Reservation Issue - Rooms in use are able to be double booked

Hi, I am experiencing a challenge with the Reservation window. In a previous posting it was said "And you can't have more then one reservation for the same time for the same resource." On my reservation window you can. I had reserved the entire building for Ward A from 6 - 9 pm on a given date. I just received a reservation request for one of the rooms in the building by a member of the stake (we'll call it Group B), for the same time and date that Ward A has reserved the entire building. I was able to put the reservation in without any problem and without being told there was a conflict. I should have gotten a message indicating that the resourses were already in use but instead the system allowed me to schedule Group B for the room and time they requested.

Can you help me, as I count on the system working as intended - in the long list of events reserved for our stake center on a given date, sometimes I miss a group's reservation already in the system and it is convienent to have the reminder that I need to make adjustments or need to call the groups involved so I can accommodate as many groups as I can in our Stake Building. As it currently stands, I have the potential of creating major train wrecks with one group scheduled on top of another in the same place at the same time.

Thank you,

Nancy Alemany
Houston South Stake,

I was able to duplicate this by initially adding the whole facility and then adding a reservation for a speicfic room. I tried both standard and custom room. They system allowed it.

What's unclear is what happens if someone tries to book an event at that time.

If you are trying to use the reservation system as a way to book the rooms, I'd strongly advise against that. That's not the way the system was designed to work. The only reliable way to book a room is by creating an event. "Reservations" in the calendar system are only designed to limit who can book events.

Now you have me stumped. I don't quite understand your third paragraph. An example would be helpful.

My understanding is that "scheduling" the building is nothing more than putting out an electronic flyer, so to speak, informing your ward or stake that your organization is having an event in the building on such and such a day, at such and such a time in such and such a room. You can indicate what rooms you are planning to use but unless you actually "reserve" the rooms, it is possible to have two groups in the same place at the same time.

It's only if you have "RESERVED" those rooms for your unit that a block is thrown up saying you can't have the rooms you wanted, if someone else had already "reserved" them before you. This appeared to be how it worked at the beginning of the year on the reservation calendar. If I had scheduled the Relief Society room for Unit A's Relief Society on the Third Tuesday of the each month I couldn't then schedule that same room for Unit B's Primary Inservice meeting on the same night, at the same time, in the same room.

At the beginning of the year, our Chinese Branch, indicated that they wanted a particular night on which to hold branch activities - they were new to our building (which is the Stake Center) and had been accustomed this arrangement in their old building. Giving them one particular night each week in a building that is very busy was very difficult - so I offered them the 3rd Tuesday of each month - so, I simply reserved the entire building on the 3rd Tuesday of each month for them to do as they so chose. Truthfully, I wouldn't know if they have anything scheduled on their branch calendar on that night or not - it's not something I can see, even as the Reservations Coordinator for the Stake Center. I can't see if Primary Presidents in one of the other units have scheduled child of record baptisms, either, I can only see what my ward or the stake schedules and what I have put down on the Reservation screen. What others schedule appears in black on the reservations calendar and my reservations appear in grey type.

If reserving rooms is ONLY done through the scheduling side of things I'm having difficulty understanding why a building coordinator is necessary, accept perhaps to solve those rare issues when unit A wants a room already occupied by Unit B?

At the beginning of the year there was an option that could be determined by the Stake Administrator (not me, the coordinator) where you could choose if individuals could reserve rooms at the same time they scheduled their event or if they could schedule their event but reservations were still done through the building coordinator. Because this is the stake center, our administrator and I decided that I should retain the room reserving responsibility. Therefore, if I have reserved the entire building for a unit's use - meaning all rooms have been reserved for a particular unit, a block should come up indicating all rooms are in use should I try to schedule another unit in a room in the building at the same time. This is not happening.

Thank you,
Nancy Alemany

nancypalemany wrote:My understanding is that "scheduling" the building is nothing more than putting out an electronic flyer, so to speak, informing your ward or stake that your organization is having an event in the building on such and such a day, at such and such a time in such and such a room. You can indicate what rooms you are planning to use but unless you actually "reserve" the rooms, it is possible to have two groups in the same place at the same time.

