Events

Use for your organization's public events, such as meetings or hearings.

Why use this content type?

You can use this template to share your organization’s public events, including General Events, Public Hearings, and Public Meetings.

When Events are created, they can be assigned to appear on other pages, including Advisory, Decision, Executive Order, Regulation, Rules of Court, Location, Organization, and Service pages.

NOTE: For Service and Organization page types, you MUST have an event row within a section of the page for the events to appear. Verify that the event row exists under the “Content” tab, and if it doesn’t, add 1 to a section.

One way to save time when creating recurring Events or a series of Events is by cloning (or copying) them. Remember to change the date and time on the new event, otherwise the event will not show up in the right order on the website.

Hint: We recommend not creating Events using Internet Explorer 11. There's a known bug preventing users from completing the Date and time field while using this browser.

Overview

Event Title and Listing description

The event title and listing description appear in search result previews, so it’s important that they be written clearly, and in plain language.

Note that the listing description does not appear on the Event’s full-page display. It’s not a subtitle or short description — it’s just for search engines and social media.

If an event gets canceled:

Add "CANCELED:" to beginning of event title
Add a note in the listing description and/or the description fields that the event is canceled, why, when it's been rescheduled, etc.

Short title

Optional. This field is used to shorten the full title of a page when displayed in a breadcrumb. First aim to shorten the actual page title if it’s long, but not so much that the title is no longer clear if someone comes directly to a page from a search engine.

Event type

A dropdown menu allows you to choose between:

General Event (default)
Public Meeting
Public Hearing

If you choose Public Meeting or Public Hearing, a label will appear above the title indicating as much.

If you choose Public Meeting, you’ll see the additional fields posted date and public testimony.

You can add a posted date to a Public Meeting, which allows users to compare the date the Public Meeting content was posted to when it was last updated. This is useful if, for example, you want to add meeting minutes after the event is over.

Use the public testimony section for important headlines and callouts — if you want to emphasize that you’re inviting people to speak or testify, for example.

Event logo

This lets you include an image that represents your event. Your image needs to have a white or transparent background and should be at least 230 pixels wide. You may use .png, .gif, .jpg, or .jpeg files.

Here’s what a logo looks like on a published Event page:

Complex event date and time

This field is only for events whose times can’t be expressed in numbers. For example, you might write that your event will begin at 10 a.m. and will continue until you run out of supplies.

If you use this field, you must also enter a date and time below so the system knows when the event has passed. Your custom text will override the date and time entered below on the Event page.

Date and time

Add the date and time of your event using the fields in the Date and time section. This is a required field that helps us make sure that dates and times are written the same way across the site. It also tells the CMS when an event will take place, so it knows when to display it as an upcoming event or a past event in the proper sections across the site.

Parent page

The required Parent page field appears on all public-facing content types and it powers the breadcrumb-based navigation system.

The Mass.gov team prepopulated the field based on an analysis of which child pages belong to which parent pages. Each child page can be assigned only 1 parent, or higher level page.

These connections, displayed in the form of breadcrumbs (i.e., links) above the page title, will help Mass.gov visitors find their way to relevant information regardless of where they start on the site.

Participating organizations

Choose 1 or more organizations, linking either to Mass.gov Organization pages or external sites.

Organization(s)

You’ll find the Organization(s) field at the bottom of the first tab in every Mass.gov content type, and in documents. This field tells Mass.gov ’s search which pages belong to which organization. This field also powers the "Offered by" relationship indicator that displays at the top of all Mass.gov pages. ‌ Making sure your Organization field is filled out correctly will help users who land on your content find their way to your Organization Page.

Associated pages

Choose any page or pages where you want your event to appear. You can choose from pages from the following content types:

Advisory
Binder
Decision
Executive Order
Location
News
Organization
Regulation
Rules of Court
Service

Intended audience

This field isn’t being used yet, so there’s no need to fill it in.

Labels

This is optional, however it is very helpful. Add one or more labels to be used to used for grouping and finding related content and documents within the CMS.

Start typing in the label(s) field to choose an existing label from a dropdown menu that will appear or add a new label by entering it directly.

Collections

Optional. Most content will not be in a Collection. Only add content to a collection if the collection creator has approved it. In that case, select any collections, topics, and subtopics for this content.

If you later need to remove a page from a Collection, go back into the page and uncheck the box and select Save.

Learn more about collections.

Details

Rain date

Optional. List rain date if there is one. Say if it’s rain or shine if an outdoor event.

Optional. Creates a sign-up button.

Event image

Optional. Upload an image that relates to the theme of the event. The image should be at least 600 pixels wide.

Fees

Optional. If your event has fees, list them here.

Capacity

Optional. Indicate if your event has a capacity limit.

Description

In the required description section, add a brief summary of what someone who comes to your event should expect

Additional Resources

Add up to 6 Mass.gov or other links.

Downloads

Add related documents or files.

Address

Choose from a menu of:

Unique address
Address from contact information item
No address required

Select “Unique address” if you don’t want to add a Contact Information item for the event site — such as if this is the only time you’ll ever hold an event at this location. The unique address appears below the title.

If you choose “Address from contact information item,” select an existing Contact Information item or create 1 so that you can add it here.

On the published page, the address — and only the address — from the Contact Information you picked will appear below the title. You can also add Contact information in the “Contacts” tab, and the information will appear on the right and at the bottom of the page in a desktop view.

If you choose ”No address required,” no address will appear on the Event page.

Contacts

General contact

Optional. Select the contact(s) or person(s), from an autofill field, that people should use if they have questions about this event.

Agenda

An optional rich text field where you can post a meeting agenda. If you create more than 1 Agenda section, the first will appear on your event as a preview, and Mass.gov will automatically generate another page to fully display your agenda content. The link to the full-page display will appear at the bottom of the section as an inline link:

Minutes

An optional rich text field where you can post your meeting minutes. If you create more than 1 Minutes section, the first will appear on your event as a preview, and Mass.gov will automatically generate another page to fully display your minutes. The link to the full-page display will appear at the bottom of the section as an inline link.

Event listings

Once you’ve begun publishing Events and adding them to your pages, Mass.gov will generate 2 types of Event listing pages. One lists upcoming events and the other lists past events.

People will be able to access these lists from the pages where your events appear. Each page will display the next 2 events (according to the dates you’ve listed). If your page has more than 2 upcoming events or has past events, a “See all events” link appears. The all events page displays all upcoming events as well as a link to all past events.

Note: You can choose to display more than 2 Events on your Organization or Service page by increasing the event quantity to 4, 6, or 8.

If there are upcoming events, these will come up first. To see all past events, select "See past events.” Both the “upcoming” and “past” listing display 10 events per page:

Update past Events

Because Events posts remain on Mass.gov after the actual events have taken place, there are several reasons to consider updating them:

To remove expired web conferencing links
To add a link to a recording, if available
To add meeting minutes

Updating your Events content can satisfy those who attended and want to review information.

It can also serve those who didn’t attend. They might want to catch up on events missed or learn about past events if thinking about attending future ones.