Date & Time Stamp in event details

It would be nice to have the date and time stamp included in the event details. This would help resolve conflicts around who created an event first.

lmisner wrote:It would be nice to have the date and time stamp included in the event details. This would help resolve conflicts around who created an event first.

I don't disagree that it might be nice to see the date/time when an event was created. But I don't understand how that makes any difference in resolving conflicts. If an event involves actually scheduling the use of buildings or rooms, then the first person to schedule the building will have it actually reserved. If someone comes in later and attempts to schedule the building, they will be unable to schedule the event, because the building belongs to the first event.

But when a conflict needs to be resolved, judgment needs to be exercised that almost always involves factors more important than the date an event was put on the calendar. For example, it really doesn't matter if the deacons scheduled the cultural hall 6 months ago for some basketball practice, if a funeral needs to be held at that same date -- the funeral will appropriately override the basketball. Being able to see the date an event was scheduled might be somewhat helpful, but it's relatively unimportant as a criterion used for resolving conflicts, in my opinion.

I do not disagree with your comments, but sometimes resolving conflicts takes on a life of its own. In my scenario a bishop said he created an event and booked a resource in late 2011. Apparently the building scheduler came along and scheduled an overlapping event for another bishop in the same building and the same rooms. Since the building scheduler has special permission to do this both events co-existed on the calendar. This can probably be attributed to unfamiliarity with the new calendar by the building scheduler or just making an honest mistake. After phones calls and emails from angry bishops I investigated and determined the bishop who scheduled the event in late 2011 probably scheduled first, but only came to this conclusion after taking time to study the calendar rules to understand what may have occurred. One bishop who insisted he was right called Riverton to report the calendar had a bug. The story goes on and on. Having a date/time stamp on the event would have saved a lot of time since both bishops in conflict insisted they scheduled the building first. At the recent LDS Tech Conference one of the calendar developers indicated adding the date/time stamp could easily be done. Others in attendance thought this was a good idea. I hope this can be implemented.

lmisner wrote:created an event and booked a resource in late 2011.

Let me guess - Ward Christmas party. <grin> No doubt that would have caused a lot of anguish.

I presented to the calendar team the idea of including a time stamp in the event details window and there was a mixed reception. Does anyone have any other arguments for or against including this information in the event details?

One complication is that the important date might be the creation date, or it might be the last modified date. For example, if in February a bishop schedules a Christmas party for December 1, that event might be modified in October 1 when more details are known. However, that modification might change the rooms that are reserved, or even change the date, which might be critical factors in resolving a conflict such as the one noted in this thread. Or that modification might simply adjust the description to let people know more about the event.

A simple date when the event was created or last modified is thus insufficient to really answer all the questions people might have. It's somewhat useful, but in some cases you'd really need to have the history of how the event was modified, which becomes a more complex history to store and to present in the UI, and is probably not worth the significant effort. If we can have only one piece of data, the last modified date is probably the most useful -- at least you would know that all the event details as they now stand were set no later than that date.

aebrown wrote:However, that modification might change the rooms that are reserved, or even change the date, which might be critical factors in resolving a conflict such as the one noted in this thread. Or that modification might simply adjust the description to let people know more about the event. [...]

If we can have only one piece of data, the last modified date is probably the most useful -- at least you would know that all the event details as they now stand were set no later than that date.

I agree with "modified" but think we need to define "modified". For the situation that gave rise to this thread, it would be any changes to the "booking" (Date, time, rooms, etc). But that's likely to be confusing to users. But I'm sure there's going to be other situations where someone is going to what to know who changed the name of the event and when.

Would it be possible to have who/when for creation and last modified (any change)? That seems to me to be the most useful. The one problem with the current setup is that if I "touch" the event for any reason (such as moving it to a more appropriate calendar) suddenly makes me the contact point for an event I didn't create.

I think we hashed this a bit during the 2.0 beta. The approach described by RussellHltn is what I would like to see.

Always display the original entry creation information (name,contact info,date/time).
In addition to that information, display who last modified the entry (name,contact info,date/time).

I concur with these last 2 comments. In fact, I consider it a bug that I became the "Contact Name" for an event because I moved it, as an administrator, to a more appropriate calendar.
Case in point, a YM/YW sponsored Talent Night where the whole ward was invited for potluck dinner and entertainment - originally on our YM/YW Combined Activity calendar, but I moved it to the Ward Activity calendar. Anyone seeing it on the calendar after that and wanting to know who to call for details, etc. then gets my info as contact when I don't really know the details of the event.

Showing event creator and if different from creator, last modified is a great idea.
Maybe if it becomes an issue of space/clutter, you add 2 fields only - creation date/time and last modified date/time, with a hover over the last modified to show who modified it.

I too would like the ability to have all the details about who changed an event and when. It would make is so much easier to track down the people to contact.
What we currently do in our stake is that we ask the person putting the item on the calendar to put their name and email in the description when they create the event. If it is a building calendar (where we put wedding receptions, funerals, other special events) I add that information to the description.
This has helped immensly.
However, we have had a few instances that because I moved an event we lost who had actually put it in the calendar in the first place (the reason we now ask for the additional information in the description).

I have included this feedback in a task that I have added to the calendar backlog. Thanks everyone for your feedback and suggestions!