There are multiple problems with using the Reservations feature in an attempt to actually book the building.

• Only events (not reservations) will appear on ward and stake calendars. Putting events on ward and stake calendars makes them generally visible to the members, allows them to synchronize events to mobile devices and other third-party calendars, and allows them to receive notifications about events. Using reservations exclusively precludes all those benefits.
• If you make a reservation for Ward A, intending it for their Primary to use the cultural hall on a particular date and time, there is nothing to stop the Young Men from scheduling an event on that date and time, booking the cultural hall. Reservations are on a unit basis only, and any calendar editor in that ward can book the room. So reservations are ineffective in booking a room for a particular organization or event.

nancypalemany wrote:It's only if you have "RESERVED" those rooms for your unit that a block is thrown up saying you can't have the rooms you wanted, if someone else had already "reserved" them before you. This appeared to be how it worked at the beginning of the year on the reservation calendar. If I had scheduled the Relief Society room for Unit A's Relief Society on the Third Tuesday of the each month I couldn't then schedule that same room for Unit B's Primary Inservice meeting on the same night, at the same time, in the same room.

There's an important distinction between what you can do with reservations as the building scheduler and what others can do with events.

• Regarding reservations, you are entirely correct. If you have made a reservation for one unit for a particular room on a particular date and time, you should not be able to schedule a conflicting reservation for that room on that date and time. You have clearly identified a bug (confirmed by RussellHltn) in this regard, and that bug needs to be fixed.
• But just because you created a reservation doesn't mean that someone from the assigned unit can't create a conflicting event; in fact, that's exactly what the calendar system anticipates will happen. The normal use of reservations is that a building scheduler creates a reservation for a unit, and then a particular organization within that unit creates an event that actually books the room at that date and time.

nancypalemany wrote:Truthfully, I wouldn't know if they have anything scheduled on their branch calendar on that night or not - it's not something I can see, even as the Reservations Coordinator for the Stake Center. I can't see if Primary Presidents in one of the other units have scheduled child of record baptisms, either, I can only see what my ward or the stake schedules and what I have put down on the Reservation screen. What others schedule appears in black on the reservations calendar and my reservations appear in grey type.

I think you're misunderstanding what events you are seeing in black type on the Reservations calendar. There you will see all events that use your building in black type. That includes events from any ward or branch in your stake, if the event uses the building. So you can indeed see an event for the Chinese branch on your Reservations calendar, if it uses one or more rooms in your building. You can also see any baptisms scheduled by Primary presidents if they use your building.

The only reason you wouldn't see such events on your Reservations calendar is if they neglected to actually choose your building as the location and instead used "No Location" or "Other Location" for their events.

nancypalemany wrote:If reserving rooms is ONLY done through the scheduling side of things I'm having difficulty understanding why a building coordinator is necessary, accept perhaps to solve those rare issues when unit A wants a room already occupied by Unit B?

Actually, the building scheduler really only has two roles: creating and maintaining reservations and helping resolve conflicts by editing events scheduled for their building. Some stakes give building schedulers additional assignments as a calendar editor, but that is not necessary.

With the distributed scheduling model, individual wards (and the stake) can directly create events as needed. Not only is this a more direct approach, but it has the tremendous benefits I mentioned earlier of allowing calendar sync, event visibility to members, and notifications.

nancypalemany wrote:At the beginning of the year there was an option that could be determined by the Stake Administrator (not me, the coordinator) where you could choose if individuals could reserve rooms at the same time they scheduled their event or if they could schedule their event but reservations were still done through the building coordinator. Because this is the stake center, our administrator and I decided that I should retain the room reserving responsibility.

The stake administrator can set a particular location to disallow scheduling by wards and stakes. If he has indeed set that option for your building, then some of what I said earlier would not apply, since individual wards and branches and the stake would not be able to schedule events. But that doesn't fit with the fact that you said that you see events in black type on your Reservations calendar -- that is clear evidence that he has not disallowed scheduling of events for that building.

