Looking for a simple way to create a WordPress community calendar? This step-by-step guide will show you how to build one, without writing a single line of code!
Approximate read time: 8 minutes
Do you know how valuable a WordPress community calendar can be for your organization or local area?
Adding a community calendar is a practical and effective way to manage events, boost engagement, and create a central hub for all your activities. Whether you're running a neighborhood association, a school, a nonprofit, or a business, implementing one on your WordPress site can completely transform how your community stays connected.
That's why I'm going to show you how to create a powerful community calendar in WordPress easily and efficiently using the Formidable Application Builder.
So, let's get started!
What is a community calendar?
Think of a community calendar like a shared digital bulletin board, but interactive and always up-to-date!
It's an engaging way to display upcoming events, allow community members to submit their own activities, and keep everyone informed about what's happening. As new events are added, they automatically appear in an organized, easy-to-browse calendar format.
Here's where community calendars are making a difference:
Local community websites are using them to coordinate neighborhood events, farmers markets, and town meetings. Educational institutions rely on them for managing academic schedules, sports events, and campus activities. Religious organizations organize worship services, small groups, and volunteer opportunities through community calendars. Business associations track networking events and prevent scheduling conflicts, while internal team portals manage company meetings, deadlines, and team gatherings.
They're essential tools for building connection and increasing participation across any organization.
Why create a community calendar in WordPress?
Traditional methods of sharing event information often lead to confusion and missed opportunities.
Building your calendar directly in WordPress creates a centralized information hub. No more scattered announcements across emails, social media, and physical bulletin boards. You can allow community members to submit their own events without giving them access to your admin area, which keeps your site secure while encouraging participation.
With a WordPress community calendar, you get complete customization. You can design your calendar to match your brand and collect exactly the information you need. Unlike third-party platforms, you own all your data and can customize every aspect of the experience. The seamless integration keeps visitors on your site instead of sending them to external calendar services.
Setting up a community calendar typically requires either technical expertise or compromising with limited third-party options. Even then, it might not work exactly as you need.
While various WordPress plugins can help with event management, most require combining several tools to achieve full functionality.
Fortunately, there's a complete solution that handles every aspect of community calendar creation, including a ready-to-use application template.
That solution is the Formidable Application Builder.
How to create a WordPress community calendar
Formidable Forms is the most versatile WordPress form builder available, and when combined with the Application Builder, it becomes a powerful platform for creating custom WordPress applications without code!
Here's how to build your community calendar in six straightforward steps:
- Install and activate Formidable Forms Pro
- Toggle the Visual Views add-on to "On"
- Install the community calendar template
- Customize your event submission form
- Configure your calendar displays
- Publish your community calendar
Step 1: Install and activate Formidable Forms Pro
Formidable Forms is the best WordPress application builder available, especially when you need to build advanced solutions like community calendars.
With Formidable, you can easily create event submission forms, generate dynamic event displays, and build a complete event management system. The Community Event Calendar template does much of the heavy lifting for you, requiring only minor adjustments to fit your specific needs.
Start by purchasing one of the premium plans (Business plan or above) to access the Application Builder functionality.
Step 2: Toggle the Visual Views add-on to "On"
The Visual Views add-on is critical for displaying your calendar in different formats. This powerful feature transforms your form submissions into beautiful, interactive displays — including calendars.
To install and activate Views, go to Formidable → Add-Ons in your WordPress dashboard. Find the Visual Views plugin and click on the corresponding toggle to enable it.
Next, you'll need to access the Application Builder, which organizes your forms and views into a cohesive application that works right out of the box.
To access it, navigate to Formidable → Applications after activating Formidable Forms Pro. The Application Builder dashboard shows your existing applications and available templates. This is where you'll find the Community Calendar template in the next step.
Step 3: Install the community calendar template
The community calendar template provides a pre-built solution that saves you hours of development time. Instead of creating forms and views from scratch, you can use this template as a foundation and customize it to fit your specific needs.
From the Applications page, locate the "Community Calendar" template in the Application Templates section. Click on the template, then select "Install Application." Give your application a name (like "Town Events Calendar") and click "Install Application" again.
