Calendaring on Both a Ward and Stake Calendar

I have the responsibility to edit events and resources on both a Stake Calendar (Stake Exec Sec) and on a Ward Calendar (Building Coordinator) Is it possible to edit and create events in both calendars? I think I am missing something.

As a building coordinator, you can edit (but not necessarily create) any event taking place at your building. But you do not have direct rights to any ward. You can only see your own ward's calendar.

Normally events are created by the unit or even the group/auxiliary in the unit. That's a change from the old system, but that's how the new calendar was designed.

So I should have edit rights in both the Stake and Ward Calendars (Individuals can be assigned rights to a calendar outside of their calling) but I can only add events on the Stake Calendar. Is that expected?

tcole13 wrote:So I should have edit rights in both the Stake and Ward Calendars (Individuals can be assigned rights to a calendar outside of their calling) but I can only add events on the Stake Calendar. Is that expected?

That's not quite right. You can edit any existing event that has your building as a "location". Even if you have no access to the calendar it's on.

Unless your records are in the ward, you can't be added to the ward's calendar as viewer or editor.

I'd suggest carefully going though the calendar's help file to understand the new system.

tcole13 wrote:So I should have edit rights in both the Stake and Ward Calendars (Individuals can be assigned rights to a calendar outside of their calling) but I can only add events on the Stake Calendar. Is that expected?

As a stake executive secretary you are a stake default administrator. As such you can create events on any public stake calendar. But in your ward you only have edit rights to calendars to which you have been added as an editor. If you have been assigned the rights of a building scheduler (I assume this is what is meant by building coordinator) you can only edit events that book the building or rooms/equipment in the building. You have no capability to view other ward calendars. This is different from viewing events scheduled at a location.

jdlessley wrote: You have no capability to view other ward calendars. This is different from viewing events scheduled at a location.

Is the ability to view other ward calendars in the realm of possible? The Stake Presidency would really like this capability to help them attend and participate with the wards more easily. I am going to test being added as a Editor on my Ward Calendar and see if I can add an event to the Ward Calendar.

tcole13 wrote:Is the ability to view other ward calendars in the realm of possible? The Stake Presidency would really like this capability to help them attend and participate with the wards more easily. I am going to test being added as a Editor on my Ward Calendar and see if I can add an event to the Ward Calendar.

See the View events by location. You won't be able to see events taking place at another location, but that's as close as it gets regardless of calling.

tcole13 wrote:Is the ability to view other ward calendars in the realm of possible? The Stake Presidency would really like this capability to help them attend and participate with the wards more easily.

You can't view other wards calendars, however you can view other wards events by using the week view and selecting the building where the other wards are located.

tcole13 wrote: I am going to test being added as a Editor on my Ward Calendar and see if I can add an event to the Ward Calendar.

I'm sure that will work...if all you need to do is add events to your ward calendar as well as your stake calendar. Your call as a building scheduler in MLS (coordinator?) would allow you to make reservations, but not add events to your ward calendar.

What really is your issue, tcole13?

1. Is it those Non-public events like baby showers and family thanksgiving dinners that you are trying to deal with?
2. Is it those calls from ward members who don't have the editor access, or don't want to learn to how to make their own ward events on your ward calendar?
3. Is it calls from another ward in your building for either of these items? You can help with #1 above if you make yourself a private events calendar, but not #2 if they are not in your ward... someone in their ward with calendar edit or approval rights would need to help them add events to their own wards calendars, and thus reserve your building resources.

Here are three work-around ways building schedulers could add events (as opposed to reservations)

• Become a calendar editor of one of your wards existing calendars. Your suggestion. But this really will only work well if the events you are trying to deal with should appear on the whole ward's event calendar.
• Create a Calendar called "Non-public events" (private or public) with you as the editor for your non-public events. When you are released, the next building scheduler can maintain it.

There is a third option, but probably not as good as the first two...

• Micro-manager building scheduler option: ask your ward leaders to call you in MLS (not officially from the pulpit) as a ward website admin in addition to your building scheduler calling, which would make you a default approver over all your wards calendars. This is similar to your current approver access you enjoy at the stake level as a default approver with your stake exec sec calling. This option probably gives you more power than you might want, and if you already have a website admin, it could cause confusion. You CAN have two.

Oh! And welcome to the forum tcole13!

kisaac wrote:
What really is your issue, tcole13?

Too Many to List!