And I firmly believe that it is a very poor choice to disallow scheduling by individual units anyway, since it precludes all those benefits I mentioned.

nancypalemany wrote:Therefore, if I have reserved the entire building for a unit's use - meaning all rooms have been reserved for a particular unit, a block should come up indicating all rooms are in use should I try to schedule another unit in a room in the building at the same time. This is not happening.

As I mentioned, the fact that you can schedule a conflicting reservation is a bug.

Okay, Thank you for clearing up some things.
In regards to the black and grey type, the reason I am not seeing entries in black from the units is because they simply are not being entered. And I should be able to see all entries from all groups (that's everybody who has a calendar that has selected my building for an event). We are still in the training period for our stake - I can see that more training is needed to get people to actually use the electronic calendar. My other hat is RS Secretary so I have occasion to "schedule" events on the ward e-calendar for Relief Society and have recieved the e-mail notifications. (they are pretty utilitarian - but that's another issue for another time).

I see my role as Building Coordinator more as a "conflict resolution" coordinator - I can see the point of having a single unit building allowing all who input an event on the calendar the ablility to also reserve the room at the same time. However, I have found that folks can be rather ridge in where they want to be in the building and it is helpful to be able to say "Okay, how big is your group? Room A is not available, how about room B?" And they don't always take into consideration set up or clean up times even though it is part of their scheduling screen so I am training them to think of that, too.

In regards to another organization in a given unit creating a conflicting event in the same place at the same time - I always say "Play NICE" I would expect that they would have worked that issue out in ward council.

"Regarding reservations, you are entirely correct. If you have made a reservation for one unit for a particular room on a particular date and time, you should not be able to schedule a conflicting reservation for that room on that date and time. You have clearly identified a bug (confirmed by RussellHltn) in this regard, and that bug needs to be fixed.

Brethren, This bug has not been fixed. Only today I was able to input on the reservation calendar a 2nd unit's event at the same time, on the same day, in the same room without even a peep out of the system. Fortunately, I will be able to contact all of the parties involved and work out a conflict resolution but if I am having this issue I am sure others are having this issue as well. We discussed this originally back on October 10, 2012. Is this still on the "to be fixed" list? Thank you.

nancypalemany wrote:Only today I was able to input on the reservation calendar a 2nd unit's event at the same time, on the same day, in the same room without even a peep out of the system.

(bold added for emphasis) Sorry nancypalemany, but I am sure you meant to write reservation instead of event.

For others reading this thread, events can only be created on ward and stake calendars. Reservations are created on the reservations calendar; and only building schedulers can create reservations.

nancypalemany wrote:Only today I was able to input on the reservation calendar a 2nd unit's event at the same time, on the same day, in the same room without even a peep out of the system. Fortunately, I will be able to contact all of the parties involved and work out a conflict resolution but if I am having this issue I am sure others are having this issue as well.

My experience has been that the "Reservation Calendar" doesn't behave the same way the regular calendar does in a multitude of ways, including conflict identification. I can only assume because the "reservations" don't actually reserve anything, they just restrict creation. Perhaps the conflict logic used by the regular calendar doesn't allow for it, not sure why. When you say the "Rooms are STILL able to be double booked", I would correct your statement in saying the rooms are double restricted. They are not "booked" until an event is created on the regular calendar. The double restriction would allow two different units to "book" calendar events for the resources you identified in the "reservations". Again, I am not sure if this was the developers intent...but it doesn't seem so buggy when you look at it from a restriction point of view.

All that being said, I do see your point about being alerted for any "restrictions" that conflict at the time of creation. Even if it is a warning so you are aware of the overlap. I wouldn't hold out hope for a quick resolution. You may just have to live with the current state and work around it to the best of your ability. That may include creating a separate calendar where you can create events that absolutely need to hold the time and room for a location. In our stake we call it a "Resource Calendar" and it is visible to the entire stake. We mainly use it for non-ward activities such as receptions and family activities that don't need to be on the stake or ward calendars. Others use private calendars so those items are less visible.

Okay, you are correct. I used the word "event" incorrectly. It was a reservation to restrict the use of a given room or rooms for a particular unit, on a particular day, at a particular time.

