Recurring Events Main Module

Introduction

The main module offers the basic building blocks to build a recurring events management system, and the APIs and integrations enable developers and site builders to extend and enhance the core functionality.

Module Hierarchy

• recurring_events is the main/core module which contains all the base functionality for the module.
• recurring_events_registration is a submodule which enables registrations.
• recurring_events_views is a submodule which replaces all entity lists with views for flexibility.
• recurring_events_reminders is a submodule (of the registration submodule) which allows for reminders to be sent to event registrants.
• group_recurring_events_reminders is a submodule which adds Group functionality to event series entities.

Data Modelling Concepts

There are several data models relating to the Recurring Events module.

1. Event Series

   The eventseries custom entity type is used as a wrapper around a series of event instances. The eventseries entity holds all the data necessary to build out and schedule event instances on particular dates at set times. The eventseries entity also contains the title, and description for all the events in the series (unless they are overridden - see below).

2. Event Instances

   The eventinstance custom entity type represents a single event occurrence. For every date/time that an event takes place on, there will be an associated eventinstance. This makes querying, calendar display and list displays much simpler as they are single entities - we do not have to do any special display-time logic to generate instances on the fly. Out-of-the-box, the eventinstance entity type is very basic - the date/time can be changed, and an additional description can be appended to the series description. The title, and main description, are inherited directly from the eventseries.

3. Event Series and Event Instance Types

   The module ships with a single bundle, called default, for series and instances, and new bundles, or event types, can be created. Types can only be created for eventseries but when they are an equivalent type is created for the eventinstance entity. If the recurring_events_registration submodule is enabled, creating an eventseries type will also create an equivalent registrant type.

Adding Events

When creating an event, what is really happening is an eventseries entity is being created which will then automatically generate the associated eventinstance entities for each occurrence. There is no way to create an eventinstance outside of an eventseries entity. If more dates need to be added, then the eventseries will need to be modified, or an eventinstance will need to be cloned.

Creating an eventseries involves choosing what type of recurrence the event will have. There are 3 options.

1. Consecutive Event

   A consecutive event is an event that takes place multiple times during a day. Events are given a duration and an optional buffer between events. An example would be parent-teacher conferences at a school, where one teacher will see multiple parents in one day for 20 minutes, and have a 10-minute break between conferences. In this example, there would be an eventinstance every 30 minutes, lasting 20-minutes with a 10-minute break afterward. 

2. Daily Event

   A daily event is an event that takes place once per day. It is the equivalent of a weekly event which recurs every single day of the week. 

3. Weekly Event

   A weekly event is an event that recurs based on the day of the week, every week. For example, if you wanted to run a Toddler Story Time every Monday at 10am, you would set that up as a weekly event recurring on Mondays. With a weekly event you are asked to select a date range, between which the events will take place. This means that all Mondays between two particular dates will have an eventinstance created for this event. You will also enter a start time of the event, and an event duration. The system will then create event instances on every occurrence of the weekdays you specify, between the date range, starting at the time you specify and lasting for as long as the duration set. To achieve an every day or daily event, a user could create a weekly event that recurs on every day of the week.

4. Monthly Event

   A monthly recurring event is one which recurs on a monthly basis, as opposed to weekly. There are 2 types of monthly recurring event.

   1. Weekday Occurrence

      You can choose for an event to take place on the first, second, third, fourth or last weekday of a month. As an example you can have an event take place every first and third Monday and Friday of every month.

   2. Day of Month Occurrence

      You can alternatively choose for an event to take place on a specific day of the month, for example the 6th of every month, or the last day of every month.

      Note: If the day of the month selected does not actually occur in any given month then no event will be scheduled that month. As an example, if you choose to run an event on the 31st of every month between January 1st and September 30th of a particular year, then no events would be scheduled in February, April, June or September because those months do not have a 31st day.

5. Custom Dates

   A custom dates eventseries allows a user to create one or more eventinstance entities without a repeatable or structured recurrence pattern. Despite what the name may suggest, there can multiple occurrences of a custom dates eventseries. The difference between a custom dates eventseries and any other type of recurring event is that the dates and times are individual and do not recur. So, the event could take place at noon on a Wednesday in June, then a 10am on a Monday in August. There is no structure to how and when the events take place.

   When creating a custom dates eventseries you will be asked to specify a date and time for each individual occurrence of the event.

Modifying and Deleting Events

Providing a user has the appropriate permissions to do so, events can be modified or deleted after they have been created. When modifying an event, a warning will be displayed to show that any changes made to date configurations or recurring types will cause all eventinstance entities in that eventseries to be deleted, and recreated. All other changes are non-breaking changes and will not result in any instances being removed. eventinstance entities inherit their title, and description from the eventseries, so any changes made to those fields will cascade down to all eventinstances in the eventseries.

Deleting an eventseries will also remove all the eventinstance entities in that eventseries. This action cannot be undone.

Modifying and Deleting Event Instances

Individual eventinstance entities can be modified or deleted providing the user has the appropriate permissions to do so. When modifying an eventinstance, no changes will be made upstream to the eventseries or the other eventinstance entities in the series. This way an individual occurrence of an event can be moved to a different day (in case of a booking conflict, or public holiday/close day for example) or a different time to the rest of the events in that series. Equally, an individual occurrence can be removed without affecting any of the other instances in that series.

Note: If an eventinstance is removed, and then the eventseries is modified, the removed eventinstance may be recreated if the date recurrence configuration gets changed.

Field Inheritance from Series to Instance

The recurring_events module has one contrib-space dependency for the core module, which is the field_inheritance module which facilitates inheriting field data from an eventseries into an eventinstance.

There are two fields which are automatically inherited from the eventseries down to the eventinstance. All fields created using the Field API may be inherited, providing there is a Field Inheritance Plugin written for that particular field type.

Below are the field inheritance fields that come out-of-the-box with the module.

Publishing Workflow and Revisions

Out-of-the-box the module supports Drupal core content moderation and workflow modules, although the module does not depend on those modules being enabled. Both eventseries and eventinstance entities support revisioning.

Revisioning and Content Moderation do play a conceptually interesting role when it comes to eventseries entities due to the way that eventinstance entities are automatically created, or recreated. If an event series is already published, and has a number of eventinstance entities associated with it, then if a user creates a new draft of the eventseries and that draft contains data recurrence configuration changes, then we must not recreate any eventinstances until that revision is published. The module handles this concept as part of its core offering.

Hooks, extensibility and APIs

All eventseries and eventinstance entities are compatible with the Drupal core translation API.

The recurring_events module exposes its own hooks to use to modify core functionality. These hooks are defined in recurring_events.api.php. Custom modules can be written to modify, or enhance the core functionality of recurring_events by making use of these hooks.

The recurring_events module also has a number of Field Inheritance plugins written to handle core fields, and custom plugins can be creared providing they implement the FieldInheritance annotation and extend the FieldInheritancePluginBase class. The core plugins are defined in src/Plugin/FieldInheritance.

Dependencies

This module only relies on the following two core modules, and one contrib module being enabled:

• drupal:datetime_range
• drupal:options
• field_inheritance:field_inheritance

Similar Modules

The closest comparison would be the smart_date module, which adds a field type which allows RRule compliant date recurrence configuration to be added. While that module does a really great job, this module approaches things differently. With smart_date, a content editor would have a single entity with a recurrence field that builds instances of that event. With recurring_events, eventinstances are separate entities completely, and therefore can be overridden or extended, without affecting the rest of the series. This module also comes with a registration submodule, including the ability to register either for an entire series, or individual events. Using smart_date that would not be possible as there is only one entity.