A calendar shows a grid of doors. Each day, one new door opens. Behind the door is a page, often with a game and a prize of the day. Calendars bring people back every day, which makes them one of the best formats for the weeks before Christmas, but they also work for Easter, a summer countdown, a 12-day sale or a festival week.
Calendars are a special format: you need the Special formats add-on, or a plan that includes it. If your plan doesn't have it, you see an upgrade note when you try to add a calendar page.
Set up a Christmas calendar step by step
- Create a campaign from a calendar template, or open a campaign, click Add page under Flow and choose Christmas Calendar, Advent Calendar or Calendar. The page comes with a logo and the calendar.
- Click the calendar. Its settings open in the left panel.
- On the Content tab, check the dates under Period (or, for an advent calendar, the dates of each door under Items). The calendar uses the campaign's time zone. See Every calendar setting explained.
- Choose how many Doors per row to show.
- Decide what is behind the doors:
- One page for every day (simple): under Navigation, choose Next page, Go to page or Link. Every door leads to the same place.
- Different content each day: turn on the Advanced calendar add-on on the Settings tab. Then you build a page for each day with its own game, text and prizes. See The advanced calendar: a different game or prize behind every door.
- Design the doors on the Styles tab: the Calendar look, the Past doors and the Active door (today's door).
- Go through the Settings tab: for example Allow clicking past days if people may open doors they missed.
- Add a form, so you know who played, and set the participation limit, for example Daily.
- Add prizes. See Prizes behind the doors below.
- Test every day in the preview before you publish. See Test your calendar.
- Publish the campaign, with a start date on or before the first door and an end date on or after the last door.
The three calendar types
| Type | Doors | Dates when you add it |
|---|---|---|
| Christmas Calendar | One door per day | 1 to 24 December of the current year |
| Advent Calendar | Four doors, one per advent week | The four advent weeks of the current year. Each door is open for a whole week, from Sunday to Saturday |
| Calendar | One door per day | Today and the next 12 days. Change the Period to anything you like, for example the days before Easter |
The Christmas Calendar and the Calendar work the same way: you set one Period, and Scratcher makes one door per day. You can give a door its own dates with Individual dates on doors.
In the Advent Calendar, you set the Period and a Label for each of the four doors under Items. The label is the text on the door, for example "1" or "1st Sunday".
Good to know: The dates are set for the current year when you add the calendar. If you copy last year's campaign, or a template made last year, change the dates first. Otherwise every door is in the past and nobody can open one.
How the doors open
- Only today's door, the active door, can be opened. The day is counted in the campaign's time zone (Settings > Localization > Timezone), not in the visitor's own time zone.
- Doors for coming days stay shut. Nobody can open them early.
- Past doors stay shut too, unless you turn on Allow clicking past days.
- On the day after the last door, no door can be opened any more.
- The number on a door is the day of the month (for example 1 to 24 in December), or the door's label in an advent calendar. Turn on Hide numbers on doors if your door images already show a number.
Prizes behind the doors
There are three common ways to give out prizes:
- A different prize every day (instant win): with the Advanced calendar add-on, every day has its own page and its own game. Add the day's prize to that day's game. See The advanced calendar.
- One game for all days, with prizes that change: keep one game and give each prize an Active period, for example On campaign day 3. Campaign day 1 is the campaign's start date, so make the start date the same as the first door. See Prize schedules, prize pools and other prize add-ons.
- A daily draw: let everyone who opened today's door take part in a draw, and draw a winner each day. See Draw winners.
If a prize uses discount codes, upload enough codes for every day. A prize can't be won when its codes have run out.
Test your calendar
- Open the preview link: click the link button in the top bar, choose Preview and open the link in a new tab.
- While the calendar page is shown, the preview toolbar has a date list. Today shows the calendar as it looks today. Each date shows the calendar as it will look on that day.
- Click the active door and play the day's game. In the preview you can open any day, so you can check every page before it goes live. Plays in the preview aren't counted in your statistics.
In the quick Preview mode inside the editor, the calendar starts on the first door.
In the editor, you can also turn on Preview on the Past doors and Active door style tabs to see how those doors look while you design them.
Good to know: Test on a phone too. If Only show active doors on mobile is on, phones only show today's door.
Follow up during the campaign
- Send a daily reminder email with a recurring schedule. See Send emails to players.
- With the advanced calendar, the campaign's Dashboard shows Calendar completion: how many visitors opened each door.
- If something doesn't work as expected, see Calendar problems and how to fix them.