Sharing Events Across WordPress Sites

[JB Woodruff]

I have a client that has multiple program sites in a WordPress multi-site installation. They would like to be able to share events across the many sites. My initial reaction was that this isn’t possible as each site is segmented, but said I’d reach out to your team to get a definitive answer.

Your clarification on the matter would be helpful.

Regards,

JB

[JB Woodruff]

[Stephen Harris]

You’re right, each site is segmented. The WordPress multsite feature is what powers WordPress.com, which each network site is someone’s blog. So you should think of each site as potentially sites which are maintained by completely independent entities.

There are ways round this.

There are plug-ins which set up network syncs, so posts (for example) are synced across all sites from the ‘main site’. In this sense the main site “broadcasts” to all other remaining sites. It’s unlikely, though, that such plug-ins will work with all plug-ins without perhaps a little configuration and/or bespoke code. Additionally, the event/post then appears on your network multiple times, and this may not be desirable.

Secondly you can do the reverse, and get the main site to ‘tune-in’ to each network site. This is fairly easy for Event Organiser – simply ensure each network site has enabled its iCal feed, and use the iCal sync extension to pull in all of the events. There are drawbacks to this. iCal is fairly limited in the data supports. As above, your event/post will appear on your network twice: on the source and target site.

Lastly, you can write a bit of code to switch_to_blog( x ) and pull out the events. This only really works if you have one network site with all the events, and you just want to link to them from other sites. This can be expensive, but caching can be really helpful here. Expiring the cache is a little more tricky, you may want to ensure the cache expires after the first event starts (if displaying “upcoming events”). The advantage here is that you have one “true” event page, which your network sites link to.

[JB Woodruff]

Thanks Stephen. I’ll have to look into these options and see what makes sense for them.

Regards,

JB

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