retrieve a password. 

As an administrator you can make sure all your events are protected with a padlock. This way, events are prevented from being moved in the calendar by accident in case someone uses a tablet and swipes in the calendar to consult Yesplan. To add the padlock, you need to change the status type in the system settings.

How to move single events

A lot of events are going to be rescheduled due to COVID-19. This means that you will need to move or copy an event in the calendar. But be careful: events linked to a ticketing tool need special attention! This will be covered in the next section.

Let’s say you want to move an event from March to June and there is a link with the ticketing tool. Follow these steps:

First, move the event. To do so, you must have permission to unlock the event.

• Hover over the ‘i’ in the upper right corner of the event.
• A popup opens. In the information window you can unlock the event.
• Once unlocked, double click on the date and choose a new date in June in the date picker

The event is now moved to June. 

There is more information on moving and copy-pasting events on our online learning platform. The 'Move' and 'Copy Paste' sections in the Tips & Tricks video are really helpful.

How to move groups

Maybe you need to move an entire group of events in the calendar. And again you need to be very careful with events linked to ticketing. 

To move a group, select the group in the calendar: 

• On Mac: 
1. unlock the group 
2. press the option key and move the events with your mouse or trackpad 
• On Windows: 
1. unlock the group 
2. press the alt key and move the events with your mouse or trackpad  

Keep in mind that when you move a group that has events in multiple locations, you can only move the group to the same locations as the original ones. Have a look at this screen recording for a clear visual representation. 

Integrations

Your events may be linked to a website, narrowcasting or ticketing.

Websites and narrowcasting

• Websites and narrowcasting will send a query to Yesplan. Based on the Yesplan data they will add content to the platform. 
• Changes in Yesplan will either be changed immediately on that platform or you will get a notification on changes so you can moderate them. 

Ticketing

Events can be linked to a ticketing tool. In this case you need to be extra careful. Here are the things to keep in mind:

• When you move an event:
• The event is still connected to the ticketing tool. You will have to handle the change in the ticketing tool too! More information can be found in our manual: look for the integrations section in the menu.
• Do not delete the link with a ticketing tool. This might cause more issues.
• When you delete the event or the link in Yesplan, the event will still exist in the ticketing system. This way, you create ghost events. 
• When you copy and paste an event:
• The pasted event is a new event. And thus not linked to ticketing
• If you want this event to go to ticketing you have to use the publish button in the event inspector. 

How do you keep track of all events that were cancelled by COVID-19?

So now that we have moved events in our calendar, how do you keep track of all those changes?

In this section we describe: 

• how to keep your archive up to date 
• how to identify events that were changed due to corona 

How to keep your archive up to date 

After moving an event the initial place and location no longer exist. Remember we had to move the event in order to keep the link with our ticketing tool. So our advice is: 

1. Copy the moved event and paste it back on its original place and time.
2. The copy will no longer have the connection with the ticketing tool.
3. Change the status to cancelled.
4. To remove human resource bookings, use Teamplanner or rosters 

How to identify events that were changed due to corona  

After changing your calendar you might want an overview of all events affected by the COVID-19 crisis. Marking the events will make it possible to create a dataview that shows you all these events with the relevant information. The easiest way to do so is by using custom fields. 

1. Ask your system administrator to create the field ‘cancelled due to corona’. This way, you can create a dataview that shows you all events that have the status ‘Cancelled’ and have the checkbox ‘Corona’ marked.
2. Now copy the event you moved and paste it on the original date. This copy will not be linked to your ticketing tool.
3. Mark the checkbox ‘Corona’ on the copied event and change the status to cancelled.  

To create an overview of all events that were cancelled due to the COVID-19 virus, you use dataviews. Create a dataview with: 

• the date filter set to the correct dates
• the status filter to only show cancelled events
• the checkbox filter to only show ‘Corona’ events  

How to be notified on changed events

For some users it might be necessary to stay up to date on changed events. In Yesplan each user can build their own updates. Here is how to do so:

1. Open the user settings in the navigation menu
2. Choose ‘updates’
3. Now you can create a new update rule
4. Use the parameters and make sure to check whether all or some of the parameters should be met  

In the learning video 'Status, Profile and Labels' creating an update rule is explained very clearly in the 'Updates' section.

Once you created an update you can have it sent to your mailbox or see it online in Yesplan. Check out ‘updates’ in the navigation menu. 

If you are having any difficulties rescheduling or cancelling your events, or building this structure, do not hesitate to contact us on support@yesplan.be or reach out to us through the Helpdesk in Yesplan.