Calendar help for private events

We recently had a scheduling conflict because our building scheduler has been scheduling private events using reservations. I talked to the stake leadership and they were under the impression that reservations were how the developers intended building schedulers to schedule private events (I think partly because they are called building schedulers and that's the only thing they can create--but that's another topic that's been discussed multiple times elsewhere).

I was searching for both calendar help and discussion threads that would bolster my position that this needs to stop and that private events need to be scheduled on a calendar (probably a private stake calendar where the building scheduler is an editor).

I found several useful discussion threads easily enough but when I looked at the calendar help it was less clear than I'd like. The information on reservations is pretty good and it is pretty clear that they should not be used to actually schedule resources. But there are two bits that explicitly mention private events (both on the Scheduling Events page):

If you're not a calendar editor but still need to publish an event, contact the appropriate calendar editor with the request. If your event doesn't fit on any specific calendar (such as a funeral or wedding), contact your ward clerk or building scheduler with the request. The event can be added to a general ward calendar. See Submit Requests to Building Schedulers to Schedule Events for more information.

Later it says:

If you're not a calendar editor but need to schedule a ward or stake building (such as for a funeral or wedding), contact the building scheduler to schedule the building. To contact the building scheduler, in the sidebar of the calendar, click the arrow next to the location and select Contact Building Scheduler.


By default, building schedulers aren't set up as calendar editors on any calendar. It would be advantageous for calendar administrators to add the building scheduler to a general calendar as an editor so the building scheduler can schedule events rather than simply create reservations.

These suggestions are primarily directed towards johnsonth but obviously others are welcome to comment as well.

First of all, there is an inconsistency between the two statements. The first says to go to a ward administrator or to a building scheduler whereas the second just says to contact the building scheduler. It would be good if they were in sync.

Second, since it tells people to contact the building scheduler for private events, I think it needs more direction on what a building scheduler should do when contacted about private events and how the calendar needs to be configured to support this.

Specifically, I think it should be very explicit that these events should not be placed as reservations. Second, it should be more firm that building schedulers need to be added to as a calendar editor and it should provide more guidance on what calendar could be used (general stake calendar, public stake calendar specifically for these events, private stake calendar for these events, public ward calendar in the ward of the building scheduler or private ward calendar in the ward of the building scheduler) and the pros and cons of each. Or alternatively you could just pick one of these to recommend and reference one of the discussion threads if someone wants alternatives.

I think this is a subject that does easily create confusion with the new system so the more concrete the help is on this subject, the better in my mind.

In our ward, anyone who wishes to reserve the building for any wedding, funeral or private function is pointed towards the Exec Secretary. He then liaises with the Bishop for his agreement before entering the event on the calendar. A calendar that has been specifically set up for that purpose.

eblood66 wrote:Second, since it tells people to contact the building scheduler for private events, I think it needs more direction on what a building scheduler should do when contacted about private events and how the calendar needs to be configured to support this.

Thanks for pointing this out. I agree that it is confusing.

In our stake I'm working to convince people that private events can and should be scheduled in the ward; there's no need to contact anyone from the stake or the building scheduler. We have a designated "Calendar Coordinator" in each ward who would be the person to contact. This similar to the way Biggles said his stake operates, with the ward executive secretary filling this role.

It's difficult to get that message across because of tradition and the way the calendar currently points people to the building scheduler. But as has been pointed out, the building scheduler can't even create events unless he's also been given calendar editor permissions. So the way that role was set up implies that the building scheduler really shouldn't be doing any event scheduling at all.

aebrown wrote:In our stake I'm working to convince people that private events can and should be scheduled in the ward; there's no need to contact anyone from the stake or the building scheduler. We have a designated "Calendar Coordinator" in each ward who would be the person to contact. This similar to the way Biggles said his stake operates, with the ward executive secretary filling this role.

It's difficult to get that message across because of tradition and the way the calendar currently points people to the building scheduler. But as has been pointed out, the building scheduler can't even create events unless he's also been given calendar editor permissions. So the way that role was set up implies that the building scheduler really shouldn't be doing any event scheduling at all.

