Events
Events puts your church calendar in the app — dates, times, locations, descriptions, and images — so your congregation always knows what's happening and when. Members can browse upcoming events, view full details, share events with friends, and add events to their personal calendar with one tap.
How it works
Events typically sync from your church management system (Rock RMS or Planning Center) into Apollos. Once synced:
- The app lists events sorted by start date — the soonest event first.
- Events disappear from the app automatically after they end. There's no manual cleanup.
- If an event is tagged with a campus, only members assigned to that campus see it. Events with no campus tag are visible to everyone.
Each event can include a title, a rich description, a location, start and end times (or an all-day flag), a cover image, and additional attached content blocks.
Synced Planning Center events can include registration buttons when a registration URL is available. If a registration page times out, Apollos preserves the existing event and tries again on a later sync instead of removing it.
When an event is visible
An event must meet all of these conditions to appear in the app:
| Condition | What it means |
|---|---|
| It's active | The event hasn't been deactivated. |
| Its publish date has passed (or isn't set) | The event has been "released" for members to see. |
| Its expire date is in the future (or isn't set) | The event hasn't been manually hidden. |
| Its end time is in the future | The event hasn't already ended. |
Add to calendar
When a member taps Add to Calendar on an event, their phone opens the event in their default calendar app (Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Outlook, etc.) with the title, date and time, location, and description filled in.
Sharing
Every event has a shareable link. When a member shares an event on social media or in a text, the recipient sees a preview card with the event name and summary.
Target an event to a campus
For multi-campus churches, tag events with a campus so each location sees its own calendar (a men's breakfast at Downtown, a women's retreat at Westside):
- Tag the event with the campus in your church management system; the tag syncs with the event.
- Members with that campus set in their profile see the event; members at other campuses don't.
- Leave the campus tag off any event that's churchwide.
Troubleshooting
What do members see on an event page on our website?
An event opened from your website shows the same core details as the app: date and time, location, the event's attached content, an add-to-calendar link, and a share option. See Website embeds for how to put event content on your site.
Why isn't an event showing in the app?
This is the most common question. Work through the visibility conditions in order:
- Has the event already ended? Events hide automatically after their end time. If it should still be visible, extend the end time.
- Is the publish date in the future? The event isn't released yet — move the publish date into the past or remove it.
- Is the expire date in the past? The event has been manually hidden — move the expire date into the future or remove it.
- Is the event active? Reactivate it if it was deactivated.
- Is it tagged with a different campus than the member viewing? Campus-tagged events only show to members of that campus.
Why isn't "Add to Calendar" working?
- Does the event have valid start and end times? Calendar files can't be generated without both. Make sure neither is missing.
- If the dates are set and downloads still fail across events, your app's link configuration may need attention — contact Apollos support.
Why are members seeing events from other campuses?
- Does the event have a campus tag? Untagged events show to everyone — add the campus tag if it should be campus-specific.
- Does the member have a campus set in their profile? Without one, campus filtering can't apply. They can set it in the app's profile settings, or you can set it in your church management system.
Why is the event image missing or broken?
- Was a cover image assigned? If not, add one in your church management system.
- Open the image's source URL directly. If it errors, the image file was moved or deleted from wherever it's hosted — re-upload it.
Why isn't an event syncing from Rock or Planning Center?
- Check your integration credentials — expired credentials stop the sync silently. See Integrations troubleshooting.
- Confirm the sync is running — it may have been paused or hit an error. Contact Apollos support if you suspect this.
- Look for duplicates or skipped events — these usually point to a record-matching problem between systems; contact Apollos support with the event name and the ID from your ChMS. Planning Center registration timeouts no longer remove existing events, so a missing event after the next successful sync is worth reporting.
Why does the event show the wrong date or time?
- Check the date and time in your church management system — if it's wrong at the source, fix it there and let the sync update the app.
- For Planning Center registration events, ignore non-date page text. Apollos skips extra page labels like availability links when parsing event dates, so those labels should not break sync.
- Off by a consistent number of hours? That points to a timezone issue in the sync. Contact Apollos support with the event name and the expected vs. displayed time.