The Events module is where staff create, request approval for, and manage school events before they appear on the calendar. It covers everything from a weekly assembly through to a multi-day excursion with catering, AV and facilities requirements.
What an event is
An event in PortalHQ is a single record with a start and end time that lives in a calendar (for example, School Calendar or Sports Calendar). Each event has an event type — a school-defined category such as Excursion, Assembly or Parent Evening — and that event type determines who needs to approve it.
Events can be:
- One-off — a single occurrence on a specific date.
- Recurring — a rule that generates multiple occurrences (e.g. every Wednesday for a term). Individual occurrences can be moved or cancelled without affecting the rest.
- All-day or multi-day — no specific start and end time, or spanning more than one day.
- Personal — visible only to the organiser. Useful for blocking out time without showing up on the school calendar.
- Whole school — mandatory attendance events such as assemblies or liturgies.
The approval lifecycle
Most events go through an approval workflow before they’re published. Every event has a status:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Being prepared. Visible only to the organiser. |
| Pending | Submitted for approval. Approvers can act on it. |
| Approved | All required approval steps complete. Event is on the calendar. |
| Endorsed | Approved, plus additional staff have endorsed their involvement. |
| Declined | Rejected by an approver. Returns to the organiser with feedback. |
| Cancelled | Withdrawn after approval. |
Who approves what is set up by your school administrator. For each event type, an ordered list of approval groups (e.g. Head of Department, Deputy Principal, ICT Coordinator) defines the chain. When the organiser submits the event, the first group receives the request; once they approve, it moves to the next, and so on.
See Configuring event types and approval chains for the admin side of this.
What’s attached to an event
Beyond the basics, an event can pull in:
- Locations — one or more venues with default ICT and maintenance options.
- Catering — meals, dietary requirements and head counts.
- ICT / AV — microphones, projectors, audio, LED walls.
- Maintenance / facilities — table layouts, setup time, room configuration.
- Additional staff — staff members involved, each of whom can endorse their participation.
- Permission slips — parent consent forms for students attending.
Where to start
- Creating your first event: Creating a one-off event.
- Need it to repeat: Creating recurring events.
- Approving requests sent to you: Reviewing and approving event requests.
- Setting up event types, approval chains and locations for your school: the Events Admin section.