The first step is to log in to Mercury and select "Create event" on the right sidebar.

Beware of Copy and Paste!

Microsoft Word and some other applications use several characters that do not work well on the Web. Common examples are ampersands (&), angled quotes (single and double) and long dashes (en and em dashes).

For most long fields in Mercury, you can get around the vast majority of these issues by selecting the paste from word button. However, this button is not available for short text fields without an Editor Toolbar (particularly of note: Title, subtitle, summary sentence and any field that might contain a name with apostrophes. If you cut and paste from Word into these fields, you may want to re-type any punctuation from the pasted text as a precaution. Another approach is to put your text into a plain text program first (Notepad for PC or Text Edit for Mac) and copy and paste into Mercury from there.

Create Your Event

Required Fields

Title

• clearly explains what your event or news item is about to a general audience (try to highlight the most important thing about the event).
• is self-explanatory even when not on YOUR website.
• is concise, around eight words, so it doesn’t run over when feeding into other places across various websites.

Canceled or Postponed Event Titles

If an event is canceled or postponed, rather than deleting it from the system, add the word “CANCELED:” or “POSTPONED:” to the beginning of the event "Title". This will prevent broken links and confused users who may be looking for updated event information. Currently, events are never removed from the main Calendar site, so this also helps clarify their status on that website.

Summary Sentence

• Give information that adds to the information already given in the Title, and use only 10 to 12 words at most.
• This will show up on gatech.edu's GT Events Calendar or News feed (if you share with their group).

Summary

This appears in the calendar feed the day your event occurs. Your summary should be one to two sentences in length, and can offer details not found in the Title or Summary Sentence.

You may also use the same copy from the Summary Sentence — these two never show up at the same time. No need to include the date, time, or location here, as they have their own places. Be aware that this does not fill the main body space on the event listing itself; the Body field will do that.

Contact

This is very helpful for your audience if they have questions, especially when your event is shown on OTHER CALENDARS (i.e. not yours). Include a specific name, department, email, and phone number.

Invited Audience

Choose the audience for which this event is intended

Event Category

The goal of these tags is to make your event easier to find on OTHER calendars (especially the very large GT Events Calendar).

There’s a checkbox labeled "Include this event on the Campus Calendar” (within the Categories and Keywords section). Including events on the campus calendar is as simple as checking this box. To exclude them from the campus calendar, leave the box unchecked.

Groups

The calendars where this event will show up. Your group (example: "Office of Awesome") will automatically be chosen. As appropriate, you might also get permissions to share your event or news item with other groups you belong to. This allows you to syndicate the content to other sites. Be sure to check with the managers in that group to clarify whether they want you to do this for their group, as their may be an approval process they would prefer.

Save as...

Choose "Published" or your item stays hidden and will not show up on any calendars or news feeds. Once published, anyone in the Mercury system can find your event and add it to their manual feeds.

The Draft option is there for times when you need to save incomplete work and come back to it later, or to show to others before making it live.

Date/Time

Specify a date/time for your event. Be sure to indicate AM/PM.

MULTI-DAY or REPEATING EVENTS

If your event takes place over more than one day, use the FIRST day as both the From and the To date. Then, use the Repeat options for including the additional days.

 

Optional Fields

Body

You can give a fuller description of the event here. It can have lots of details, such as times, agendas, etc. Multiple paragraphs are allowed.

This section should provide information about the event itself, such as whether it’s part of a series, activities that will take place at the event, or context of why a speaker is relevant to campus. Avoid leaving the Body section blank. If you are copying and pasting text, refer to the “Text” note about using the "Paste from Word" button. Read through your text for duplicate information you’ve already specified, such as the date, time, and location, and delete those pieces. Hyperlink websites in your text (e.g., if your text reads “clough.gatech.edu,” make sure that text is selectable). For longer URLs, hyperlink words to the website so the URL is not messy within the event link (e.g., for a long application link, use the words “Apply online,” and hyperlink those words to the application URL). Be as specific as possible, but know that you can link to other pages for more information (such as agendas, directions, or speaker bios).

Location

This is for physical locations for in-person events. Add the building name on campus in Location and also any link to the building you may have (if the building has a URL with directions, for instance). For online events, use the Related Links field.

Related Links

Use this to link to an online event. This is where you might enter a Zoom meeting link.

Keywords

Begin typing relevant keywords here to see what has already been used. When possible, use the same phrasing, wording, capitalization and spacing as keywords that appear while typing, so that related events can be grouped together. Commas will separate each keyword, so some things may need to be altered to work as keywords (e.g., “School of Literature, Media and Culture” should be entered without commas, or else it will be processed as “School of Literature” and “Media and Culture.”)

Media

Upload an image here, or scroll down in the pop-up window and type in the title of any image or video you have previously uploaded associated with this listing. Results will populate as you begin to type, with media from your group showing towards the top of this list.

File attachments

This is an opportunity to attach files that do not fit into the image or video category, such as a PDF application, guidelines, or reports. However, this requires the user to download a file to be able to view it (unlike photos or videos items), so make sure anything you’re attaching here is worth the user’s time to download. Event flyers are generally better included as images rather than attachments.