Here are a few answers:

kisaac wrote:
Is it those Non-public events like baby showers and family thanksgiving dinners that you are trying to deal with?

Not Really

kisaac wrote: Is it those calls from ward members who don't have the editor access, or don't want to learn to how to make their own ward events on your ward calendar?

It is mostly getting all the members with access (presidencies in the Wards and Others) to use the Room location info to help avoid conflict and remove me from the picture. The website will prevent conflicts if the members do their part and reserve a room in the event.

kisaac wrote: Is it calls from another ward in your building for either of these items? You can help with #1 above if you make yourself a private events calendar, but not #2 if they are not in your ward... someone in their ward with calendar edit or approval rights would need to help them add events to their own wards calendars, and thus reserve your building resources.

There is the desire from the Stake Pres. and his councilors to see the ward calendars so they can better know and plan to attend ward events

kisaac wrote:
Oh! And welcome to the forum tcole13!

Thank you for the welcome. New to my calling and working hard to eliminate/train around conflicts in the Stake (8 buildings and 10 wards) There is a lack of understanding of "ThePossible" with the calendar and I will be conducting a training in our upcoming Priesthood leadership training to help get both awareness and to get all the wards doing the same things/scheduling their own events with some consistency.

Thanks again for the suggestions and information

T

tcole13 wrote:It is mostly getting all the members with access (presidencies in the Wards and Others) to use the Room location info to help avoid conflict and remove me from the picture. The website will prevent conflicts if the members do their part and reserve a room in the event.

Are all the rooms in the building listed or is it just the main areas such as the Chapel, culture Hall, Serving area, Multipurpose room, Relief Society Room, ect.. That,s what I found when trying to make an event, not all the rooms in the building were listed so you could not properly book an event. So we had to select "Another Location" for the building and the put the information in the space where the other location would be. The problem with doing it this way is the building is not reserved for that event.

Our Bishop just recently called an individual to be a Calendar Coordinator his main responsibility is to train/help organizations in using the calendar. I pointed out the problem to him (as I'm currently the ward calendar expert and responsible for training the calendar coordinator and I working the issue when he was called) and he is now working to get all rooms in the building listed. Its a lengthily process though as all he can to is relay the information to a "Stake Administrator" to make the changes.

If there was anything that needs changed in the calendar roles and rights its giving the "Building Scheduler" the capabilities of adding and editing the resources available at the location. That way the wards in a building would not have to go clear to the top (Stake Presidency and clerk)to get resources added for the building.

Gary_Miller wrote:Are all the rooms in the building listed or is it just the main areas such as the Chapel, culture Hall, Serving area, Multipurpose room, Relief Society Room, ect.. That,s what I found when trying to make an event, not all the rooms in the building were listed so you could not properly book an event. So we had to select "Another Location" for the building and the put the information in the space where the other location would be. The problem with doing it this way is the building is not reserved for that event.
...he is now working to get all rooms in the building listed. Its a lengthily process though as all he can to is relay the information to a "Stake Administrator" to make the changes.

This is something each stake will need to decide, but personally I think it's a bad idea to include every room in the location. That just makes a long list of rooms that you make people wade through. In my experience, no one has ever wanted to reserve Room 24 or Room 11; in fact, the majority of the rooms would never be scheduled because they are just simple class rooms. We only create rooms in the location for rooms that are actually scheduled for events, and almost all those rooms already exist in the built-in list of rooms.

Gary_Miller wrote:If there was anything that needs changed in the calendar roles and rights its giving the "Building Scheduler" the capabilities of adding and editing the resources available at the location. That way the wards in a building would not have to go clear to the top (Stake Presidency and clerk)to get resources added for the building.

That would be a nice improvement. I'm guessing that one of the challenges of implementing this is that the Locations page within the Settings area allows multiple functions (add/delete/edit locations, add/remove building schedulers) that are not appropriate for the building scheduler, and so it would be difficult to give the building scheduler rights to edit one part of that page (which is actually part of the Edit Location flow) while prohibiting access to those other features. And it's really a rare thing to edit the rooms -- for the most part you set them up once and they need little attention after that.

aebrown wrote:This is something each stake will need to decide, but personally I think it's a bad idea to include every room in the location. That just makes a long list of rooms that you make people wade through. In my experience, no one has ever wanted to reserve Room 24 or Room 11; in fact, the majority of the rooms would never be scheduled because they are just simple class rooms.

