viewing other ward calendars

Hi, as a stake leader, I am not able to view other ward calendars in our stake besides that of my own ward. I'm seen the previous threads/posts describing how one might view availability of a building via a building calendar. However, we are needing to see what activities different wards may have planned in order to coordinate stake activities. With the "classic" calendars we were able to simply navigate to each ward's homepage and view their calendars. Why are we not able to do the same with the new calendar system? Shouldn't stake leaders have the ability to view all ward calendars in order to know what activities are taking place in the stake?

This has been discussed multiple times. See these threads:

• Can you access another ward's calendar in the stake?
• Stake leaders viewing ward calendars
• Viewing other ward calendars via the new calendar system (this is one that you started)
• Need an Adminstrator View
• Access to all Ward/Branch calendars within Stake by Stake/District
• This post
• Viewing ward calendars as a stake administrator (this is another one that you started)

Yes, thank you for pulling up my previous posts. I guess I should simply go back to those and see if there is a solution yet, rather than continuing to ask the same question and getting the same answer that there is no solution. Why would we create a calendar system that does not allow stake leaders to view all calendars? The methods described of relying on "building calendars" are not workable or reliable solutions as not all ward/stake activities occur at/in ward buildings. If we need to adjust a stake event due to circumstances changing, we are not able to deconflict with the wards because we are not able to view their calendars. True, we can make calls, send emails and hope that the hard-copy calendars wards turned into the stake back in January have not changed. But this is not efficient, realistic and defeats the purpose of being a "stake administrator..." I continue to ask this question because it continues to be a problem...and there continues to not be a solution. Maybe we should encourage all our units to return to the classic calender system which allows stake leaders to view ward calendars. thank you.

colbyj wrote:Why would we create a calendar system that does not allow stake leaders to view all calendars?

It's a question of priorities. No one is saying that stake leaders should not be able to view ward calendars. In fact, we have been told that such a feature is planned.

As I see it, the current calendar provides 90% of the functionality that 90% of the units need. For the remaining useful functionality, we'll just have to be patient while the Church prioritizes work for its limited development resources. In the meantime, I find the new Calendar to be very usable, in spite of a few hassles such as the one you are discussing in this thread.

colbyj wrote:Maybe we should encourage all our units to return to the classic calender system which allows stake leaders to view ward calendars. thank you.

I would strongly advise against that. The last we heard, the classic calendar would be in service through 2011. We are living on borrowed time in that regard. I know that the hardware that hosts the current Classic site takes extra time and money to keep running, so the Church really wants to discontinue it. It could be discontinued at any time. There's no future in going back to the Classic calendar.

ok, thank you.

colbyj wrote: Maybe we should encourage all our units to return to the classic calender system which allows stake leaders to view ward calendars. thank you.

Or, think of other options like this suggestion in the help files:

If wards need to increase the visibility of their calendars to share the calendars across wards, they should create the calendars as stake calendars. (You can edit your calendar's settings by going to Settings > Calendars). This way every ward in the stake can view the calendar.

kisaac wrote:Or, think of other options like this suggestion in the help files:

That's a very ugly suggestion if applied to every ward calendar in the stake. I'm pretty sure it was meant to apply only to a few exceptional calendars (such as when two wards share a Cub Scout program). If every ward calendar became a stake calendar, you'd lose the ability to set editor permissions by calling, and calendar administration would be a nightmare. But if stake visibility into ward calendars is the most important thing in the world to you, I suppose you might be willing to endure that pain.

aebrown wrote:But if stake visibility into ward calendars is the most important thing in the world to you, I suppose you might be willing to endure that pain.

I'm not sure every stake member would be able to endure such pain!

The calendar is constantly an issue for our Stake as well. We meet at the Stake Center, and have no way, as a ward to reserve rooms/building, because it is controlled by the Stake Executive Secretary/Clerks. We should be able to setup reservations without the requirement of going through the Stake Executive Secretary each time. He's a great Brother, however, it's just one more layer of red tape, and makes the process that much more cumbersome. Apparently, in Ward Buildings, Ward leaders can do this on their own, so it makes sense that Ward leaders assigned to a Stake Center should be able to do the same. At least at that point, we would be able to see most/some of the activities that are going on across the Stake. At the moment, they get double booked all of the time, and we run into issues monthly.

jrobertfisher wrote:We meet at the Stake Center, and have no way, as a ward to reserve rooms/building, because it is controlled by the Stake Executive Secretary/Clerks.

What exactly do you mean by a "reservation"? Ward leaders should be able to schedule events on their own calendar. Are they not able to "book" the rooms and locations at the same time?

