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Calendar Overview

The Calendar module in GatherCMS displays your church's events on your public website. All event data originates from Planning Center Calendar — GatherCMS is a read-only view of that data, with one exception: staff can mark events as Featured to give them a highlighted position on the website.

Core Concepts​

  • Events — the primary record representing a named event at your church, such as "Sunday Worship Service" or "Women's Bible Study." Events are created and managed entirely in Planning Center Calendar.
  • Event Instances — each individual occurrence of an event. A weekly Bible study has one event record but many instances — one for each meeting date. The event list always shows the next upcoming instance's date and time.
  • Tags — labels applied to events in Planning Center Calendar that categorize them, such as "Worship," "Youth," or "Community." Tags are uses to create the individual rows that appear on the Calendar page.
  • Tag Groups — organizational containers that group related tags together. For example, a tag group called "Ministry Area" might contain the tags "Worship," "Youth," and "Kids."
  • Featured Events — a designation that promotes a single event to a highlighted position on your website, separate from the standard event list.

How Events Reach Your Website​

  • An event is created in Planning Center Calendar and assigned at least one public tag.
  • GatherCMS syncs the event, its scheduled instances, and its tags automatically, typically within a few minutes.
  • If a Publication Delay is configured in Calendar Settings, the event is withheld from the public website until the delay window has passed.
  • Once published, the event appears on your website, sorted by its next upcoming instance.
  • When an instance passes, the event's displayed date updates automatically to the next scheduled occurrence.

What Staff Can Do in GatherCMS​

  • Browse the list of upcoming events and search by name.
  • Filter events by Published, Featured, or Trashed status.
  • Open any event to view its details and see a list of upcoming instances.
  • Mark or unmark an event as Featured.
note

The Publication Delay setting and other Calendar configuration options are available only to administrators. See Calendar Settings for details.

What Visitors See on the Website​

  • A list of upcoming public events, grouped by tag and sorted by next occurrence
  • Each event shows a live status label based on how soon it starts:
    • Happening Now — the event is currently in progress.
    • Starting Soon — the event begins within the next hour.
    • Today @ time — the event is later today.
    • Tomorrow @ time — the event is tomorrow.
    • Day, Month Date, Year @ time — the event is further in the future.
  • The Featured Event is displayed in a prominent position above the standard list. This position varies based on the theme you have selected.