How does the, Beehive class, Mia Maid class, Laurel class, Venture Crew/Priest Quorum, Varsity Team/Teachers Quorum, Scout Troop/Deacons Quorum, ect., add their weekly events with details to their individual class calendars without also adding the room where they meet? They all cannot schedule the Young Women Room or Aaronic Priesthood Room at the same time without getting a conflict. Therefore they must be able to add the classroom, where they meet, within the building in order to add the event to the calendar without selecting the location as "Another Location" or "No Location"

aebrown wrote:We only create rooms in the location for rooms that are actually scheduled for events,

If the room in the location is not on the list then it can't be scheduled for an event. Adding only the rooms where the majority of events usually accrues is limiting the use of the resource (building). Its kind of like putting the cart before the horse it just does not work well. It is much better to be proactive and list all the rooms by number and if the room is used specifically for a purpose such as YW room add the name also.

In our building the Young Women room can be divided into three separate class rooms. As I have already mentioned not every class can schedule the YW Room in the event at the same time, without a conflict.

An example of how to split the room up and get the most beneficial use of the calendar and the building would look like this.

Room 100, Young Women Front Classroom
Room 101, Young Women Center Classroom
Room 102, Young Women Back Classroom

aebrown wrote:and almost all those rooms already exist in the built-in list of rooms.

If that's the case then someone really missed the point in our building as only the major areas of the building is on the list and some of these areas our building does not even have.

Examples would be:

No chapel over flow in our building, yet chapel overflow is on the list. Our Cultural Hall is the overflow area.

The Cultural hall is listed three times which could cause a conflict without it showing as a conflict when scheduling an event. Its add as Cultural Hall, Cultural hall back overflow, and Cultural hall front overflow. Can you see how a conflict could happen.

Gary_Miller wrote:An example of how to split the room up and get the most beneficial use of the calendar and the building would look like this.

Room 100, Young Women Front Classroom
Room 101, Young Women Center Classroom
Room 102, Young Women Back Classroom

The question would be is if there's ever any contention for that room? If only the YW use it, and they only meet on "their" ward's night (or they are the only ward), then the odds that the rooms need to be booked to prevent someone else from being in there seems to be small.

Of course that's assuming that the YW will even put an event on the calendar. It seems some wards don't play that way.

Bottom line, it all depends on what's needed. There's no "one size fits all" here. Just a suggestion on the two ways of doing something and deciding what should be done based on the local needs.

Gary_Miller wrote:If that's the case then someone really missed the point in our building as only the major areas of the building is on the list and some of these areas our building does not even have.

Examples would be:

No chapel over flow in our building, yet chapel overflow is on the list. Our Cultural Hall is the overflow area.

The Cultural hall is listed three times which could cause a conflict without it showing as a conflict when scheduling an event. Its add as Cultural Hall, Cultural hall back overflow, and Cultural hall front overflow. Can you see how a conflict could happen.

Talk to your Stake Presidency. The Stake default admins (which include the Exec Sec and clerks) have full control over what rooms appear. There is a list they can pick and choose from, but they can also make custom names. You can't blame the system for this one. The buck stops with the stake.

You can see more information on this under "Managing locations" in Help.

RussellHltn wrote:The question would be is if there's ever any contention for that room? If only the YW use it, and they only meet on "their" ward's night (or they are the only ward), then the odds that the rooms need to be booked to prevent someone else from being in there seems to be small.

Of course that's assuming that the YW will even put an event on the calendar. It seems some wards don't play that way.

Bottom line, it all depends on what's needed. There's no "one size fits all" here. Just a suggestion on the two ways of doing something and deciding what should be done based on the local needs.

Its not about wither there is a contention for the room. Its about using the calendar to get accurate information to the members about the what, when, and where of the event.

Whats happening, "We are learning to sew dresses tonight" not "Mutual Night".

When is it happening, "Tuesday December 12 from 7 pm to 8:30 pm" not "Mutual Night"

Where is it happening, "Downtown building, Room 100" not "Mutual Night same place as always"

I see the new calendar as a place to get information. Not just a place to reserve a room.

RussellHltn wrote:Talk to your Stake Presidency. The Stake default admins (which include the Exec Sec and clerks) have full control over what rooms appear. There is a list they can pick and choose from, but they can also make custom names. You can't blame the system for this one. The buck stops with the stake.

Currently in the process of being worked though the stake as required.

RussellHltn wrote:You can see more information on this under "Managing locations" in Help.