However, when our stake began using the system fully at the beginning of 2012, I DID receive a yellow reminder bar across the top of the calendar screen indicating that there was a conflict that needed to be resolved before the request could be granted because the rooms and the time the rooms where requested for was occupied by another unit or group.

With the update in Sept/October that yellow bar no longer appears and I can double reserve rooms to my heart's content. I can reserve the cultural hall for Sugar Land 1st Ward's Primary activity, on top of Sugar Land 2nd Ward's YW's Fund Raiser Event, on top of the Stake's High Priest Social, on top of the Regional Welfare meeting all at the same time, on the same day. This should not be happening. Is this a bug in the system or not? Brother Hull indicated in an earlier post that this was an identified bug in the system.

Is there any chance I could talk with somebody about how the system is used by our stake and what the folks making decisions about the system visualize? I'm willing to learn but I feel like we are talking at cross purposes. Thanks!

nancypalemany wrote:Only today I was able to input on the reservation calendar a 2nd unit's event at the same time, on the same day, in the same room without even a peep out of the system.

How are you using "reservations"? I'd strongly advise against using it for an event, even when this bug is fixed.

Our stake center is quite busy, but I only have 3 repeating reservations for the entire 2013 calendar year: Ward A on Tuesday nights, Ward B on Wednesday nights and Ward C on Thursday nights. That's it. Everything else is an event on the appropriate calendar. They display on the reservation calendar, but are not entered there.

Am I wrong, or shouldn't you only need to use the "reservation" calendar like once a year and that is it? The rest of the time you schedule using the Events calendars?

TinMan wrote:Am I wrong, or shouldn't you only need to use the "reservation" calendar like once a year and that is it? The rest of the time you schedule using the Events calendars?

That's the way we work it, but:

I can see if for some reason the reservations have spilled into the new year, but it has been decided to rotate the schedule, you could have a problem making the change. A default stake admin doesn't have rights to reservations. Only the Building Scheduler. And since they can't add a new building scheduler, that could put them in a bind as the wards are not able to schedule their events properly with the incorrect restrictions in place.

Once could probably survive without any reservations, but if you've got incorrect reservations in place, you may be trapped in a bad situation.

Yeah. We survive without any reservations. But we only have two wards in the building and we know what night mutual is for each other. One day, however, we will have a problem when someone in another ward swoops in and schedules something on one of our mutual nights. Then we will have to figure out this whole reservation calendar thing. Hopefully, "they" will change the name of the calendar to something else before then.

Fortunately we are using the "events" calendars with better and better success. Still some training to put in proper descriptions of events but it seems to be working better for us.

Whomever told me to use the "week view" instead of the "monthly view" should be given two gold stars...

TinMan wrote:Am I wrong, or shouldn't you only need to use the "reservation" calendar like once a year and that is it? The rest of the time you schedule using the Events calendars?

That is how we do it too. We have three wards in each of our three buildings. The agent bishop makes assignments at the beginning of each year for each ward in the building for combined mutual activity, RS meetings and Cub Scout den meetings. We create those reservations at the beginning of the year and that is the last time I touch the reservation calendar.

Thank you for your input. I'm beginning to get a feeling for how others are using the calendar for scheduling and reservations. Mine is an acceptionally busy building. It is the Stake Center, it is frequently a regional meeting location for Regional Welfare trainings, Single Adult events and other regional meetings and it houses 3 church units. Things that would happen in a tabernacle in the inter-mountain west frequently take place in my building. The concept of assigning a ward to a given night of the week is a very foreign to many of us in the mission field. This might be something to be aware of when you answer queries from others as more of us in the mission field come up to speed.

I would be curious to know if most of those posting to the calendar forum are in the intermountain west and that for many stakes throughout the country using the e-calendar is not yet a reality? We are a technologically advanced stake for this area of Texas, more and more things are being broadcast out of my stake building to the rest of the region because we have the people who have the interest and background to move it forward.

