Purdue University Events Calendar

Events sponsored or hosted by or in collaboration with a Purdue campus unit, college, department or student organization may be submitted to the events calendar.

Eligible activities include:

• Academic lectures or guest lectures open to the campus community
• Career fairs sponsored by a campus unit or a sanctioned student organization
• Admissions events and information sessions
• Alumni events
• Athletics and club sport events
• Department open houses
• Music and theater performances

Ineligible activities include:

• Nonuniversity social gatherings
• Closed office/departmental/organization/committee meetings
• Sales or special events by local businesses
• Nonuniversity concerts, performances and/or sporting events

To submit a calendar event, fill out a submission form. All submissions are reviewed by event administrators within each unit/department at Purdue.

When submitting the event submission form, you’ll need to include the event name, start and end dates and times, frequency, format, and location. You’ll also need to add a brief event description and details — like speakers, agenda and purpose — and an image.

Event names should use sentence-case capitalization, and event descriptions should be full sentences.

The sponsoring organization and university affiliation should be indicated as well. In addition, you’ll be able to select filters to categorize your event, including type, topic, audience and strategic initiative.

Note: Calendar submissions are not space reservations. To make space reservations, visit this page. You can also speak to your academic unit regarding spaces it owns.

Users can submit images to accompany their event submissions. Images should be rectangular with landscape orientation in a JPEG or PNG format and 1920 x 940 pixels.

Learn more about photography best practices and accessibility guidance.

Use the Purdue Calendar block

This approach works using any modern WordPress site with the Purdue Calendar Embed plugin installed. Ask your site administrator if it is not already available.

Follow these steps:

1. Go to the “Widget Builder” on events.purdue.edu (linked from the homepage’s “Share Events” area, or under “Content” > “Widgets” in the admin dashboard if you have admin access).
2. Choose a template (list, grid, etc.) and configure your filters, including number of events, days ahead, department/group, keywords, tags and experience (in person, virtual or hybrid).
3. Click “Preview Widget” to check the output, then “Generate Embed Code.”
4. Copy the generated code, including the closing </script> tag.
5. In the WordPress editor, add a “Purdue Calendar” block where you want the calendar to appear, set Mode to “Localist widget embed” and paste the code.
6. Save and preview the page. If your site uses caching, be sure to clear the page cache.

Tips for success:

• The widget defaults to “&experience=inperson” in some configurations. If you want all events to appear regardless of format, remove that parameter from the embed code.
• If your WordPress installation strips <script> tags (common on multisite networks or for non-admin roles), ask your site administrator to whitelist the embed for you, or use a code-embed plugin that your campus supports.
• The widget’s appearance is controlled by Localist templates. If it clashes with your theme, minor adjustments can usually be made with CSS on your side. Deeper changes require the “Application Programming Interface” (API) approach (see the developer section below for more details).

Cascade doesn’t have an official Localist plugin, but the widget embeds cleanly with one caveat: Cascade’s XML validation may strip <script> tags from WYSIWYG content.

Embedding the widget

1. Build and generate your widget embed code on events.purdue.edu as described above.
2. In Cascade, edit the page (or an XHTML/Data Definition block) where the calendar should appear and open the HTML source view.
3. Paste the embed code (provided below). If Cascade removes or rewrites the <script> tag when you save, wrap the code in a protect comment so Cascade skips it during XML validation:

<!--#protect
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://events.purdue.edu/widget/view?schools=purdue&...&format=js"></script>
#protect-->

4. Save, submit the code through your workflow if required, and publish the page. Remember that changes are not live until published.

Template-level integration (for site administrators)

If you manage a Cascade site’s templates, you can integrate events deeply instead of pasting embeds page by page:

• Create a reusable XHTML block containing the widget code and attach it to a page region so multiple pages share one embed that is edited in a single place.
• Use a Feed Block (XML) pointed at a Localist XML/RSS feed URL, then format the items with XSLT or Velocity to match your site’s design. This gives you full markup control without using JavaScript embeds.

