Display of events

• Choice of four display types: a monthly calendar, a table (list) of all details about events, a one column list, and a two column list. You can choose which type of display should appear to your web site visitors first. Visitors can change the display if they want to.
• Sorting. The table view can easily be sorted by event name, by date, by contact person, by event location, or by category. 
• Click for details. Monthly calendars display the short name for events on the proper day or days. This short name is itself a clickable link to all the details you've entered for that event such as starting time, location, contact person, etc.
• Multi-day events. Events that span more than one day appear on monthly calendars in italics to distinguish them.
• Today's date. Today's date appears highlighted on monthly calendars. It's easy for your web visitors to see what's happening today.  
• Intelligent display. Monthly calendars display the month and day of the previous month's last few days and the next month's first few days. If these days have events, they appear on the calendar.
• Printed calendars. Monthly calendars always have a link to a "printable" version of the month. The printable version is a very clean calendar format designed to look good when printed on non-color printers. If you have a color printer, you can make exceedingly attractive printouts of the regular monthly displays as well. 
• Many "filter" options. Visitors can select the month they want to see. Or they can choose to see "All upcoming events" or "Next 30 days' events" or "All events regardless of date."
• Searching. Visitors can search for events containing a specified word or phrase. Advanced search capabilities include combining text searches with date ranges for precise selection of desired events.
• Browser compatibility. Calendars are perfectly readable in any browser, any version. Newer browsers (version 4.x and up) do a better job of layout and spacing than older ones, but they are not necessary for visitors to see and read your event calendars.

 
Entry of events

• Automatic conversion of URLs and email addresses into clickable links when entered.
• Flexible entry options. Need to add a series of events to your calendar that differ only by a detail? It's a very common thing. No problem. DATES! allows you to edit an event, save it, then make another edit, save it as a different event, edit it again, save it as a different event, and so on.
• Search for the events you need to edit. Know that you or somebody in your organization entered an event about "deadlines" but can't remember who or what? Just search for events containing the word "deadline" and find the event you need to review or edit. Your web site visitors can do the same (but on a read-only basis, of course).
• Entry logs. DATES! logs the date and time that events were entered into its database. It even records the login ID of the person who made the entry. You will see this information every time you yourself log in to the Hardy Systems web site. If you work at a large organization where different people enter and edit events, you can easily find out who entered what and when. This feature alone is worth the price of admission!
• Powerful sorting. When you enter and edit events, you can sort any table view of events by the usual fields: event name, start date, contact person, etc., just like your web site visitors can But as an event editor, you can also sort by event number, which is a unique key assigned to every event. You can also sort by the login ID of the person who entered the event. Find what you need, when you need it.  
• Punctuation checking. You may forget whether you always add a punctuating period after event descriptions and other entries, or never add one, or what. It doesn't matter: DATES! examines each item before display and makes an intelligent guess about the best ending punctuation--adding what's needed, omitting what's not.

 
Calendar management and maintenance

• Customize it. You have your choice of customized colors, headers, footers, and event categories. You (but not your web site visitors) can change any of these yourself at any time by logging in to the same DATES! page that you log in to enter and edit events.  
• Match it. Headers and footers can contain images, HTML, hypertext links, etc. If you normally put a standard set of links or graphics on every page, you can put them on all your DATES! calendar pages as well. It's easy to match your DATES! calendars with your own web page standards and styles. 
• Delegate it. You can authorize other people in your organization to enter and edit events. These individuals will not, however, be able to change your calendar's colors, headers, footers, or categories. 
• Frame it. DATES! calendars can be put into "frames." If you use frames for things like menus or tables of contents, this feature allows your DATES! calendars to mesh perfectly with those same menus and tables of contents. (Check with your webmaster if you don't know what "frames" are. Hardy Systems will work with your webmaster to fully integrate DATES! calendars into your own web site's frames. Normally this integration only has to be done once. Integration with frames has no effect on the way you enter or edit events.)
• Categorize it. You can define up to 100 different categories for events, with each category name up to 36 characters long.
• Re-use it. At any time, you can log in to the DATES! home page and obtain a copy of all your events in a machine-readable format that you can use any way you like. They're your events: if you want to incorporate them into some other software or system, go right ahead. If you ever decide to cancel your service, Hardy Systems understands and expects that you will want first to obtain this listing of your event data for your own subsequent use. (For the benefit of your technical staff: the machine-readable listing is in comma-delimited format, with a heading row. Internal quotation marks are doubled.)
• Forget about it. DATES! software runs on a commercial web hosting service, not on your own computers or web server. This means that you do not install any software. You do not maintain any software. You do not have to upgrade any software. You do not have to depend on any technical personnel to help you with software. You enter the events you want to enter, when you want to enter them, into a simple online form. DATES! takes care of turning those events into beautiful and useful web calendars.