title: “The gallery schedule”

This guide covers the Event Manager module. If your gallery has not switched it on (the Owner does that in Settings → Extensions), this page will not match what you see — skip it for now.

The gallery schedule

For gallery staff. Schedule in the left-hand menu is the gallery’s calendar: the openings, talks, meetings and shows you put on, and the desk rota that keeps the gallery open. This guide covers the calendar entries themselves: making one, what each field does, who sees it, and how to change or remove it.

The rota — the shifts, who is on them, requests, holds, coverage and reminders — has its own guide: The gallery rota. Your members’ side of both is Calendar, for member artists.

Before you start

Schedule is an extension, listed as Event Manager. If there is no Schedule in your left-hand menu, the Owner or an Admin turns it on: Settings → Extensions → the Event Manager card → Enable. Anybody else sees Ask the owner to enable this extension. on that card.

Who can do what once it is on:

• See Schedule. The Owner and Admins always. Anybody else needs the Event Manager tick box, set in Settings → Organization → Users. A Calendar Manager also sees it, for the rota only.
• Add and change entries. An Editor, an Admin or the Owner, or a Show manager who also holds the Event Manager tick box.
• Set an entry to repeat. Anybody who can add entries, including a Show manager with Event Manager.
• Delete entries, build shifts, and change or cancel a repeating series. An Editor, an Admin or the Owner. A Show manager cannot.
• A Calendar Manager runs the rota: Roster, requests, holds and attendance, deleting future shifts (Delete on a shift row, Delete selected, and Remove a date range), and building gallery shift months: Gallery Shifts, and on a gallery shift month the Schedule wizard, Bulk import, + Add shift, Edit and Duplicate on each shift, and Publish to members. On an exhibition, opening, talk or meeting they see Roster and Delete only, and they never see + New calendar entry or the entry’s own Edit and Delete. A shift that has already started is never deleted by a Calendar Manager. Each person sees only the buttons their role can use.

The Schedule screen

Schedule in the left-hand menu. The heading reads Schedule, and two buttons sit beside it:

• + New calendar entry — an opening, a talk, a meeting or a show. This guide.
• Gallery Shifts — a month of desk shifts. See Making next month’s shifts.

Below them is one card per calendar entry. Each card shows the entry’s name, its status (draft, published or closed), its address if it has one, and either how many shifts it has and how many people are signed up, or No shifts required. A ↻ beside the name means the entry is one of a repeating series.

Only entries that have not ended are shown. Tick Show past entries to see the rest. If nothing is coming up, the screen says Nothing coming up and offers Create an event.

To see shifts and nothing else, tick Gallery shifts only at the top of the screen. Meetings, openings, talks and shows disappear from both the cards and the month calendar, leaving only the desk shifts. The tick stays on, even after you sign out and back in, until you untick it. It is remembered for you on this computer only: anyone else who signs in here still sees everything, and on another computer you start with everything showing.

Below the cards is the month calendar with the rota. That part is described in Finding the rota.

Adding an opening, a talk, a meeting or a show

1. Schedule → + New calendar entry.
2. Pick the Type: Exhibition / Show, Meeting or Reception. The type sets two sensible defaults for you, described below; you can change either.
3. Type a Name, or leave it blank and the entry takes the name of its type.
4. Fill in the dates, times, place and description (see The fields).
5. Choose a Status. Leave it at Draft until you are ready for people to see it.
6. Press Create event. You land on the entry’s own page, and the screen says Event created.

Gallery Shift is not one of the types here. A month of desk shifts is made with the Gallery Shifts button instead.

A meeting held online

A Meeting has a Location choice, In person (the default) or Online:

1. Schedule → + New calendar entry (or open the meeting and edit it) → Type: Meeting.
2. Set Location to Online. The address box is replaced by a Meeting details box.
3. Paste the join link, the dial-in number or the passcode, one per line if you like, then press Create event (or Save).

Any web address you paste (starting http:// or https://) becomes a link that opens in a new tab, on the meeting’s own page and on the member calendar (sign in to the member area → Calendar in the sidebar). Nothing else you type is turned into a link.

The details are for signed-in members of your gallery only. They never appear on your public website or in the public calendar feed, even if you tick Show on the public website calendar for the meeting. Choosing In person again clears the details, and choosing Online clears the address. A repeating meeting carries its location to every occurrence, and Change all future can change it from one date onward.

