Looking for the latest release notes? View release notes for the calendar tool.
The calendar tool allows users to view events by day, week, month, or year. You can view and organize upcoming and past events into categories.
You can access the calendar from the Tools panel on the My Institution tab, My Blackboard, within a course, and on the Administrator Panel. The primary calendar appears by default and shows a user these items:
- All of their personal entries
- Entries for all courses they are enrolled in
- Entries for any organizations they are enrolled in
- Institution-wide events
More on how students use the calendar
More on how instructors use the calendar
Calendar availability
To learn how to make the calendar tool available in courses and organizations, see Manage Tools.
Course items with due dates
When instructors create graded items, such as tests or assignments, in the course with due dates, the calendar event automatically appears on the course calendar for that day. Similarly, the course calendar shows events that have been created within the calendar interface, such as lectures or meetings. Non-graded items created outside of the calendar interface, such as tasks, do not automatically appear as events in the course calendar.
For calendar events associated to content items, all adaptive release and availability rules are handled, ensuring that the release of an item is in synch with the calendar.
Calendar events from SCORM and SafeAssign items with due dates do not appear on the calendar unless the latest version of these is installed.
Date/time and language packs
The calendar supports Gregorian and Hijri calendars. There are now four calendar display modes:
- Gregorian Only
- Gregorian-formatted with Hijri date conversion in parentheses
- Hijri only
- Hijri-formatted with Gregorian date conversion in parentheses
You can set a default behavior for the system, but users can individually change their calendars to appear in any of the settings above, regardless of the system default setting.
Gregorian calendar
For Gregorian calendars, based on the current language pack, the calendar reflects appropriate date order (month followed by day or day followed by month) and time format (12 hour or 24 hour format).
Your institution can use the institution calendar to publish events based on lunar dates. The rendering will be on the Gregorian (solar) calendar.
Hijri calendar
The Hijri calendar is an Islamic lunar calendar. Like the Gregorian (Western) calendar, there are seven days in a week and twelve months in a year. However, it is a lunar calendar based on lunar observations for the start of a month, and the year numbering is based on Islamic tradition rather than the Gregorian calendar's Christian tradition. Due to dependence on lunar observation, there are various algorithms for determining the start of each month. The implementation of the Hijri calendar in Blackboard Learn is the Umm al-Qura calendar which is based on astronomical calculations and primarily used for administrative purposes in Saudi Arabia, although it is also the preferred algorithm of various Islamic societies and organizations in North America and Europe.
Language packs
Different global regions have different calendar conventions, including which day displays as the first day of the week. The calendar displays the most common convention for the first day of the week based on a user's selected language. You can change your language in the user profile. Administrators can customize the first day of the week for their language pack if they choose.
Calendar and Windows with IIS
If you are using IIS with Windows, ensure that you do not have the WebDav Publishing role enabled in IIS. It does not allow HTTP verbs such as PUT/DELETE and responds with 405 (Method not found). This will prevent drag and drop and event update from working in the new Calendar.
Remove the WebDAV publishing role service
- In the My Computer menu, select Manage.
- Select Server Manager and select Roles, Web Server (IIS), Role Services, and Remove Role Services.
- Select Role Services, Web Server, Common HTTP Services, and clear WebDAV Publishing.
- Select Next.
- Restart the server. This is required.
Manage the institution calendar
Administrators manage institution events through the institution calendar. Upcoming and past events can be viewed daily, weekly, or monthly. An event posted to the institution calendar displays in all calendars system-wide. On the Administrator Panel in the Tools and Utilities section, select Calendar.
| If you want to | Select |
|---|---|
| Create an event and add it to the calendar | Create Institution Event |
| View events for a specific date and time | Jump To to access the calendar's Quick Jump menu. From here, select a date and time and the calendar will immediately display events for that time. |
| View events by day, week, or month | The appropriate link on the top right of the page to view events for the current day, current week, current month, or current year |
| View previous or future events | The arrows to the left of the current day, week, month, or year. Select the arrows to the right to view future events. |
| View event details | A calendar event |
| Modify an event | Edit in the event's menu |
| Delete an event | Delete in the event's menu. This action is irreversible. |
Individual users can set the first day of their week in month and week views.
Create or edit a calendar event
The Add Calendar Event or Edit Calendar Event pages contain the same options and function in similar ways. The Add Calendar Event page opens with empty boxes while the Edit Calendar Event page opens with the boxes populated with information.
- On the Administrator Panel in the Tool and Utilities section, select Calendar.
- Select Create Institution Event or select Edit in the menu for an event. The following table describes the available options.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Event Information | |
| Event Name | Provide the title of the event. |
| Event Description | Provide a description of the event. |
| Event Time | |
| Event Date | Provide the date of the event or select the icon to select a date from the calendar interface. |
| Event Start Time | Provide the time the event will begin or select the icon to select the time from the clock interface. |
| Event End Time | Provide the time the event will end or select the icon to select the time from the clock interface. |
Recurring events
Optionally, make events repeat by selecting the Repeat check box. Additional options appear that allow you to create multiple events based on a repeating pattern.
Repeating event options
| Repeat Options | Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Supported |
|---|---|
| Daily | End after X number of times or on a particular date. |
| Weekly Repeat | Day of the week supported. End after X number of times or on a particular date. |
| Monthly Repeat | Day of the month (1-31) or day of week (first Sunday, second Monday) supported. End after X number of times or on a particular date. |
| Bulk Add (Series) | You can create a series using the Repeat Options. |
| Bulk Delete (Series) | You can delete the entire series created using Repeat Options. |
| Edit an Instance | You can edit an instance of the series. If date/time of the instance is changed, that particular instance has a "broken" icon to indicate that it no longer conforms with the original series rules.
Changing the name or description of an instance DOES NOT break the instance from the series. |
| Editing Series (Known Limitation) | At this time, you can't edit the series. After you create a series, you can bulk delete or make changes to individual instances. |