Been there done that, and I think I have a pretty good understanding of the principles behind using the calendar.

Gary_Miller wrote:How does the, Beehive class, Mia Maid class, ect., add their weekly events with details to their individual class calendars without also adding the room where they meet?

Easily. It's not needed to tell the beehives where they meet each week. It's needed to make them want to come each week. Give them the reason to show up in your event description. They meet in their usual room, 116.

1. Your Stake presidency authorized your Building scheduler who granted your mutual the building on Tuesdays. He/she may have placed a reservation further "granting" only your mutual the right to schedule those big resources you will share-the gym, the kitchen, etc. This "blocks" any scheduling from another ward or the stake using the gym on your mutual night.
2. Then, Your ward council made a policy decision that granted room 116 to the beehives. No exceptions...its their room. No need to schedule it, you gave it to them.
3. Your ward council also made a policy that any use of shared areas: Gym, Kitchen, etc, MUST BE SCHEDULED with an event to avoid conflicts between your mutual organizations. Because only your mutual can schedule an event due to your reservation, and only one of your mutual organizations can schedule any shared room like your gym at a time, there is NEVER a conflict.

The technology of the calendar doesn't replace the policy and common sense agreed upon by all the parties sharing the building.

Somebody is not playing nice? Using room 116? Playing in the gym without scheduling it? Call the bishop- they are violating the policy agreed upon by all the wards that share your building, AND the policy agreed upon by your ward council that governs every group.

Gary_Miller wrote:Therefore they must be able to add the classroom, where they meet, within the building in order to add the event to the calendar without selecting the location as "Another Location" or "No Location"

The beehives know where they meet every week. Write a wonderful description that makes them want to come. They will meet in room 116. Exceptions to room 116 will list another location, like the temple, or list a scheduled shared resource, like the gym. And, your wonderful event description that you write every week will make it obvious if the meeting location is not room 116!

Gary_Miller wrote:You can't view other wards calendars, however you can view other wards events by using the week view and selecting the building where the other wards are located.

I just wanted to clarify something for you from Gary's suggestion: you can only see events that are scheduled in a building. It will not show you that the youth are meeting at the bowling alley on Tuesday night.

mevans wrote:scheduled in a building

More specifically, scheduled in THAT building(s) you have selected on the left side. If that ward is meeting at the stake center and you're only looking at their normal "home" building, you won't see that.

kisaac wrote:Easily. It's not needed to tell the beehives where they meet each week. It's needed to make them want to come each week. Give them the reason to show up in your event description. They meet in their usual room, 116.

The beehives know where they meet every week. Write a wonderful description that makes them want to come. They will meet in room 116. Exceptions to room 116 will list another location, like the temple, or list a scheduled shared resource, like the gym. And, your wonderful event description that you write every week will make it obvious if the meeting location is not room 116!

When you book an event in a specific building you must also choose something under "Rooms and Equipment at the location". In your example they would put room 116. However, if room 116 is not on the list of "Rooms and Equipment at this location" they could not book their event unless they use "No Location" or "Other Location" as the location.

By default you must choose a location in order to book an event.

By default if you use anything other than "No Location" or "Other Location" you must select something under "Rooms and equipment at this location".

It would not make much sense to choose "No Location" or "Other Location" if you are meeting in your assigned building.

It just makes sense to choose the location where you are holding the event and the room inside the building where you will be meeting.

Hence the need to have all rooms in the building on the list of "Rooms and equipment at this location".

Gary_Miller wrote:It would not make much sense to choose "No Location" or "Other Location" if you are meeting in your assigned building.

Other then not booking the room, what is the problem with using "Other Location" and then filling in "Downtown building, Room 116"?

RussellHltn wrote:Other then not booking the room, what is the problem with using "Other Location" and then filling in "Downtown building, Room 116"?

It will not show up on the calendar of events booked in that building. For instance if you hide all the calendars and just check that building the event does not show up as an event even though you plan on using the building.

Why would you use "Other Location" when you plan on having your event in the "Downtown Building"?

Gary_Miller wrote:It will not show up on the calendar of events booked in that building. For instance if you hide all the calendars and just check that building the event does not show up as an event even though you plan on using the building.

Why would you use "Other Location" when you plan on having your event the "Downtown Building".

Your reply simply explains the benefits of booking a particular room. The question was "Other than booking the room, what is the problem with using 'Other Location'...?"