If your website doesn’t use WordPress or Cascade — or you need to choose the simplest possible path — the Localist widget works anywhere you can paste the HTML that allows <script> tags.

1. Open the widget builder from the “Share Events” area on events.purdue.edu.
2. Configure the template and filters, preview, and generate the embed code.
3. Paste the code into your platform’s HTML/embed/code block (where the calendar will render).

Note: If the page must work without JavaScript, use the RSS/XML feed or API instead of the widget.

Alternatively, every filtered results page on events.purdue.edu offers subscription/export options (Google Calendar, iCal/ICS, Outlook, RSS) in the filter drop-down, which is often enough for users who simply want to follow your events rather than see them embedded.

If you need full control over markup, want server-side rendering or are integrating events into another application, skip the widget and consume the data directly. We recommend two options:

1. RSS/XML and ICS feeds

Localist exposes machine-readable versions of calendar pages. From any filtered results page, the filter drop-down “Subscribe to Displayed Results” section provides RSS and ICS URLs that carry the same filters (department, event type, keyword, etc.). These URLs are stable if the underlying classifications don’t change, making them suitable for the following:

• Cascade Feed Blocks or any CMS feed-import module
• Server-side scripts that fetch and cache events
• Calendar subscriptions (ICS) in Outlook or Google Calendar

The unfiltered feed for the whole calendar is https://events.purdue.edu/calendar.xml. Two filters can be appended to it:

• event_types[0] — a numeric Localist event type ID. Find one by applying the filter on events.purdue.edu and reading it out of the address bar; add more as event_types[1], event_types[2] and so on.
• experience — inperson, hybrid or virtual.

Widget builder parameters such as days and num are ignored by the feed. Cache what you fetch — the calendar rate-limits repeated requests.

Feeds are simple but limited — you get a fixed set of fields and no pagination controls. For anything richer, use the API.

2. Localist API (recommended for custom builds)

The read API doesn’t require authentication for public event data (primary endpoint). Useful query parameters include:

Parameter	Purpose
days	Number of days ahead to include
start / end	Explicit date range (YYYY-MM-DD)
pp	Results per page (pagination)
group_id / venue_id	Restrict to a group/department or place
keyword / type	Filter by keyword or event type ID
require_all	Require all filters to match, not any

Example. The next 30 days of events for one group, 20 per page:

https://events.purdue.edu/api/2/events?days=30&group_id=YOUR_GROUP_ID&pp=20

The response is JSON: an events array where each item contains the event’s name, description, date instances, location and geo data, localist_url, photo_url, filters, and custom fields — plus a page object for pagination. Render this however you like, from a WordPress shortcode that fetches and caches the JSON to a Cascade-published static fragment regenerated on a schedule to a client-side JavaScript.

Implementation guidance

• Cache your requests. Fetch server-side on a schedule (e.g., every 15-60 minutes) rather than calling the API on every page load.
• Photo sizes: Image URLs contain a size segment (e.g., /huge/) that can be swapped (e.g., /big/) for smaller renditions.
• Recurring events appear as one event with multiple instances; decide whether to display each instance or only the next one.
• Authentication is only needed for private data. Platform admins can generate OAuth access tokens under Settings > Apps in the Admin Dashboard. Requests then include an Authorization — Bearer header over HTTPS.
• Full reference: developer.localist.com/doc/api

Localist’s own rule of thumb is this: if you’re integrating events into another system’s internal interface or you need complete control of the HTML, use the API — provided that your team can build and maintain a tool that renders JSON. If not, use the widget. For most unit/department pages, the widget is the right answer. Reserve the API for homepage features, digital signage, mobile apps and heavily branded components.

• Purdue calendar help and event submission guidance: events.purdue.edu/help/about
• Localist documentation: support.localist.com
• Concept3D documentation: help.concept3d.com
• RSS feed for a single group: events.purdue.edu/group/america250/calendar/xml
• RSS feed for the whole calendar: events.purdue.edu/calendar/xml
• API example: events.purdue.edu/api/2/events
• Widget example: events.purdue.edu/widget/view