At the beginning of 2012, there was a choice - you could choose to allow everyone who scheduled an event on their ward calendars to symultaneously reserve the rooms at the same time or a switch could be flipped that allowed people to schedule their event on their ward calendars but they would still need to "reserve" their room choices through the Building Coordinator (the person who has access to the reservation screen). Does that option still exists? Option 2 was what the stake administrator and I chose, as our stake needs to get used to the idea of even using the e-calendar. From the comments I am reading, you are all from stakes that chose option 1.

There also seems to be a different attitude about building usage - I would love to engage someone in that conversation. So far, my attempts because they are not strickly technical, have been unproductive. There really is a difference between the intermountain west and where I am and I'd really like to understand it more fully. Thanks!

nancypalemany wrote:Thank you for your input. I'm beginning to get a feeling for how others are using the calendar for scheduling and reservations. Mine is an acceptionally busy building. It is the Stake Center, it is frequently a regional meeting location for Regional Welfare trainings, Single Adult events and other regional meetings and it houses 3 church units. Things that would happen in a tabernacle in the inter-mountain west frequently take place in my building. The concept of assigning a ward to a given night of the week is a very foreign to many of us in the mission field. This might be something to be aware of when you answer queries from others as more of us in the mission field come up to speed.

There is nothing significantly different about the situation in Texas versus Utah. One person responding to this thread is also from Texas, and another is from far outside the Intermountain West. Note that I've also seen posts from plenty of units located in the Intermountain West who try to implement a centralized scheduling model as you have. So I don't think your issues have anything to do with geography.

In fact, since you have a building that houses 3 units, you're more similar to units in Utah than many locations that have only one unit. A building that houses only one unit could probably dispense with reservations entirely and use only events -- reservations are most useful for buildings with multiple units.

nancypalemany wrote:At the beginning of 2012, there was a choice - you could choose to allow everyone who scheduled an event on their ward calendars to symultaneously reserve the rooms at the same time or a switch could be flipped that allowed people to schedule their event on their ward calendars but they would still need to "reserve" their room choices through the Building Coordinator (the person who has access to the reservation screen). Does that option still exists? Option 2 was what the stake administrator and I chose, as our stake needs to get used to the idea of even using the e-calendar. From the comments I am reading, you are all from stakes that chose option 1.

I'm not sure what you are talking about here. You might be talking about the Classic Calendar, which has existed for many years (but is going away for good in about a month). Or you might be talking about the option that a stake administrator can set for a location in the newer Calendar system (which everyone on this thread is using) that enables the scheduling of a location by wards and stakes. That option still exists. Most of us disabled that option only as we were getting started with the Calendar (or as a new building gets added), but now we embrace the distributed model of letting wards and stakes create events that actually reserve the building.

"Embrace?" Lol. For me it is "tolerate."

Nancy, For me it was helpful when I realized that the Reservation Calendar does not reserve anything.

At least in the sense that is intuitive to me. It is a very unfortunate name for that calendar. All it does is simply restrict who can book events. For example, when you reserve the cultural hall for Ward A's Christmas party on the reservation calendar, there are multiple people in Ward A who can still go to their ward calendar and book a conflicting event in the cultural hall. No one in Ward B or Ward C can, but nothing prevents the primary president in Ward A from booking the pinewood derby in the cultural at the exact same time as the ward Christmas party.

You should not be using the reservation calendar to book rooms or dates for individual events. It only creates havoc.

nancypalemany wrote:Mine is an acceptionally busy building. It is the Stake Center, it is frequently a regional meeting location for Regional Welfare trainings, Single Adult events and other regional meetings and it houses 3 church units. Things that would happen in a tabernacle in the inter-mountain west frequently take place in my building.

I could say the same. My stake center is a tabernacle. (Not THE tabernacle)

nancypalemany wrote:The concept of assigning a ward to a given night of the week is a very foreign to many of us in the mission field.

We do assign nights. (At least during the week) Some times the stake needs to use one of those nights for some rooms for an event, but that's not on a weekly basis, so it works. Weekends tends to be more of a first-come-first served.

In our case, the Stake Exec Sec is also the building scheduler. Since he is also a default stake admin, he has a lot of flexibility when scheduling stake events.

