How to add a calendar

You can add as many calendars as you need to better organize events or to use it for different users. Some common reasons to use multiple calendars includes:

  • Create a separate calendar for school vs home
  • Create a calendar for each child in a family or classroom
  • On older devices, having lots of events or custom images in a single calendar may cause the app to perform slowly. Using multiple calendars to reduce the number of events in the calendar can improve the performance in this circumstance.

1

Open the Add Calendar Menu

  Tap on the Add Calendar icon (+) near the top right corner of the app's main screen.
2

Set calendar information

  The Add Calendar screen allows you to set the following attributes of the new calendar:
  • Name to uniquely identify the calendar (required).
  • A photo to personalize the calendar (optional). You can use your camear to take a photo or choose one from your photo library.
  • Enable/disable U.S. holidays (default is enable).
  • Minimum interval for time in events (default is 5 minutes).  Increase or decrease this if you need more or less precision.
  • Start day of each week (default Sunday).
3

Done

  Tap done and the newly created calendar will appear on the app's main screen.


How to add events

1

Open Calendar in Edit Mode

Open the calendar you wish to edit by selecting it from the app's main screen. Tap on 'Edit' in the top right to switch into editing mode.
Related guides: Create a calendar
2

Highlight day for the event

Use the left and right arrows on the top to move the calendar view forward or backward in time until the desired day is in view. Tap on the day where you want to add the event to highlight it. A yellow box will highlight your selection.
3

Add Event

Tap on "Add Event" (or plus sign) to bring up the Add Event dialog. Select an image and adjust the date, time, duration, alarm and repeat fields as desired. Tap "Done" when finished.
Related guides: Creating Repeat Events


How to reorder Calendar events

You can easily change the order of events using the day view of your Calendar.

1

Open Calendar in Edit Mode

Open the calendar you wish to edit by selecting it from the app's main screen. Tap on 'Edit' in the top right to switch into editing mode.
Related guides: Create a calendar
2

Highlight day to reorder

Use the left and right arrows on the top to move the calendar view forward or backward in time until the desired day is in view.

Tap on the day with the events that you want to reorder. A yellow box will highlight your selection.
3

Switch to Day view

Change the view to Day view by tapping the 'Day' button near the top left.
4

Reorder events

Events with a Time value will be ordered by time automatically. To change the order of these events, tap to edit and then adjust their Time field to new value.

For events that do not have a time, drag the gray 'Dragger' on the right side to reorder them.

Note: When reordering a repeat event, changes in order only effect the date on which it was reordered.


How to create a repeating event

You can create events that repeat on specific days of the week between a given start and end date. For example:

  • School on Monday-Friday starting from September 1, 2015 to June 17, 2016.
  • Karate every Saturday starting from April 4, 2015 to May 30, 2015
  • Speech therapy on Monday and Wednesdays starting from June 1, 2015 to August 31, 2015

1

Open Calendar in Edit Mode

Open the calendar you wish to edit by selecting it from the app's main screen. Tap on 'Edit' in the top right to switch into editing mode.
Related guides: Create a calendar
2

Highlight day when the event starts

Use the left and right arrows on the top to move the calendar view forward or backward in time until the desired day is in view. Tap on the day that the repeat event will start to highlight it. A yellow box will highlight your selection.
3

Add Event

Tap on "Add Event" (or plus sign) to bring up the Add Event dialog.
4

Configure event

Select an image and adjust the date, time, duration and alarm fields as desired. Turn the "Repeat" switch to on to make this a repeating event. Tap "Repeat On" to select the day(s) of week that this event occurs. Tap "Ends On" to set the date when the last event occurs. Tap "Done" when finished.
Related guides: Creating Events


How to countdown to an event

You can use the countdown feature to visually count number of days until a future event.  Kids enjoy using this feature when waiting for a highly anticipated event like a birthday, vacation or special occasion. Note: You can not countdown to events that are more than 60 days in the future.

1

Open Countdown Menu

Open the calendar containing the event you want to countdown to by selecting it from the app's main screen. Tap the countdown icon ("1 2 3") near the top right to open the sharing menu.
Related guides: Create a calendar
2

Select an event

From the countdown menu, select the desired event and the countdown will begin. You can pause or stop an in progress downtown using the buttons that appear at the bottom.  


How to print or share a Calendar

Your calendars can be printed or shared with others users or apps by using one of the several sharing options.

1

Open Sharing Menu

Open the calendar you wish to print or share by selecting it from the app's main screen.

Tap on the Sharing icon near the top right to open the sharing menu.

Related guides: Create a calendar
2

Select the appropriate sharing option

Select the sharing option that works for what you need:  
  • Print this view - Use this option to print the current view on the screen to your Airprint-enabled printer.  Refer to Apple's support page to learn how to Print from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
  • Email this view (PDF) - Use this option to generate a PDF of the current view on the screen, which you can then email to yourself or others.  This is useful if you do not have an Airprint-enabled printer or want to share with someone that doesn't have the Choiceworks Calendar app.
  • Share calendar - Use this option to share the Calendar with another Choiceworks Calendar user via email or other apps on your device (like Dropbox).
  • Share calendar using iTunes - Use this option to export the Calendar so that it can be copied to your computer using iTunes File Sharing.  Refer to Apple's support page About File Sharing on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.


How to create custom images and audio

You can use your own images and record your own audio for events in your calendars. These custom images become part of the app's image library so that they are available for use next time you need them.

1

Open the Event Editor

The event editor is displayed whenever you are adding a new event or editing an existing event.
Related guides: Create an event
2

Open Image Chooser

Tap on the image field to bring up the image chooser dialog.
3

Open Image Editor

Tap on the camera icon in the top right to open the image editor.
4

Configure image

Set the image text by tapping on the text box on the top. Select an image by tapping on the camera button. You can taking a new photo a using your camera, choose an existing image from your photo library or use a stock Choicework image. Record a custom audio clip by tapping the red record button. Tap again when finished to stop the recording. The green play button will playback the audio so you can review it. Tap "Save" when finished.


How to backup calendars

It is recommended that you use one of Apple's supported methods for backing up your device. You can also manually backup your calendars for safe keeping in case they are deleted accidentally or your device is lost or damaged.

The method of backup described here uses iTunes File Sharing, which allows you to share files between the Choiceworks Calendar App and your computer by connecting your device to iTunes.

You can also share calendars by email and send them to yourself, which is a convenient way to backup your calendars if:

  • You only have a few calendars you want to backup
  • Do not have access to a computer and iTunes

1

Open Sharing Menu

Open the calendar you wish to backup by selecting it from the app's main screen.

Tap on the Sharing icon near the top right to open the sharing menu.

Tap on the "Share calendar using iTunes" option to generate a backup file. The file will be saved to your device and will be downloaded in the subsequent steps.

Repeat this step for each calendar that you want to backup.

2

Connect your device to iTunes

Connect your device to your computer and launch iTunes.

Select your device in the iTunes. Get help if you can't find it.

Click Apps in the list on the left and scroll down to the bottom to view the "File Sharing" section.

Locate Choiceworks Calendar in the list of apps in the File Sharing list

From here you can select the calendar file that you want to download to your computer. Once copied, you can put them somewhere for safe keeping.

3

Restoring from backup files

If you need to restore any calendars from your backup file, use the File Sharing screen in iTunes (see Step 2 above) to "Add" the file(s) to your device.

Once the files are all transferred to your device, open the Choiceworks Calendar app and launch the "Import Calendars" menu from the settings panel. From here you can tap to import the calendars using the files you just transferred.