Smarter Advent Calendar help and support

To use the Smarter Advent Calendar SPFx web part, the app must be added to the app catalog of your tenant. Learn how to request and install apps from the SharePoint Store. After that, you can add the app to your site collection via Add an app. Learn how to add apps to a website.

Now the Smarter Advent Calendar SPFx web part can be added to any SharePoint page.

Admins (editors) of the Smarter Advent Calendar can manage content for doors and start raffles. To do this, the administrators (editors) must first be selected and authorized from groups and/or users in the web part settings. This gives them access to edit mode, test mode, raffle, necessary SharePoint lists, and settings.

As with the admins, you can also enter the names of the groups/users who should be able to participate in the advent calendar raffle. Participants can open doors and thus receive one ticket per door for the drawing of the prize (see below).

If an administrator switches to edit mode via the switch in the upper menu, the interface of the advent calendar changes and a pencil symbol appears in each of the 24 doors. By clicking on the pencil icon, the displayed content can be adjusted when the doors are opened.

In the Link text box, you can insert a URL to various content, for example:

• SharePoint Images – For images, use the link to the original image. To do this, open the image and click ‘View Original’ in the top control bar. Note that the participants must be authorized to access this file.
• SharePoint Videos – For videos, use the link from ‘Copy link’ Note that the participants must be authorized to access this file. Also, note that the top control bar is displayed here in the overlay dialog, and participants can navigate and edit depending on their permissions.
• Forms Quiz – For surveys and quizzes, use the link to the desired Microsoft Forms form.
• Youtube Videos – For Youtube videos, use the link for embedded videos.

In the Rich Text field Text, you can use the Rich Text Editor to add Rich Text with images, tables, and links.

Users with Participants permissions can interact with the Smarter Advent Calendar SPFx web part and open doors. As with a real advent calendar, they can only open the door of the current day in December. In addition, it is also possible to open doors of the previous days. Each opened door is equal to one ticket for the raffle, i.e. the more boxes a participant opens, the higher their chances of winning.

If an administrator (editor) switches to test mode with the switch at the top of the menu, they can test the display of the content dialogs at any time when opening the doors. If doors are clicked on in test mode, no entries are generated in the participant list (lots).

When you install the Smarter Advent Calendar SPFx web part, 2 SharePoint lists are created.

• Advent Calendar Contents: Here you configure the contents of the 24 doors that will be displayed in the dialogs.
• Advent Calendar Participants: Users and the door numbers they clicked on are stored here. This list is used to determine the winners.

If an administrator switches to raffle mode via the switch in the upper left corner (Winners Drawing), the raffle interface is displayed. The raffle can be started by clicking on Santa Claus.

Any number of X winners can be entered here. After clicking the button, X winners will be drawn from all previous participant entries (lots) and presented face down on small cards. The name of the winners is revealed only by clicking on the cards. You can use it to pick winners every day, every week, or just once towards the end after Christmas. We added interactivity to the cards so that you can either broadcast the draw via Teams or record it to increase the excitement of the participants.

In the area below the advent calendar, all previous winners including the raffle date are displayed.

Starting with the PRO version, you can upload your own background image for the advent calendar here. The resolution here is ideally 1200 x 660 pixels in Full HD.

Also only in the PRO version, it is possible to customize the text below the calendar.

If you need help or more information about Smarter Advent Calendar, please contact us or write an email to support@smarterbusiness.at.