So far, I've not seen the Area schedule an event. But any "higher" event would involve the stake and would be on the stake calendar anyway.

RussellHltn wrote:So far, I've not seen the Area schedule an event. But any "higher" event would involve the stake and would be on the stake calendar anyway.

Same here, any time the Area (or a multi-stake group such a the regional public affairs folks) needs to schedule the building, they coordinate with the Stake and the Stake puts the event on the calendar...
Works well for us.

Aaron Z

Note that BUILDING SCHEDULERS have the ability to create multiple events at the same time, or modify existing events so they happen at the same time, and in the same rooms as other events. If that is your role, you must be VERY careful in looking at all the calendars for a given building when creating or modifying events, because the system will not prevent you from creating conflicts. I can think of very few times this would be a desirable outcome, except perhaps to get the "same event" (actually two separate events that COULD be titled the same) onto two separate calendars. Speaking from personal experience on this one.

Hmm, I wonder if this would allow us to create multi-ward events (socials, combined youth, baptisms) on the calendars of multiple wards.

preston.baxter wrote:Note that BUILDING SCHEDULERS have the ability to create multiple events at the same time, or modify existing events so they happen at the same time, and in the same rooms as other events.

An event at the same time as a reservation, yes. Two reservations at the same time, maybe. Two events for the same time and same place - that shouldn't happen. Can you reproduce this?

I have noticed if I schedule a reservation as building coordinator under reservations and book the entire building for all day and select a ward for the unit. Then it only shows up on weekly view until that ward comes in and schedules that event on their calender. I believe that the other ward cannot schedule anything on top of it. However the unit I reserved it for can schedule anything on any of their calenders for any combination of rooms. So in my case I scheduled a wedding reception for a particular ward as a reservation (the only way I can schedule for the other ward in our building that I am not a member of. (lost me yet) anyways the ward or unit I put down on the "reservation for" menu can book the building for say a baptism the same time as the wedding reception because no one went in and created an event for the reception. (Hence why receptions should be scheduled as events by the bishopric but who am I to say)
I wonder if a work around is that when I schedule a reservation that instead of choosing a unit I just click Blocked- location unavailable.
that means no one could double book but it won't show up on any of their calenders except on weekly view.

The best way is to only use events, and not reservations. You should only schedule reservations when you want to block another unit from using the building or room in the building such as YM/YW night. Even the it important that the unit books an event as well.

However as building scheduler I cannot make an event for the other ward but I can make a reservation for them. So when someone calls for to schedule the building for a wedding reception should I tell them that their bishopric has to schedule it? I prefer this because then the said bishopric knows about it.
So on the same note are you saying as building coordinator I should schedule the building for the two wards mutual nights as reservations for that ward then they can schedule what they want during those nights? Then the other three units, that use our font (but do not meet in our building as their building does not have a font), cannot schedule baptisms on mutual night we have had this problem in the past. I have been telling them to schedule the building for their mutual nights and they just will not do it because they never had to in the past.

watermelonstand wrote:I have noticed if I schedule a reservation as building coordinator under reservations and book the entire building for all day and select a ward for the unit. Then it only shows up on weekly view until that ward comes in and schedules that event on their calender. I believe that the other ward cannot schedule anything on top of it. However the unit I reserved it for can schedule anything on any of their calenders for any combination of rooms.

Working as designed. "Reservation" was not a good description of the intended function. It was more like a "scheduling restriction".

For booking the building for something like a wedding, it needs to be an event and placed on the appropriate calendar. Each ward needs to do their own scheduling.

watermelonstand wrote:So on the same note are you saying as building coordinator I should schedule the building for the two wards mutual nights as reservations for that ward then they can schedule what they want during those nights? Then the other three units, that use our font (but do not meet in our building as their building does not have a font), cannot schedule baptisms on mutual night we have had this problem in the past.

Correct. That's how "reservations" was intended to function.

watermelonstand wrote:I have been telling them to schedule the building for their mutual nights and they just will not do it because they never had to in the past.

They will after the first time they get thrown out of the building because they didn't schedule it and someone else did.