What the type decides, until you say otherwise:

Once you tick or untick either box yourself, changing the type does not undo your choice.

The fields

• Event date and End date. The day the event happens, and its last day for something that runs over several days. An entry cannot be published without an Event date; the form warns you before you save: Give this event a date before publishing — an undated event won’t appear on the public calendar.
• Start time and End time. Optional. On a one-day event the end must be after the start.
• Location (address). Included in calendar invites. Press Verify to check it against an address list and Pick the closest match: from what comes back, or keep what you typed.
• Description. What the event is. It shows on the entry’s page, and on the website if the entry is public.
• Show on the public website calendar. See Who sees an entry.
• No shifts required. Tick it for an entry nobody needs to staff: a talk you are only announcing, a board meeting. It switches the rota off for that entry, so its page has no shift builder and there is nothing for anybody to sign up for. Leave it unticked when the entry needs helpers — somebody pouring the wine at a reception.
• Status. Draft, Published or Closed.
• Go-live date and Go-live time. Publish a draft automatically. Leave the entry as Draft, set the date, and optionally the time in your gallery’s timezone (blank means midnight). The entry goes live at that moment with nothing more to press.
• Show AI engagement signals to members and calendar managers. Adds badges such as Going fast, Help needed and Popular to each shift, and a short AI-written line about how sign-ups are going. Members see them on the entry in the member portal under Calendar; calendar managers see them on the entry’s page under Schedule (Editor and above, or the Calendar Manager role or tick box). They are never shown on the public sign-up page, which only says when a shift is full or down to its last spot.

If the entry already has shifts and its Event date is not the date of its first shift, the form points this out and offers Use the shift date. Keep your own date if you meant it — an opening night the evening before the helpers’ shifts, say.

Who sees an entry

Three places can show an entry, and each has its own rule.

Your members’ Calendar, in the member portal, shows every entry that is Published, and a draft once its go-live moment has passed. It does not matter whether the website box is ticked: a staff-only reception still appears for members. It is a month calendar: a member picks a date and that day’s shifts, classes and other entries (meetings, exhibitions, receptions) show in the panel beside it. Drafts and Closed entries are not shown.

Your Studio website’s Calendar page shows an entry only when all three are true: it is Published, Show on the public website calendar is ticked, and it has an Event date. Visitors see it on its day in the Month view, and when they click that day it is in the day panel with its type, time, place and description; they can add it to their own calendar from there, and it is in the feed that Subscribe to calendar offers. The website’s assistant can answer questions about it too. A gallery shift never appears there, whatever its settings. The page is called Calendar on your website. See Calendar, and your exhibitions.

A public sign-up link lets anybody who has it sign up to help on an entry’s shifts — useful for a reception that needs extra pairs of hands from outside the membership. When an entry other than a gallery shift is Published and needs shifts, its page shows Public sign-up link: with a Copy button. An entry marked No shifts required has no link, because there is nothing to sign up for; gallery shifts never have one, because the desk is members-only work. The link is on your gallery’s own web address once it is verified (Settings → Organization → Domain says your site is live there); without one, or while it is still being verified, it uses your cartoncrew.online address.

On the public sign-up page, a shift that has already ended shows This shift has ended with no box to tick, and a sign-up for it is refused. “Ended” is judged by your gallery’s own time zone (from Settings), so a shift later today can still be taken until its end time.

So a quick way to choose:

An entry’s page

Click its card on Schedule. The page shows the name and status, the address, the description, and under them a line about how people reach it: the Public sign-up link:, or when it goes live, or Set status to Published (or a go-live date in Edit) to get a public sign-up link. A gallery-shift entry says Members sign up for these shifts in the member portal. There is no public link. instead.

← Back to events returns you to Schedule.

To change an entry: Edit → change the fields → Save changes. The screen says Event updated.

To mark an entry as needing no shifts later: tick No shifts required in Edit. If it still has shifts this is refused until you delete or move them. To switch the rota back on, press Change beside No shifts required for this entry. on its page.

