Understanding Activity, Calendar, and categories

The short version

Everything Alum+ finds becomes a record. Use the Activity feed to browse and filter every record ever found, and the Calendar to see dated, public events (performances, festivals, initiatives) by month or week. Categories, shown as coloured badges, group records by type, and three of them break down further into subcategories.

What's the difference between Activity and the Calendar?

Activity is your full list of records: everything found for every profile, newest first. The Calendar is a month or week view specifically of the events with a date that you can attend (performances, festivals, and initiatives).

What's in the Activity feed?

Each record is a card showing the date, the artist, a headline, and short summary of the activity. It is also assigned a category, and a link to the source it came from, so you can check anything at a glance. At the top, a running count shows how many records and how many artists match whatever you're currently viewing.

How do I find what I need in Activity?

Activity can hold thousands of records, so the filters are how you get to the ones you want:

• Search: type any word or name. Combine terms with AND or OR, exclude a word with a minus (for example, -tour), or wrap an "exact phrase in quotes".
• Date range: by the event date (last 7 or 30 days, this year, upcoming, a custom range, and so on).
• Category: pick one or more categories, and their subcategories (see below).
• More filters: country, city, venue, organisation, tags, cohort year, instrument, flagged-only, and Added after.

Your filters combine, and the view you build has its own web address, so you can bookmark it or send it to a colleague. You can also export the filtered list, or copy it straight into a spreadsheet.

What does "Added after" do?

Added after shows you only what's new since you last checked.

Most filters look at when an event happened; Added after defines a search window based on the date when a record was added to Alum+ relative to you. Set it to the last time you checked in, and you'll see only the records the system has found since then.

What do the category colours mean?

Every record has a category, shown as a coloured badge. The colour tells you the broad type at a glance:

• Awards: gold
• Career milestones: blue
• Teaching: purple
• Media: pink
• Recordings: teal
• Initiatives: green
• Festivals and performances: grey

Three of these break down further, and you can filter right down to the subcategory:

• Performances: recital, chamber, orchestral, opera, choral, theatre.
• Career milestones: representation (being signed by an agency), orchestra appointment, career-development programme, and other milestones.
• Teaching: a permanent appointment, or a guest engagement.

Why do I see the same calendar event twice?

An event may appear twice in the calendar if it is marked with two categories. For example, an event can be both a Performance and a Milestone if an artist is performing their debut at Carnegie Hall.

While this may look like an error or a duplicate, it's not. Alum+ tracks performance schedules and career milestones separately, so these standout events are categorised under both areas so they are visible (and searchable) wherever you are looking.

What shows up on the Calendar?

Only events you can attend: performances, festivals, and initiatives.

Awards, recordings, teaching, media, and other career milestones aren't events that can be attended, so they stay in Activity. A record also needs a full date (day, month, and year) to appear in the Calendar; anything dated to just a month or a year will only be in Activity.

For upcoming events, Alum+'s research looks two months ahead, so you'll be able to see the next couple of months of confirmed performances rather than a whole season. More will appear as they're announced and found.

If you've added dates of birth to your artist profiles, the Calendar also marks those birthdays with a little birthday cake, so you can reach out with a note on the day.