How do I create an Event Registration Form and link it in UBC Events Calendar?

By Jithin Shaji on April 30, 2018

Question: How do I create an Event Registration Form in WordPress and link it in UBC Events Calendar?

Answer:

The whole process consists of three main steps;

  1. Creating a form
  2. Creating a page
  3. Creating the Calendar Entry

#1 – Creating the Registration Form

When using Gravity Forms or any forms, do not store/collect any sensitive information. Sensitive information includes student numbers, CWL information, and private personal information. Furthermore, please don’t use Gravity Forms for mission-critical information; even though we keep database backups, data loss still might occur.
  • Login to your site’s dashboard(yousitename.ok.ubc.ca/login/)
  • Choose ‘Forms‘ ->  ‘New Form‘
Warning! If you do not see the ‘Forms’ option in your site’s dashboard, please put a ticket in with the IT Helpdesk.
  • The ‘Create a New Form’ pop-up box will appear now and you can enter a title and description(optional) for your form. Press ‘Create Form’ button and you will see the Form Editor Page(Figure 1).

Figure 1: Form Editor Screen

  • ‘Drag’ and ‘Drop’ necessary fields to the form editor on the left. Fields can be taken from the Fields sections on the right.
    • To understand the use of each form field or to learn their configuration options please read this documentation, Form Fields.
  • Once created, save your form by clicking the ‘Update‘ button.

Now that we have created the registration form, let’s create a page where you can add this form as well as some event information.

#2 – Creating the Registration Page

To create a new page, click on the Add New option under Pages from the sidebar(Pages > Add New).

On the ‘Add New Page‘, Enter a title for your page, you may add some event details on the page editing area

To insert the form, you can click on the ‘Add Form‘ icon in the Upload/Insert Toolbar(this is located next to the ‘Add Media‘ button just above the page editing area). Clicking on it will activate the ‘Insert Gravity Form'(Figure 2)  pop-up window.

 

Figure 2: Insert Gravity Form

 

Now choose the form you just created using the ‘Select a form’ drop-down, you can uncheck the two checkboxes that were selected by default, and press ‘Insert Form‘.

Warning! If you are unable to find your form in the dropdown list, return to the Edit Forms page and ensure that your form is active.

Clicking the Insert Form button will automatically add a Gravity Forms shortcode into the body of the page content(Figure 3).

Gravity Forms Shortcode

Now that the form is added to the page, let’s publish the page by clicking the ‘Publish‘ button inside the ‘Publish‘ box(Figure 4).

Figure 4: Publishing the page

Note: In some sites, all event pages might be added as a child page of a parent page, in that case, make sure you mention the parent page from the Parent drop-down inside the Page Attributes(Figure 5).

Figure 5: Assign a parent page.

Note the URL of the newly created page, you will be adding this URL as the registration link in the UBC Events Calendar. The registration page with the form is now ready, so let’s add the event to the UBC Events Calendar.

#3 – Creating the UBC Events Calendar Entry

Login(http://www.calendar.events.ubc.ca/) to your UBC Events Calendar account with your CWL, create a new event and use the URL of the above-created page as the registration link.

Detailed instructions on adding events in UBC Events Calendar can be found here: UBC Events User Guide

 

Posted in , | Tagged , , , ,