Frontend Event Submissions

The Frontend Event Submissions add-on enables site managers to integrate Sugar Calendar with many of the popular form builder plugins to allow users to submit their own events from the frontend of the website.

We currently support the following form builder plugins:

  • Gravity Forms
  • WP Forms
  • Formidable Forms
  • Ninja Forms

In order to use this add-on, you will need Sugar Calendar version 2.0.13 or later and one of the supported form builder plugins mentioned above. Both plugins must be installed and active in your WordPress site.

Each form builder has its own configuration process, so look for the relevant section below for instructions on how to set things up. If your form builder is not yet supported, get in touch with us and let us know!

Form Fields

Some form fields are required, and some are optional. The required fields are the bare minimum to get an Event submitted that can later be displayed on your site. The optional fields may or may not make sense for your application, so be sure to give it some thought. We've suggested some field names for you below, but you can name them whatever you think your audience will understand the best.

The following form fields are required:

  • Event Title
    This field will be the name of the Event Page.
  • Event Description
    This field will be the content of the Event Page.
  • Event Start Date
    This field will be the date the Event takes place.
  • Event Start Time

    This field will be the time the Event takes place.

The following form fields are optional:

  • Event Location
    This field should be the venue address, useful with our Google Maps add-on
  • Event Status
    This field determines the status when submitted (draft/published/pending/scheduled)
  • Calendar
    This field determines which Calendar (WordPress Taxonomy) the Event is created in.
  • Event End Date
    This field will be the date the Event ends on, useful for multi-day Events.
  • Event End Time
    This field will be the time the Event ends on, useful for Events with a hard-stop time.
  • Event Recurrence
    Whether this Event recurs daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or never.
  • Recurrence End Date
    This field will be the final date the recurrence sequence will end - sometimes never.
  • Event Featured Image
    This field will allow visitors to upload an image to be used on Event Pages.

Each of the fields will be created in the form builder plugin's interface and then mapped to the related Event data fields for Sugar Calendar. See instructions below for how field mapping works with each form builder integration.

Gravity Forms

To set up event submission through Gravity Forms, you will first create a form and add the correct types of required fields as described below:

  • Event Title
    Post Fields → Post Title
  • Event Description
    Post Fields → Post Body
  • Event Start Date
    Advanced Fields → Date
  • Event Start Time

    Advanced Fields → Time

Feel free to add any optional fields if you need them.

  • Event Location
    Standard Fields → Paragraph Text
  • Event Status
    Standard Fields → Dropdown (or Radio Buttons)
  • Calendar
    Standard Fields → Dropdown (or Radio Buttons)
  • Event End Date
    Advanced Fields → Date
  • Event End Time
    Advanced Fields → Time
  • Event Recurrence
    Standard Fields → Dropdown (or Radio Buttons)
  • Recurrence End Date
    Advanced Fields → Date
  • Event Featured Image
    Post Fields → Post Image

Once the form is created (with at least the required fields) you can click on:

Settings → Sugar Calendar

...to configure the field mapping. You'll know that you've used the correct types of fields when they appear in these dropdowns. If these dropdowns are empty, recheck the field types in your form and come back here.

On this screen be sure that you check the box for Enable Sugar Calendar Event creation. If that option is left unchecked, event creation will be disabled.

If you are having trouble, you can import a sample form into Gravity Forms located in:

  • wp-content/plugins/sc-fes/sample-data
  • Forms → Import/Export → Import

WP Forms

To set up event submissions through WP Forms, you will first create the form with the necessary fields and then navigate to to the Settings screen for the form and select Sugar Calendar. On this screen you will be able to select the field that corresponds to each piece of event data.

If you need an example form, there is a sample file that you can import into WP Forms located in wp-content/plugins/sc-fes/sample-data.

Note: When using WP Forms Lite, the Date & Time field will be unavailable. The form submission will still create an event but no Date/Time will be set and will have to be updated manually.

Formidable Forms

After creating a form with the relevant fields, navigate to Settings then Actions & Notifications. On this screen, click on Sugar Calendar Event to configure how events are created.

Ninja Forms

Once you have created a form with the needed fields, click on the Emails & Actions tab and then click on Sugar Calendar. This will create a new action for creating an event when the form is submitted and each of the fields added to the form can be mapped to the relevant event data.

If you need an example form, there is a sample file that you can import into Ninja Forms located in wp-content/plugins/sc-fes/sample-data.