Give Stake the ability to create Events on Ward Calendars

It would be nice if there was a way at a stake level to control what events are seen by members of each ward. For example it may be nice to create an event for each ward conference on the stake calendar, but only show the applicable wards their own events. Also for stakes that have a YSA ward there are many family ward events that don't apply to the YSA and visa versa.

Either let the stake leaders create events on the local ward calendard or provide a mechanism to filter stake calendar events to specific ward members.

I understand why you are requesting these features. But I think the implementation you suggest in your first paragraph would take a great deal of programming when there may be better ways to get events from the stake leadership to particular units. Similar discussions around this issue are found in other threads.

The suggestion in your second paragraph to give access to stake leaders in a unit calendar appears to be a simpler programming method. Adding stake leaders by calling to the list of editors for a unit calendar sounds feasible to me.

Perhaps this could be added to the list of future feature upgrades.
(Note I am only a community member like you and not a church employee working on the development team.)

I agree the second method would be easier, but being a softwre developer myself I don't think the filter method would be all that difficult either, add a single table that represented the units that can see the event, that being said I don't know their code or their database and so my assumptions could be all wrong.

I do not think the Stake should be able to add to Ward Calendars by default. I would suggest giving the ward the ability to add someone from the stake as a calendar admin. This would leave the administration of the calendars in the ward.

I would prefer to see an option for members of the ward and stake leadership to "Suggest Event" to the ward.

I certainly miss the old functionality of the stake "pushing" an event down to selected wards. It was handy for stake assignments to wards such as ward conference, service projects, etc. Also it would be nice for things like ward leadership meetings with the Stake Presidency. That way the event was viewable and editable by the Stake, but the ward could see it without cluttering up the calendar of the other wards.

While it's possible to create a work-around in the new system, it relies on everyone subscribing to right calendar.

I'm not sure what's the best way to implement it. I do think the new system could use some way of setting default subscribers. Right now the onus is completely on the users to carefully select what calendars apply to them. While I support users having ultimate control, I think the default should work better for the average user then it does now.

nbflint wrote:I do not think the Stake should be able to add to Ward Calendars by default.

Neither do I.

nbflint wrote: I would suggest giving the ward the ability to add someone from the stake as a calendar admin. This would leave the administration of the calendars in the ward.

I do not agree with this. Administrators have access to all unit calendars. A stake leader with administrator rights for ward calendars gives unnecessary administration of calendars to the stake. I can envision the control of ward calendars being wrested from the hands of the ward in some stakes. To me a better option is for the ward to create a calendar and then add stake editors by calling. This allows the stake to add events to one or more ward calendars under the control of the ward. Including stake positions in the "by calling" list for editors, IMO, would give the necessary access to push stake events to the wards.

However, giving stake leaders editor rights to ward calendars creates another problem in implementing how a stake leader views those calendars outside their home ward to which they have editor rights. Would it be as simple as adding that calendar to the list of available calendars to subscribe to? How are the calendars with the same name from various stake units differentiated for the stake leader? Making that differentiation in the "Settings > Subscriptions" page as well as on the main calendar page is problematic.

nbflint wrote:I would prefer to see an option for members of the ward and stake leadership to "Suggest Event" to the ward.

This is kin to the "Submit Event" button situation requested in other threads. I agree with the idea of non-editors and stake leaders being able to submit an event. Having a "Submit Event" button or feature for all calendars is not necessary. To me, having the option of turning on or off a "Submit Event" button or feature when creating or editing a calendar would give the flexibility needed. This would solve the issue for members without editor rights to submit private events and for sign-up type calendars. Giving stake leaders ward calendar viewing ability along with the "Submit Event" button or feature is one method for stake leaders to push events to wards.

Currently the problem in giving stake leaders viewing ability of ward calendars is event clutter. There just isn't enough real estate to display all the possible events on one calendar. This can be overcome in much the same way members currently view events at locations. My approach to the event clutter issue would be to modify the "Locations" section of the calendar functionality for stake leaders. A stake leader would have an additional option for the "Locations" pane that could be toggled between location and units. When "location" is selected the calendar would function as it currently does for all members. When "unit" is selected then a list of stake units is displayed. To keep the calendar display simple only one unit at a time would be selectable. The calendar would appear to the stake leader as though they were viewing the calendar from the perspective of a ward member.

RussellHltn wrote:I certainly miss the old functionality of the stake "pushing" an event down to selected wards. It was handy for stake assignments to wards such as ward conference, service projects, etc. Also it would be nice for things like ward leadership meetings with the Stake Presidency. That way the event was viewable and editable by the Stake, but the ward could see it without cluttering up the calendar of the other wards.

I too miss the way v1 allowed you to do this. It may have been a unintentional bug...but it was sure handy!

jdlessley wrote:Administrators have access to all unit calendars.

Am I missing something? A unit admin has access to all calendars of that unit. All members have access to events happening at a location they can see. But I don't think anyone has access to "all unit calendars" within a stake.

RussellHltn wrote:

jdlessley wrote:Administrators have access to all unit calendars.

Am I missing something? A unit admin has access to all calendars of that unit. All members have access to events happening at a location they can see. But I don't think anyone has access to "all unit calendars" within a stake.

I think it's clear in context that jdlessley was simply saying that an administrator for a unit has access to all calendars for that unit. That's not entirely correct (administrators don't have full access to private calendars), but he was not saying that anyone has access to all units in the stake. His very next sentence makes that very clear. Administrator rights for a unit provides calendar editor permissions only for the public calendars in that unit.

we resolved this by adding a stake calendar for each unit in our stake that has ALL unit assignments. This allows leaders in that unit to subscribe to their units stake calendar ans see all the assignments from the stake for that unit. The High Councilor over that unit is one of the editors the stake Exec. and stake clerk also edit those calendars. has worked well for the last year plus we have had the new calendar.

RussellHltn wrote:

jdlessley wrote:Administrators have access to all unit calendars.

Am I missing something?

aebrown's assessment is correct. I was setting up my reason for not giving stake leaders administrator rights for ward calendars. And yes ward administrators only have access to all public calendars.

This sounds like a good solution to me, but I didn't think Stake leaders could see other ward calandars unless that is their home ward.

I know this is probably out of left field, but what about a calendar function that was position based rather than subscription based. Meaning I could have a single calendar for Youth. The Stake and the Ward could share the same calendar. The ward could specify Priest, Laurels, etc, etc and also a location/resource. The stake could specify the same in addition to the ward it belongs to.

This way you can still have subscriptions to many calendars as needed, but your subscription would also be filtered by your position (meaning your calling and your class, ie Elder, HP, RS, Priests, Laurels, et). Leaders of these organizations would see all data and advisors would see just thier class/group.

I know this is a wild idea, but maybe it will spur some other thoughts and ideas that would actually be realistic. I really like the new calendar system but it can become unmanagable quickly if thought it not taken up front to manage it.

I don't see a problem with this myself, but if you want to leave control to the ward then that is fine. Suggest event work. What would be your concern with the stake being able to create events for the ward?