Build a week of events

Three ways into a week of events: start from a saved template, import a CSV, 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 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, preview as one of those students, 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 on /events are organised as a horizontal kanban — one column per week, scrolled left to right. The current week is anchored on the left when you land.

If you're filling events for the upcoming week, scroll one column right. If you're backfilling a past week (rare, but happens), scroll left. Everything you add from this guide goes into the week column you're looking at.

Walk through it

• Open Events.
• Scroll to the column for the week you're filling.

In the console: Open Events.

Add the events

Three ways in — pick the one that fits.

Option 1: Start from template

Templates live at /briefings/templates. If your institution has set up a recurring event template (a fortnightly tutor drop-in, the weekly social hour), Start from template clones the lot into the current week in one click.

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

• On the week column, click Start from template.
• Pick the template you want.
• Confirm the clone.

In the console: Open Templates.

Option 2: Import CSV

The bulk import drawer takes a CSV with title, body, location, starts_at, ends_at, category, and (optionally) audience tags. Every row that lands inside a week's date range is created with the right week_id.

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.
• Drop your file or paste a URL.
• Confirm the row count and preview.
• Import.

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 on the week column.
• 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 program, by campus, by year level, 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. 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 matched student count looks right.

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, online link, or just "online" with the join link in the body.

Category is one of: session (academic / workshop), social, support, orientation. The student-side card picks its icon + accent from the category, so getting this right is what makes the student-side scan-able.

Walk through it

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

In the console: Open Events.

Preview + publish

Last check before students see it.

Preview as a student

Quick preview before publishing: open /preview, pick a persona from the matched audience, and confirm the event card shows up in their week.

If it doesn't appear, the most common causes are: wrong week (starts_at is outside the week's date range), wrong audience (the persona doesn't carry a tag you targeted), or still in draft.

Walk through it

• Open Preview.
• Pick a persona that should see the event.
• Confirm the event card appears in their week.

In the console: Open Preview.

Publish

Until you click Publish, the event has status='draft' and is invisible to students. Bulk publish is available from the row's Publish action; you can also bulk-publish a column's drafts from the top of the week.

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 use the column's bulk-publish action.

In the console: Back to Events.

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