How to Create an Event and Invite Your Employees

To access the Planner, start by clicking on the Planner option at the top of the Thrive CMS.

If the Planner option is not present in your CMS, please email your Thrive Client Success Manager, and ask them enable Planner for your organisation.

When you open the Planner, you'll land on a view of 'this week' in the calendar. Just like any other calendar app, you can press the arrows on either side of the date to jump a week back or forward.

To add a new event, you can either press the + icon below the date on which you want to schedule your event, or you can press the blue Add New Event button at top-right and then choose your event date on the next screen:

A new screen will now appear where you can enter the details of your event, choose from some event settings (as explained below), and choose who to invite to the event.

Below you will see an example of a completed event invite screen. We'll use this example to explain each of the options and settings available to you for your event:

Starting with the Event Details:

Event Name: This field is required. This will show up in the event summary shown to the invitees before they open the event to see the full description. Like the example above, you want this to be as descriptive as possible.

Date: If you pressed the + icon below a particular date in the calendar view, this will be pre-filled. Otherwise if you pressed the blue Add New Event button, you'll need to use the date picker to choose the date for this event.

Time: 'All Day Event' is OFF by default. You can select this if your event is all day. Otherwise you will need to enter the start and end times of your event. Times should be entered in 24 hour format like the example above.

Note: It is not currently possible to create an 'overnight' or multi-day event. 

Location: Enter the location of the event, this will be displayed to the user in the invite and in the event details when they view the upcoming event in their in-app Planner.

Description: Enter a description of the event and give as much detail as possible.

Now you can select some event options:

Approval Required: This is off by default, but if you enable this option, even if the invited employee RSVPs to say they wish to attend, you will still need to verify their attendance by 'accepting' them in the Planner.

Allow Custom Time Response: Enabling this option allows the invited user to choose how long they're going to come to the event. As per the example above, the overtime shift is available from 6pm-11pm. With this option enabled, when the user RSVPs; they can choose the hours that they can attend. So if for example someone wants to work the overtime shift but they're only available from 6pm-9pm for example, this allows them to do that. And you will have a record of that in the Event report which you can export from the Planner in the Thrive CMS.

Maximum Capacity: Enabling this option allows you to define a maximum capacity for your event. RSVP will be first-come-first-served and when your event reaches RSVP capacity other invited users will see a message saying that they can no longer respond as the event is full.

Allow Attendee Response Updates: This option IS on by default. This allows employees who have RSVP'd to say 'Yes' to change their mind and no longer attend. If an employee changes their mind, and you have a maximum capacity set, it will free-up a slot in the event for another invitee to accept.

Finally, choose who to invite

You can either multi-select individual users to invite, or invite entire user groups.

You will see two separate search fields, to search for individual users or user groups. Please note that if you wish to invite everyone in your organisation, you would need to have a user group that contains all of your employees. If you don't currently have such a user group, please reach out to support@thrive.app and our support team will easily be able to create that 'all employees' user group on your behalf.

As per above, when you're searching for a user or a user group, to invite them simply press the + icon beside their name.

Now when you're satisfied that you've got everything set, press the Save Event button at the bottom of your invite. You'll be brought back to the calendar view and you'll see your event there:

The invited users will receive both a Push and in-app Notification to let them know that they have been invited to a new event:

From the calendar view in the CMS Planner, you can manage your event, see who's attending and export a report showing who has RSVP'd. We'll go into more detail on those options in the next Help Centre article here.