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How to create a Holiday Calendar in Actimo πŸŽ„πŸŽ…πŸ»
How to create a Holiday Calendar in Actimo πŸŽ„πŸŽ…πŸ»

In this article we will share how to build a Holiday Calendar in Actimo.

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Written by Heidi Larsen
Updated over a week ago

Want to boost activation in the run up to the holidays? Why not try setting up a holiday calendar? This is a fantastic way to engage your contacts and has proven to be a fun and easy way to boost activation.

We have created some cool Holiday Calendar graphical designs with and without gif animation - easy for you to download and start building your Holiday Calendar.

Let's get started!

In this guide we will build a 24 day Christmas Calendar. This is the most advanced type of holiday calendar, but you can of course create a holiday calendar with exactly how many hatches you want - 24 days, all weekdays in december, 1 per week etc. It is all up to you!

You will need to create a frontpage for the whole calendar, and a landing page for each day.

Follow these four steps below to create your calendar in Actimo:

Step 1:
Create a landing page for the Holiday Calendar Frontpage

The first thing that you need to do is to create a landing page with a grid for the whole calendar.

  • Create a message and add a grid module with 3 tiles per row and add 24 tiles

  • Create a graphic to use as a background for the entire grid that includes a tile for each day. Please note the following dimensions:

    • 24 tiles: 600 x 1600 px

    • 4 tiles: 600 x 600 px

  • Upload the graphic as a background Image for the entire grid. You can include numbers on each tile in the background image itself, or exclude them and add the numbers as titles in the grid instead.

  • If you have uploaded a background image with no numbers, name the tiles β€œ8”, β€œ14”, β€œ1” etc. until you have named all 24 tiles:

  • Click save

Add a grid module with 3 tiles per row and add 24 tiles, and upload background image for the module:

Examples of 24 day calendar design - incl. header image (the header image is added as a separate image module above the grid module):

Examples of 4 day calendar design:

Step 2:
Prepare the daily messages

The three key steps to creating the daily messages for the holiday calendar in are:

2.1 Create a landing page for each day – Prepare the messages for each day

2.2 Disable deeplinking – Ensure deeplinking is disabled on each daily message to prevent access before the scheduled date

2.3 Schedule the publish of the daily messages – Set the messages to be published on their specific dates, so they unlock automatically for your employees

2.1 Create a landing page for each day

Create a message and add content for each day of the calendar.

The idea is to keep the content light and fun, but you can also make it informative.

Here are some ideas for content:

  • Involve colleagues/management

    • Greetings from management, departments, locations etc.

    • Dress someone well known up as Santa - guess who it is

    • Videoclip with colleagues saying "Merry Christmas" - count the number of "Merry Christmas"

  • Christmas music & movies

    • Co-create the Christmas music playlist for the Christmas Party

    • Co-create Top 10 list of Christmas movies

    • Quizzes about Christmas music and movies

    • 24 day Christmas music quiz - play a bit of a song and answer a question

  • Christmas jokes & riddles

    • Tell funny Christmas jokes

    • Ask funny Christmas riddles (add the question on page 1 and the answer on page 2)

  • National days

    • December 13th - Sct. Lucy's Day - quiz about Sct. Lucy's day or share image of Sct. Lucy's celebration on social

    • Third Friday in December - National Ugly Sweater Day - share selfie with ugly Christmas Sweater on social

  • Quizzes in general

    • Company themed

    • News themed (published in app during the last year)

    • Holiday themed

    • Locally themed

    • Common trivia

    • Christmas music & movies

  • Share on social

    • Tik tok challenges

    • Social wall Holiday Greeting

    • Build a snowman

    • Share your favorite Christmas recipe

    • What is the worst Christmas gift you have ever received

  • Christmas treasure hunt

    • Find the hidden Christmas tree πŸŽ„, Santa πŸŽ…πŸ» etc.

Holiday Calendar content tips & tricks

  • Create fun and engaging content

  • Use images/gifs/emojis

  • Activate social feature (likes & comments) om messages

  • Use social wall

  • Use points and quizzes and reward with prizes

    • Weekly draw and/or find an overall winner of the Holiday Calendar

2.2 Disable deeplinking on each daily message

Ensure deeplinking is disabled on each message to prevent access before the scheduled date.

  • Navigate to the daily message

  • Navigate to the Publish page of the message

  • Open 'Advanced Settings'

  • Tick on 'Disable deeplinking'

Open advanced publish settings and tick in "Disable deeplinking"

​Disabling deeplinking ensures the message won't be accessible before the scheduled date. If an employee clicks on one of the tiles linked from the landing page (the guidelines on how to link each message to the tiles are below in the article), and the message isn't yet available, they will see a 'No access. You don't have access to this page' message.


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2.3 Schedule the daily messages

It’s important to note that the daily messages needs to be unlocked each day. You can unlock the daily messages automatically by scheduling the publish in advance for the specific dates.

  • Navigate to the daily message

  • Navigate to the Publish page of the message

  • Add the contacts to whom the message should be published

  • Scroll down and select 'Schedule For Later'

  • Set the message to be published on the specific date it should become available to the contacts

  • Leave the notification methods unticked

  • Click on 'Schedule for Later' > 'Confirm'

  • The content will be queued and published on the specified date - and as soon as the message is published, then it is accessable for the contacts


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Step 3:
Create the navigation from the Holiday Calendar frontpage to the daily messages

Now that the Holiday Calendar front page and the daily messages are set up, we can connect it all together.

  • Navigate to Holiday Calendar landingpage

  • Edit the Grid Module

  • Find the tile for the first day of the calendar (if you have chosen a background image that includes numbers, you will need to count the tiles from left to right to find the correct tile).

  • Click on the tool icon

  • Add an action

  • Select Go to Message

  • Select the message for specific date

  • Repeat for all the tiles

  • Click Save

Congratulations! You have now set up your holiday calendar πŸŽ„πŸŽ…πŸ»πŸŽ‰

Graphical design for your Holiday Calendar

We have created some cool graphical designs for your holiday calendar - easy to download and add to your calendar.

Content for your Holiday Calendar

We know that it takes a lot of resources to build a Holiday Calendar - but we don't think that this should stop you from creating a fun and engaging Holiday Calendar for your employees.

Find inspiration for Holiday Calendar content in the pdf below ‡️ or in our "Holiday Calendar Content" article here.

You can also find inspiration for content in the handout from our Holiday Special Training Webinar in November 7th 2024 ‡️

Merry Christmas πŸŽ„πŸŽ…πŸ»πŸ’«

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