The system will now create all the necessary components for your community calendar. These components work together to create a complete event management system:
Community Event Submission Form: This is what your community members will use to submit new events.
Community Event Calendar View: This displays all approved events in an interactive calendar format.
Community Event Submission Calendar Page: This pre-built page has the calendar view already embedded, making it easy to publish your calendar quickly.
Once installation completes, click "Open Application" to begin customizing your calendar!
Step 4: Customize your event submission form
The Community Event Submission form collects all the important information about events from your community members. It comes pre-configured with essential fields, but you can easily customize it to fit your specific needs.
Click on the "Community Event Submission" form to open it in the form builder. Review the default fields that come with the template.
- Event title
- Description
- Start and end dates/times
- Repeating event details (if applicable)
- Location information
- Organizer details
- Event category
- Featured image
The form uses conditional logic to streamline the experience, fields like end date and repetition details will only appear when relevant (e.g., for multi-day or recurring events).
Finally, there's also an event status field that's only visible to administrators. This allows you to review submissions and set them to "Approved" before they appear on the calendar.
Depending on your community's needs, you might want to add additional fields. Consider adding options for event type (in-person, virtual, hybrid), registration links, attendance limits, cost information, or age restrictions.
Adding fields is simple – just drag the desired field type from the left sidebar onto your form. You can rearrange fields by dragging them into a new position.
For more advanced options, explore conditional logic to show or hide fields based on previous selections. For example, you might only display venue information if an event is marked as "in-person," or only show registration fields for events that require sign-up.
Step 5: Configure your calendar displays
Now it's time to customize how your events will appear to visitors. The calendar view is what transforms your event submissions into an interactive, visual calendar that your community can browse.
Return to your application dashboard by going to Formidable → Applications and selecting your community calendar application. You'll see the pre-built calendar view: Community Event Calendar.
Click on the view to customize its appearance and functionality in the Formidable Views editor.
Currently, the calendar boxes only display the event title, but you can modify this in the "Edit Listing Page Content" box to show additional information as needed. For example, you might want to add the event time or location to the calendar cells to give visitors more information at a glance.
Consider customizing your calendar with color-coding for different event categories to make it visually appealing and easier to navigate. You can also determine how much information appears in the calendar cells and customize the pop-up information to highlight the most important details.
To make your calendar even more user-friendly, think about adding filtering capabilities. Date range selectors allow visitors to focus on specific time periods. Category filters help them find events that match their interests. Location filters make it easy to find nearby events, and keyword search functionality lets visitors look for specific topics or organizers!
These filtering options help users quickly find events that interest them most, improving the overall user experience of your community calendar.
Adding Event Detail Popups
One of the most user-friendly features included in the community calendar template is the ability to display event details in a popup when visitors hover over calendar events. This comes pre-configured but can be customized to your needs.
To adjust the popup settings, navigate to the Calendar settings on the left sidebar in the Visual Views editor. Make sure the Show Event Details Popup checkbox is selected, then configure which fields should appear in the popup.
You can choose a field for the pop-up title (typically the event title), select a paragraph field for the description, add an event image as a thumbnail, and display venue or address information. This gives visitors a quick preview of event details without requiring them to navigate away from the calendar view, creating a much smoother user experience.
Step 6: Publish your community calendar
With your calendar configured, it's time to make it accessible to your community. The Application Builder makes this incredibly simple by providing several options for publishing your calendar.
Using the Pre-created Page:
The Community Event Calendar page comes pre-created with your view already embedded, so you can simply publish it without any additional setup. By default, this page is set to draft status, so you'll need to publish it before your visitors can see it.
From your application dashboard, you'll see the Community Event Submission Calendar page listed. To publish it, click on the page name to open it in the WordPress editor, then click the “Private” link next to status and select “Published”.
Embedding the Calendar View or Form on Your Own Pages
If you prefer to place your calendar on a different page, you have several options for embedding both the calendar view and the event submission form.
