10 Common Roadblocks & How to Solve Them
Have you ever wondered what questions other customers are asking? Wonder no more! We’ve rounded up some of the most asked 'roadblock' questions and how you can solve them below.
Want to check out Part 2? You can check it out here!
Scenario: A user is unable to log-in or change their password.
Solution: If you are using your organization's Single-Sign-On or social accounts, passwords must be reset at the account source and cannot be reset in Localist.
Scenario: A user was unable to add an event via the Public Event Submission Form.
Solution: We recommend double checking that you’re completing the required fields when adding an event, which are 1) Event Name, 2) Description, 3) Start Date, and 4) Custom Fields (that are specific to your organization and may be made required). If any of these fields are blank in the Submission Form you will not be able to add an event.
Scenario: An Event Editor or Event Author is unable to see an event in their Pending Queue
Solution: Start by reviewing the admin's Permissions. If the admin account has a Filter, Group, and/or Department specified in the Allowed section, then they’ll only have permission to moderate events that are assigned to at least one of those items. If the event(s) in question do not have at least one assigned then they will not see the events in their queue.
Scenario: The number of events uploading via a bulk CSV does not match the number of events in my CSV.
Solution: There’s two things that could be happening here:
- If the title and place name combination match another event, it will combine the two into a recurring event. For example, if you have 1 event with 10 instances and those instances are spread across 10 lines of your CSV (one line per date) then Localist will combine these into 1 recurring event. Since the total number shown after uploading reflects the number of events and not instances, this recurring event will count as 1 event towards the total and not 10. If you do not want this to happen, you’ll have to add an “External ID” or alter the title of your event to be unique.
- Past events will not import from a bulk add by default. If you have past events in your CSV, make sure to check off Import Past Events on the bulk add page in the Admin Dash before uploading.
Scenario: A Feed did not import past events.
Solution: Past events are not included in Feed imports. You can only import Feeds with future events into Localist, so if this is a newly added Feed then it will remain as "pending" until a future event is present.
Scenario: There are duplicate events on the platform after re-adding a Feed.
Solution: If a Feed is deleted and then re-added, our parser will recognize it as a completely new Feed with unique events. In this case, you should expect to see duplicates because there’s no way for our system to match up existing events to the new ones. In the same vein, events from a Feed will not be automatically removed from the platform when you delete the corresponding Feed—you’ll have to manually delete these events in Localist.
Scenario: An event is not appearing in a Widget or Channel.
Solution: If an event isn’t appearing in a Widget or Channel we recommend asking yourself the following questions:
- Is Classification assigned? → Widgets & Channels use your events’ Classification (Filters, Places, Groups & Departments, Tags & Keywords) to display content, so you'll need to double check that the appropriate Classification is assigned to events.
- Does the event fall within the set date range? → In both the Widget builder and Channel Layout Editor, you have to specify a date range to pull in events. So just make sure that the event you're looking for is within this date range. Otherwise you'll have to increase the date range or wait until the event is within the current date range.
- Does the event fall within the max number of events? → Again, you have to set a max number of events in the Widget builder and Channel Layout Editor. If the Widget or Channel has already hit the max, you'll either have to increase it or wait for other events to pass first.
Scenario: The header/footer of the platform is broken.
Solution: This is due to stylesheet, JavaScript and/or image URLs no longer being available at the URL included in the Theme Editor. To prevent this moving forward, all URLs included in your head/header/footer HTML should always be static. When using static URLs, any future changes to the URLs won't break the header/footer appearance on your Localist platform (since it will be referencing static files, rather than not being able to update when a URL changes).
Scenario: An event flagged as "Featured" is not displaying in the carousel.
Solution: This may be due to caching! Once you’ve marked an event as Featured, it can take up to 10 minutes for it to display in the carousel. That said, if the event is still not displaying then start by making sure you selected the appropriate Featured carousel from the drop down—a platform can have multiple! If the carousel selection is correct then keep in mind that while you can flag an infinite number of events as Featured, only 10 of those events will display in the carousel at any given time. If you've already hit this limit, you'll have to wait until the next upcoming event is in the past for another one to automatically enter the carousel.
Scenario: The number displaying next to a Filter does not match the total amount of events assigned to the Filter.
Solution: The number that is displayed in parenthesis next to Filters corresponds directly to your platform’s Default Date Range. This dictates the time range and amount of events that will be displayed upon selecting a Filter. For example, say you have a total of 50 “Athletics” events on your platform, but only 25 of them are set to take place in the current month. If your Default Date Range is set to “This Month”, the number in parenthesis will be 25.