140 characters aren’t enough. Here are my thoughts on what we need for a WordPress events calendar plugin.

Since we run WordPress in a networked environment, here’s how I envision it working…

1. Central location of an events calendar (WP site) at uca.edu/calendar (Currently running Helios calendar).
2. Multiple calendar categories like our current calendar.
3. Multiple views – traditional calendar as well as a list view.
4. The ability to add a person in the author role (I think) and have them only see specific categories.
   • This will allow us to have a category that no one but the calendar admin can see and let them tag calendar posts to appear on the university home page. It will also keep a person in the biology department from accidentally tagging an event and it appearing on the Music department’s calendar.
   • As for restricting categories, from an admin point of view, I like the simplicity of the Restrict Categories plugin and the fact it allows you to restrict access based on the user role AND username. The problem with it – and others – is that it doesn’t support custom post types or taxonomies.
5. Multisite capable so that a shortcode and/or widget can be used to display calendar categories on other sites. For example:
   • College of Fine Arts and Communication can use a shortcode to show events specific to the college as well as events from each departments (Art, Music, Theatre, etc.)
   • At the same time, the Music department would display only music events on their site.
6. Recurring events.
7. Start Time, End Time or All Day event option.
8. Event location.
• Google maps integration would be nice.
• The ability to choose from a predetermined location list as well as add a new location. Having this also be something that could tie into a multisite shortcode would allow us to list all events in specific locations regardless of the college or department having the event.
9. TBD

http://uca.edu/go/plus