RussellHltn wrote:



They will after the first time they get thrown out of the building because they didn't schedule it and someone else did.

Well usually because our wards are so big and literally use the entire building it is the baptism that the other ward schedules that has to suffer. I have been able to keep up on it and call them ahead of time when this occurs.
I went ahead and booked the reservations for the two wards mutual nights so now if it works like I think it does the other units can not schedule baptisms during that time.

watermelonstand wrote:I went ahead and booked the reservations for the two wards mutual nights so now if it works like I think it does the other units can not schedule baptisms during that time.

Reservations do not have to be for the entire location. Instead a select set of rooms can be reserved. I do not know the physical layout of the building for which you are the building scheduler. If it is possible to not include the room or rooms needed for a baptism in the reservation for mutual then I would do that. If the unit using the building for mutual needs the rooms used for baptism on their mutual night then they should schedule it. This way the baptism resources are not unnecessarily tied up.

Even if you think it is necessary to make a mutual night reservation using the entire building you can make edits to the recurring reservation to accommodate baptisms. This may require advance planning and coordination to work. Have those responsible for scheduling baptisms to contact the ward with the mutual reservations and ask for accommodation. You can be included in the communication to edit the reservation and then the baptism can be scheduled. Just asking a unit with the entire building reserved for mutual for accommodation without actually scheduling the event has the potential for people to forget about the accommodation and a conflict is likely to happen eventually.

RussellHltn wrote:An event at the same time as a reservation, yes. Two reservations at the same time, maybe. Two events for the same time and same place - that shouldn't happen. Can you reproduce this?

It was a long time ago that it was an issue, and now that you ask this question it very well could be that I scheduled an event for ward #1 during a reservation time for ward #2. So maybe duplicate events isn't (and shouldn't be!) a possibility.

Are reservations working correctly now? I was wondering if the earlier discussed bugs have been fixed?

the fact that you can schedule a conflicting reservation is a bug.

Actually, building schedulers are allowed to create conflicting reservations in the calendar. This seems like a bug but is actually not logged as such. The help does state:

Although the calendar doesn't allow calendar editors to double-book the same location at the same time, the same rules don't apply to building schedulers creating reservations. When you schedule a reservation, you are not alerted about any conflicts with other reservations or events.

I'm not sure why the calendar was programmed this way. I'll log it as a bug, but rather than fixing this, I think it will be addressed with the revamp of the way reservations works in the calendar. That update is coming but I don't have specifics yet, as the teams were focused on other things toward the end of 2012.

johnsonth wrote:

Although the calendar doesn't allow calendar editors to double-book the same location at the same time, the same rules don't apply to building schedulers creating reservations. When you schedule a reservation, you are not alerted about any conflicts with other reservations or events.

I'm not sure why the calendar was programmed this way. I'll log it as a bug, but rather than fixing this, I think it will be addressed with the revamp of the way reservations works in the calendar. That update is coming but I don't have specifics yet, as the teams were focused on other things toward the end of 2012.

Um, make sure we can still create reservations that "conflict" with events. Warnings are OK, but if we have to adjust the reservation, we don't want to have to clear the calendar to do it.

Reservations that conflict with each other sounds like a bug.

What about stake administrators. Can we schedule events overtop of reservations for stake events? We are researching a double booking situation in our Stake where I either booked an event at the same time as a ward event for the same time and place or I booked over top of a reservation. Either way I can't see the second activity even in the weekly view.

jeffreychristensen wrote:What about stake administrators. Can we schedule events overtop of reservations for stake events?

Just as stake administrator? No. But a Building Scheduler can book a event overtop of a reservation. And a stake admin can make themselves a Building Scheduler. Note that only a Building Scheduler can create a reservation.

jeffreychristensen wrote: We are researching a double booking situation in our Stake where I either booked an event at the same time as a ward event for the same time and place or I booked over top of a reservation. Either way I can't see the second activity even in the weekly view.

Since the second activity isn't in the weekly view, I suspect:
- You don't have that location checked off to view all events at that location.
- The second event either didn't schedule a location or used "Other Location".
- The second event somehow got deleted.