In our stake, we don't care whether a class that meets in a particular classroom books the room. We have decided that for events such as all the different events for the six different classes meeting on Mutual night, there is no significant benefit in booking the rooms that are used for the various classes. Those rooms are well established. I have never heard of a single problem with those classrooms on Mutual nights.

We value the simplicity of having fewer rooms associated with a location, and that system is working great for us. I'm really glad that your system of booking all the rooms is working well for you in your stake. I hope you can see that alternate systems can work well for other stakes.

aebrown wrote:Your reply simply explains the benefits of booking a particular room. The question was "Other than booking the room, what is the problem with using 'Other Location'...?"

How about that it just does not make sense to book using "Other Location" when your location your meeting in is on the list of locations. It just does not pass the sanity check.

aebrown wrote:We value the simplicity of having fewer rooms associated with a location, and that system is working great for us.

What Simplicity? The simplicity is being able to select any room in the building. The work is only in the initial set up after that, as you said "for the most part you set them up once and they need little attention after that"

aebrown wrote: I hope you can see that alternate systems can work well for other stakes.

I can see that they work.

As for working well, that's yet to be determined.

Gary_Miller wrote:How about that it just does not make sense to book using "Other Location" when your location your meeting in is on the list of locations. It just does not pass the sanity check.

I guess we have different definitions of sanity. Using the "Other Location" option is a reasonable choice when the place the event takes place is not in a room that is currently configured, even if it takes place at one of the buildings configured as a location in the calendar system.

As an example, we once had an event for which we specified the location as "Other Location" and then said that it took place in "The northwest corner of the stake center parking lot." That's an event that took place at the stake center -- one of the locations in the list of locations -- but did not occur in a configured room. Would it make sense that the only proper way to specify this event's location is to create a room called "NW corner of parking lot" and attach it to the stake center location? That doesn't pass a sanity check for me. And rooms that don't need to be scheduled according to our stake's rules are in the exact same category. I freely grant that other stakes may have different rules, but that's their choice, not ours.

Gary_Miller wrote:What Simplicity?

The simplicity I'm talking about is that every time a calendar editor needs to select a room from the list, they scroll through a list of about 10-15 rooms, instead of a list of 40-50 rooms.

Gary_Miller wrote:I can see that they work.

As for working well, that's yet to be determined.

How much data do you need? Our stake has two years of experience operating this way. I haven't heard a single complaint on the topic we're addressing (and believe me, I hear plenty of complaints on other calendar-related topics).

One of the great features of the calendar system is that it provides sufficient flexibility that stakes can operate in different ways, finding a configuration and set of processes that works well for each. Posts on this forum show that various stakes choose widely different ways of using the calendar -- and they do so successfully. Although it's helpful to point out your perspective of pros and cons for different approaches, it is clear that different stakes may attach different priorities to the various pros and cons. I think that's healthy.

Bro. Brown I want to thank you for your input and incite you have on this form. I have learned allot from your views as well as others on this form. Knowing how others do things has opened my eyes to all the possibilities on LDS.Org. I mean no disrespect from my comments as a healthy discussion is good when you want to find out how others feel on a subject. The most important thing I have learned from this site is that there are many different ways to accomplish the same thing and that is good. I've also learned that our stake has a lot to learn if we are going to properly use the tools on LDS.org.

We have one of them parking lots on our building list and yes it does not make sense to have it there, especially sense we only have one parking lot. Its one of the things I'm currently trying to get changed.

In my view my stake has not set up the calendar very well. Nor do we use it for much beyond scheduling the building. Its starting to change but we have a long way to go.

My goal is to get our ward to start using the resources and tools on LDS.Org more fully. It seems like no one know whats available or they just don't see the need.

aebrown wrote:We value the simplicity of having fewer rooms associated with a location, and that system is working great for us. I'm really glad that your system of booking all the rooms is working well for you in your stake. I hope you can see that alternate systems can work well for other stakes.

If I remember correctly from some of aebrown's other posts, aebrown lives in a stake where the calendar policy is defined, understood, and enforced. That goes a long way to making any system successful.

Too many times in the church, I've seen that it doesn't matter who's scheduled a building; it's who got there first that seems to matter. When the people who scheduled the building show up they are usually expected to have Christlike compassion on those who didn't bother to schedule the building and somehow adjust their schedules and activities to accommodate those people. If the policy is defined and enforced, people will start to learn and follow the policy. If it's not enforced, many people will ignore it. This pattern occurs in many facets of life, not just church