Helpers for an event. An entry that needs shifts has a Schedule (… shifts) card. + Add shift adds one: a Date (required), optional Start time and End time, a Capacity (blank means unlimited), a Label, and Open for sign-ups. Roster on a shift is where you put people on it. Everything about rostering, and the Schedule wizard and Bulk import for many shifts at once, is in The gallery rota. On a gallery shift month, a split day can take a different number of people in each block (one person until 2:30pm, two after), both in the wizard and for a month already made with People per shift by time; see Different numbers of people in each block.

Finding today in a long month. When an entry’s shifts include today’s date, the page opens already scrolled to the first shift on that day. That row is tinted and carries a Today marker. To get back to it after scrolling, press Jump to today at the top of the Schedule (… shifts) card: the row scrolls into view and keyboard focus moves to it. If there is no shift today, the button takes you to the next upcoming shift, marked Next. “Today” is the date in your gallery’s time zone, whatever your computer is set to. When every shift in the entry is in the past, or every one is still to come, there is no button. If your device is set to reduce motion, the page jumps instead of scrolling smoothly.

If your gallery has AI turned on, the page also shows Sign-up milestones and AI risk analysis cards for the shifts. Both say on the card that their output is AI guidance.

Repeating meetings

A board meeting on the first Tuesday of every month does not need typing in twelve times. Of the types on + New calendar entry, only a Meeting repeats; exhibitions and receptions are single things with their own dates.

1. Schedule → + New calendar entry → Type: Meeting.
2. Give it its first Event date. A Repeats section appears under it.
3. Choose Repeat: Weekly, Every N weeks, Monthly, on the same date or Monthly, on the same weekday.
4. Choose when it Ends: After a number of entries (at most 120) or On a date (at most 12 months ahead).
5. The form says how many entries will be made and the first and last dates. The button now reads Create 12 entries, or however many it is.

Every entry in the series is a real entry with its own page. On any of them:

• Edit this one and Delete this one change only that date.
• Change all future changes this entry and every later one. Entries you have edited on their own are left alone and listed, unless you tick Also change entries that were edited individually.
• Cancel from here removes this entry and every later one nobody has signed up for. A later one that has sign-ups is kept and listed.

A meeting that does not repeat yet says Does not repeat. on its page, with Repeat… beside it.

The same entries under Exhibitions & Shows

If your gallery also has Exhibitions & Shows, its page has an Events card listing these same entries, with a + New event button and a Staffing link on each that opens the entry’s page here. An entry added there starts with the website box ticked. To change an entry’s details, use Edit on its page under Schedule, which shows every field as it is saved.

Deleting an entry

1. Open the entry → Delete (or Delete this one in a series).
2. Confirm the question that names the entry.
3. If anybody is signed up to its shifts, a second box asks you to type a word to confirm. A restore point of the month is kept first, so it can be put back — see Putting a month back. Keep it backs out.
4. In that box, Email the N people signed up that it is cancelled is ticked, with N the number of people signed up. Leave it ticked and each of them is emailed that their shift is cancelled. Untick it to delete quietly, for example a test entry or one made by mistake: nobody is emailed, and the restore point is still kept.

The screen says Event deleted, with how many cancellation emails went out (none when the box was unticked).

When it goes wrong

• Insufficient permissions when you press + New calendar entry, Edit or Delete — your role cannot do that. See Before you start.
• Give this event a date before publishing it — an undated event cannot appear on the public calendar. — set an Event date, or save it as Draft.
• The end time must be after the start time. — on a one-day event the End time is earlier than the Start time.
• Gallery shifts are internal: they are for members and staff, and cannot be shown on the public website. — a gallery shift can never be public.
• This entry still has 3 shifts. Delete or move them in the Schedule list below before marking it as needing no shifts. — delete or move the shifts first, then tick No shifts required.
• Fix the repeat before saving, or set it to “Does not repeat”. — the repeat settings are not valid yet; the line under Repeats says why.
• The entry was created, but could not be set to repeat: followed by a reason — the meeting exists; open it and use Repeat….
• Address verification isn’t set up yet. — Verify is not available for your gallery; the address you typed is kept as it is.
• An entry is not on the website. Check all three: Published, the website box ticked, and an Event date.
• An entry has disappeared from Schedule. It has ended. Tick Show past entries.
• Members cannot see an entry. It is a Draft or Closed. Publish it, or set a Go-live date.