Note that a Building Scheduler can edit event booked at their location. So it's possible they altered the second event which allowed your event to be scheduled.

russellhltn wrote:

jeffreychristensen wrote:What about stake administrators. Can we schedule events overtop of reservations for stake events?

Just as stake administrator? No. But a Building Scheduler can book a event overtop of a reservation. And a stake admin can make themselves a Building Scheduler. Note that only a Building Scheduler can create a reservation.

Are you sure a Building Scheduler can create an event? The scheduler for our stake center has told me repeatedly that she can only create reservations -- she has never been able to create an event. I tend to agree with her, since she is not an editor for any stake calendar.

Dana

drepouille wrote:Are you sure a Building Scheduler can create an event? The scheduler for our stake center has told me repeatedly that she can only create reservations -- she has never been able to create an event. I tend to agree with her, since she is not an editor for any stake calendar.

It is my understanding that a Building Scheduler (with that sole function) can edit or delete an event, but not create an event

Building Schedulers who can do more than that have also been added as a Calendar Editor or are by some other means an Administrator.

Someone will come along shortly and correct me if I misunderstand or if it has changed.

russellhltn wrote:

jeffreychristensen wrote:What about stake administrators. Can we schedule events overtop of reservations for stake events?

Just as stake administrator? No. But a Building Scheduler can book a event overtop of a reservation.

It depends on what is meant by "reservations for stake events." If you mean that a building scheduler created the reservation and designated the stake as the unit the reservation is intended for, then certainly a stake administrator (or any stake calendar editor, for that matter) can schedule an event on top of such a reservation.

But if the reservation is for one of the wards (or a "blocked" reservation), then the answer of "no" is correct -- being a stake administrator confers no special powers to override reservations. Only a building scheduler for the location associated with the reservation has those special powers.

russellhltn wrote:Um, make sure we can still create reservations that "conflict" with events. Warnings are OK, but if we have to adjust the reservation, we don't want to have to clear the calendar to do it.

I would second that. I was concerned when johnsonth implied that it was some sort of bug that a reservation was allowed on top of an event. That's not a bug at all; it's useful as russellhltn just explained, and it's also a logical necessity: if a building scheduler can put an event on top of a reservation, he/she should be able to accomplish that same result in reverse order and put a reservation on top of an event.

What we think we are seeing is a stake admin (me), with building scheduler rights who was able to set up a stake event overtop of a ward scheduled event or reservation created by the building scheduler without admin rights.
I will have to check to see if for sure it was a reservation or if it was an event. She tells me she selected the same rooms I selected but I didn't see it nor was I given a warning when I set up the event.
I still don't see it. But she can see both.
I'll get more info and post it later.
This thread has been very educational.
Thanks to all who have posted.
Now go have a Merry Christmas.

drepouille wrote:Are you sure a Building Scheduler can create an event? The scheduler for our stake center has told me repeatedly that she can only create reservations -- she has never been able to create an event.

If they are JUST a building scheduler, no, they can't create an event. But there's nothing to prevent an admin from giving them calendar editor rights (or holding a calling that automatically gives them editor rights to some calendar).

In fact, it's probably a good idea to give them some editor rights so they can create events for private functions.

A Building Scheduler with other Building Scheduler rights has no choice but to use Reservations to accomplish their tasks - and as we've repeatedly stated - using reservations in place of events is a bad idea and will eventually come back to bite you.

russellhltn wrote:In fact, it's probably a good idea to give them some editor rights so they can create events for private functions.

If a Building Scheduler creates events for private functions, they should only appear on a private calendar, right? Otherwise, it wouldn't be a very private event.

I guess I never thought about creating a private stake calendar specifically so the Building Scheduler could create private events. It's a good idea, but it never dawned on me to do that.

drepouille wrote:If a Building Scheduler creates events for private functions, they should only appear on a private calendar, right? Otherwise, it wouldn't be a very private event.

There's a good argument for doing it that way. You probably don't want the whole stake subscribed to it by default.

But I've been noticing a number of threads about having problems with private calendars.