Build a week of events

Four ways into a week of events: start from a saved template, import a CSV, connect your existing calendar so events sync in on their own (an iCal feed, set up from the Events page or Settings → Integrations), or add events one at a time. The right path depends on how many events you've got and how much they vary week to week. If your campus calendar already lives in a spreadsheet, CSV is fastest. If it lives in a calendar or CMS your team already keeps, connect the feed so you never re-enter anything. If you've got a baseline of recurring sessions, templates are. For a handful of bespoke events, just open the editor.

After picking a path, the rest of the work is the same: set audience targeting so the event reaches the right students, set time and location and category, double-check the targeting, then publish. The audience step is the one most often skipped. If you forget it, the event goes to everyone in the cohort, which is rarely what you wanted.

No progress bar on this guide. It's the weekly rhythm, not a one-time setup, and a checklist that sits permanently incomplete would just nag you.

About 5 min · Reference guide.

Pick the week

Decide what you're filling in.

Open Events and pick the week

Events at /events opens on the By week tab. Pick the week you're filling from the Weeks filter; All weeks shows every event across the cohort.

If you're filling events for the upcoming week, select that week in the filter. If you're backfilling a past week (rare, but happens), the same filter gets you there. Everything you add from this guide goes into the week you've selected.

Walk through it

• Open Events.
• Select the week you're filling in the Weeks filter.

In the console: Open Events.

Add the events

Three ways in. Pick the one that fits.

Option 1: Start from a template

Templates live at /templates. If your institution has set up a recurring event template (a fortnightly tutor drop-in, the weekly social hour), Start from a template prefills the editor with one saved event: pick it, tweak, publish. Repeat per event.

Use this when you've got a baseline of repeating events you know you want. Drop the template in, then edit per week.

Walk through it

• When creating the event, use Start from a template.
• Pick the template you want.
• Tweak the details, then publish.

In the console: Open Templates.

Option 2: Import CSV

Paste CSV rows with week_number, title, starts_at (required) plus ends_at, location, body, category. There's no audience column: set targeting in the editor after import. The week comes from week_number, and per-row errors are listed after the import runs.

Use this when your campus calendar lives in a spreadsheet upstream and you just need the rows into First Six. Re-running the import doesn't dedupe automatically. Match on starts_at + title yourself before re-uploading or you'll double-create.

Walk through it

• Click Import CSV.
• Paste your CSV rows.
• Run the import and check the per-row errors.

In the console: Import CSV.

Option 3: New event, one at a time

The New event button opens the editor drawer. Title and start time are required; everything else is optional but the more you set, the better the student-side card reads.

Use this when there's three or four events this week and they're all bespoke. Past that, template or CSV is faster.

Walk through it

• Click + New event.
• Fill title, start, end (or all-day).
• Add body, location, category.

In the console: New event.

Target + schedule

Get it in front of the right students at the right time.

Set the audience targeting

Audience targeting is what stops every cohort member seeing every event. Pick tags from your audience picker: by course, by program, by campus, by year level, or by any custom tag your institution defined.

Default with no tags = visible to the whole cohort. That's the right answer for a cohort-wide social, and the wrong answer for a program-specific welcome.

Audience targeting is also how the student-side maps and filter chips work. Without it, the student-side experience flattens.

Walk through it

• Open the event editor.
• Click Audience.
• Pick the right program / campus / group tags.
• Confirm the selected tags read right (you can verify student counts in the cohort browser).

In the console: Open Audiences.

Set time, location, and category

Start time and end time should reflect the real event. All-day events skip the end time. Location is free text: building + room, an online link, or just "online" with the join link in the body.

Category is a free-text label students see as a small tag on the card (like Social or Census). Keep your labels consistent so the student side scans well.

Walk through it

• Confirm start + end (or all-day).
• Set location.
• Pick the right category.

In the console: Open Events.

Make it repeat (optional)

For a session that runs on a schedule (weekly discussion hours, a fortnightly tutor drop-in), set Repeats in the editor instead of creating one event per week. Pick the cadence (daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly); daily lets you choose which weekdays. Leave Ends on blank to run to your semester end date (from Term setup), or set your own end date.

You author the event once. When an enrolled student taps Add to my calendar, every session lands in their calendar and syncs to their phone. Change the title, body, or location later and the update flows through to students' calendar feeds, including students who already added it. For a repeating event, a change to its time or cadence won't move sessions students already added (remove and re-add picks up the new schedule); one-off events pick up time changes automatically.

Walk through it

• In the event editor, open Repeats.
• Pick the cadence (and weekdays, for daily).
• Set an end date, or leave blank for the semester end.

In the console: New event → Repeats.

Check + publish

Last check before students see it.

Double-check the targeting

Before publishing, re-open the event and confirm two things: the week field on the editor reads right, and its audience label matches the students you meant to reach. The label shows on the event card in the composer, so this is a quick glance, not a chore.

If an event won't reach who you expect, the most common causes are: wrong week (starts_at is outside the week's date range), wrong audience (you tagged a facet the students don't carry), or it's still in draft.

Walk through it

• Open the event you're about to publish.
• Confirm the week field on the editor.
• Check its audience label targets the right students.

In the console: Open Events.

Publish

Until you click Publish, the event has status='draft' and is invisible to students. Publish from the row's Publish action, or tick the rows you want and use the bulk-action bar that appears to publish them together.

If you want the event to go live at a future moment rather than immediately, use Schedule with a publish_at timestamp.

Walk through it

• Click Publish on each event row.
• Or tick the rows and publish them together from the bulk-action bar.

In the console: Back to Events.

After it's live: who's going

Students can RSVP, and you can watch the turnout build.

Once an event is published, each student gets an I'm going button on its card, next to a live headcount ("14 going"). Students on the same course as each other also see a quiet nudge, "3 from your course are going," which is one of the strongest reasons a first-year actually shows up: someone like them will be there. RSVP is separate from Add to my calendar (going is the social signal, adding to your calendar is the private reminder), and a student can do either or both.

When you open a published event in the editor, a Who's going panel shows the total going plus a course-by-course breakdown. To protect small groups, a course only appears once it has 5 or more students going; anything below that folds into an unnamed "others" count, so a single RSVP can never be pinned to one student. Students only ever see counts, never names.

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