The word "Reservation" has specific meaning in the new calendar system - and many misunderstand it. Reservations are not done for events, but for units.

jrobertfisher wrote:\We should be able to setup reservations without the requirement of going through the Stake Executive Secretary each time.

It sounds like you are not using the full capabilities of the calendar if you are "going through" an individual to schedule your stake center building. Stakes have the option to allow or not allow building scheduling on a "per building" basis. They could allow some buildings to be scheduled by calendar users, or all buildings, or no buildings. It's entirely possible that your stake allows wards in other buildings to schedule online, but have not allowed the stake center to be scheduled on-line. It's also possible that the building is able to be scheduled, but the stake (having the Exec sec. or clerk acting as a building scheduler) has placed "reservations" over some or all of the resources, also eliminating the ability for anyone not specifically allowed to schedule time, allowing them more control. As suggested earlier, note the difference in the help files and training videos between scheduling events and making reservations.

It could also be your stake leaders way of dealing with areas they didn't want to allow to be scheduled, such as the High Council room, Baptismal font, etc., so they just haven't yet allowed online scheduling.

I am checking back to see if there is a way for stake leaders to view ward calendars across the stake via lds.org. With the old system, it was fairly simple to click on a given ward and then be able to view that ward's calendar. The new system only permits you to view your home ward, along with stake calendar(s)...but not navigate to other ward calendars. Even as a stake administrator (stake clerk), I am not able to access other ward calendars. This makes it difficult for stake leaders to view different ward activities posted on ward calendars.

any solution?
thank you,

There is no change since you started this thread.

thank you... is there any plan at all, or some work-around solution perhaps? Has anyone found a way around this? What is the hangup in not creating a way for all members of a stake to view other ward calendars within the stake? I understand not allowing just anyone to edit a given calendar, but not having the ability to view our different ward calendars creates problems for stake leaders, rather than helping. Any idea if this is in the works? thank you

[Moderator note: The new posts on this topic have now been merged back into the current thread on this topic -- starting a new thread just splits up the discussion and is not productive. If you want this thread to get new attention, please post to it, instead of starting a new thread on the exact same topic.]

colbyj wrote:is there any plan at all, or some work-around solution perhaps? Has anyone found a way around this?

For many purposes, you can follow the advice in the thread Can you access another ward's calendar in the stake?, and view the events at a location using Week view. I certainly understand that this doesn't give you everything you want, but it's the best workaround at this point.

colbyj wrote:What is the hangup in not creating a way for all members of a stake to view other ward calendars within the stake?

I don't see why you assume there is some sort of "hangup"; this feature is not yet implemented. There are many requests, and far fewer developers than can implement every requested feature. So there has to be some prioritization, and this request has not risen to the top of the priority list.

colbyj wrote: I understand not allowing just anyone to edit a given calendar, but not having the ability to view our different ward calendars creates problems for stake leaders, rather than helping.

To my knowledge, no one has ever said or implied that the lack of a feature for stake leaders to view ward calendars was intended to "help"; rather, it is simply a feature that has not yet been implemented.

colbyj wrote:Any idea if this is in the works?

When you previously asked this question, I directed you here and here to look at this post, which shows that the feature is indeed on the backlog. You might reasonably be curious about the priority of the feature request (which I have no idea about, nor does anyone outside the developers and product managers), but the question of whether it is on the backlog has been asked and answered.

I understand not allowing just anyone to edit a given calendar, but not having the ability to view our different ward calendars creates problems for stake leaders, rather than helping.

The over-riding philosophy from the development team was that Wards have complained in the past that they couldn't do some functions because the 'stake' hadn't done their part, so the developers chose to support a ward-centric view of their solutions, rather than a stake-centric view - to the extent that in many cases stakes are unable to view/add/access online apps at the ward level.

I'm posting my comment here that this is a serious flaw in the calendar implementation in the hopes that doing so may help affect prioritization of an enhancement.

Ktwitchell001 wrote:I'm posting my comment here that this is a serious flaw in the calendar implementation in the hopes that doing so may help affect prioritization of an enhancement.

Posting here will likely have minimal to no effect on prioritization, IMO. If it is a serious enough of an issue, you are much more likely to get the prioritization changed if you can convince your local Priesthood leaders who hold keys (e.g. Bishop and/or Stake President) to raise the issue as a serious one with the Area Authority. Not too many "serious flaws" warrant that kind of attention from Priesthood leaders, though. If you feel like you would be bothering them with it, then it probably means it isn't that critical.

Ktwitchell001 wrote:I'm posting my comment here that this is a serious flaw in the calendar implementation in the hopes that doing so may help affect prioritization of an enhancement.

Note that you can already see when other units are using a building. So you're going to have to come up with a argument that you need to see the actual activities.

And as others have noted, the best way is to have the stake president take it up with the area authority.