Option 1: Using the Embed Button
To use the embed button you will first need to delete the view from the existing Community Event Calendar page. From your application dashboard, once that has been deleted, you'll see an "Embed" button next to each form and view. This is the simplest method:
- Click the Embed button next to the Community Event Calendar view or Community Event Submission form
- Choose from three embedding options:
- Select an existing page where you want to embed the component
- Create a new page specifically for this component
- Copy the shortcode to paste manually wherever you need it
For most users, selecting an existing page or creating a new one is the easiest approach. If you choose "Create new page," enter a name for your page (like "Community Calendar" or "Submit an Event"), and click "Create." The Application Builder will automatically create the page with your calendar or form embedded.
Option 2: Using WordPress Blocks
You can also embed the calendar view or form using WordPress blocks while editing any page:
- Edit the page where you want to display your calendar or form
- Add a new block and search for "Formidable"
- Select either the "Formidable Forms" block (for the submission form) or the "Formidable Views" block (for the calendar)
- Choose your form or view from the dropdown menu in the block settings
Option 3: Using Shortcodes
For more advanced users or specific placement needs, you can use shortcodes:
- From your application dashboard, click the Embed button next to your view or form and select “Insert Manually”
- Select "Copy to clipboard" next to the WordPress shortcode
- Paste the shortcode wherever you need it in your page or post content using the WordPress shortcode block.
The shortcode will look something like this for the calendar view: [display-frm-data id=2894]
And like this for the submission form: [formidable id=682]
Creating a Complete Calendar System
For a complete calendar system, you might want to have both a main calendar page (with the monthly calendar view) and an event submission page (with the submission form). This allows visitors to easily browse events and submit their own from separate, dedicated pages.
You can also add links between these pages to create a seamless experience. For example, add a "Submit an Event" button on your calendar page that links to your submission form page.
Once published, your community calendar is ready for use! Your community members can start submitting events, and visitors can browse upcoming activities in a visually appealing, interactive format.
Enhancing your community calendar
Once your basic calendar is operational, there are several ways to enhance it and make it even more valuable for your community.
Set up approval workflows
For public-facing calendars, implementing a moderation system is crucial to maintain quality and prevent spam. You can configure submissions to enter a "draft" status until reviewed, allowing you to review new events before they appear on your calendar. Setting up admin notifications for new submissions ensures you know when there are events waiting for approval.
Alternatively, you can use the built-in filtering system to only display approved events. Navigate to the event calendar view, filter entries so only those set to "Approved" appear, and edit existing entries to set the "Event Status" field to “Approved” when you're ready to publish them.
Add event registration
Take your calendar to the next level by allowing community members to register for events directly through your site. You can create a registration form connected to specific events, set attendance limits to prevent overcrowding, and send confirmation emails to registrants with all the information they need.
This creates a seamless experience for your community and helps event organizers keep track of expected attendance.
Implement notification systems
Keep your community informed with automated communications about events. You can set up event approval notifications to let submitters know when their event has been published, send upcoming event reminders to registered attendees, and create new event alerts for subscribers who want to stay informed about all community activities.
These automated notifications save you time while ensuring everyone has the information they need.
Enable user management
For larger communities, consider implementing user management features. You could allow users to edit their own submitted events after initial submission, create member-only events with restricted visibility for private community gatherings, or implement favoriting or bookmarking functionality so users can keep track of events they're interested in.
The Application Builder makes expanding your calendar's functionality straightforward, as you can add new forms and views to your application as needs arise. This allows your community calendar to grow and evolve with your organization.
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More about the Application Builder
The Formidable Application Builder is what makes creating complex solutions like community calendars accessible without coding.
With the Application Builder, you can create applications from scratch or use one of our 30+ pre-built templates like the community calendar. You can organize related forms and views in one central location, making management simple.
Embedding application components on your WordPress site is easy, and you can update and maintain all parts of your application from one dashboard.
Using the Formidable Application Builder saves you time and eliminates the frustration of trying to piece together different plugins or services to create a functional community calendar! Everything you need is in one place, with a consistent interface and seamless integration between components.
To learn more about the Application Builder's capabilities beyond community calendars, check out our comprehensive Application Builder guide.
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