Personally, I like that method of handling it. But as long as the calendar help points people to the building scheduler I'm not going to even try to push the idea. Tradition is too strong for me (as just a ward clerk) to change peoples minds on this without some official backing. On the other hand, if the official help were to advocate that approach then it I would gladly push it myself.

But whichever approach the help describes, additional instruction could alleviate some of the confusion. As has been discussed in other threads (multiple times) a change in terminology would help even more but until that happens, some changes in the help systems (one way or another) would be good.

I think it would be helpful if the help file suggested that the building scheduler were to create a private event calendar to schedule these events on. This is something that is within the ability of the building scheduler since anyone can create a calendar (subject to approval by a admin). At least that would resolve the issue about directing members to the scheduler and how they should handle such requests.

RussellHltn wrote:I think it would be helpful if the help file suggested that the building scheduler were to create a private event calendar to schedule these events on. This is something that is within the ability of the building scheduler since anyone can create a calendar (subject to approval by a admin). At least that would resolve the issue about directing members to the scheduler and how they should handle such requests.

I was just recently given this position in my Stake for all buildings in the Stake. We are getting all of the Wards used to scheduling their own "Ward" activities but anything that is a private event (I never knew how many people use the buildings for family Thanksgiving events!!), gets scheduled by me on a "Private Events" calendar for the whole Stake. This is not even viewable by most of f the Stake but if someone tries to schedule something, they will see that it conflicts and are told to contact me where I can tell them where the problem is.

Just a note about how we are handling it.

RussellHltn wrote:I think it would be helpful if the help file suggested that the building scheduler were to create a private event calendar to schedule these events on. This is something that is within the ability of the building scheduler since anyone can create a calendar (subject to approval by a admin). At least that would resolve the issue about directing members to the scheduler and how they should handle such requests.

The only problem I see here is that the Building Scheduler would only be able to create a calendar (subject to approval by a admin), for the ward where his records are. That does not help for all the other wards that use the building.

I think it would be best if the individual wards created a calendar just for private events one of the default administrators scheduling the events, or as Bro Browns stake does it a designated "calendar Coordinator" with in the ward.

In our ward we just made a public calendar titled "Family Events Reservations" with the description, "Used to Calendar/Schedule Private Family Events. Such as weddings, funerals, reunions, ect." The editors are all the default administrators anyone of them can book the event. However we recently called a calendar coordinator so my guess is they will handle all the booking of events not related specifically to an organizations calendar.

Gary_Miller wrote:The only problem I see here is that the Building Scheduler would only be able to create a calendar (subject to approval by a admin), for the ward where his records are. That does not help for all the other wards that use the building.

Assuming that everyone in the building was directed to the same Building Scheduler, I don't see a short term problem with that. Long-term, there would be an issue of hand-off to someone in another ward.

However, anyone can create a stake calendar (also subject to approval by a admin). I think that would be the smarter option in this case.

Gary_Miller wrote:I think it would be best if the individual wards created a calendar just for private events one of the default administrators scheduling the events, or as Bro Browns stake does it a designated "calendar Coordinator" with in the ward.

In our ward we just made a public calendar titled "Family Events Reservations" with the description, "Used to Calendar/Schedule Private Family Events. Such as weddings, funerals, reunions, ect." The editors are all the default administrators anyone of them can book the event. However we recently called a calendar coordinator so my guess is they will handle all the booking of events not related specifically to an organizations calendar.

That's certainly a viable way of doing it.

But I think the focus of this thread is:

• The calendar has a role of "Building Scheduler", both in the software itself and the help file.
• By default, the Building Scheduler has no rights to add events.
• The help file does NOT suggest what other rights the Building Scheduler should have to function.
• The help file directs members seeking to schedule family events to the Building Scheduler.
• The help file does NOT suggest procedures the Building Scheduler should use for these family events.

The above is not a good combination. And can lead to Building Schedulers using the Reservation function like a calendar. I think we all agree that's a bad idea.

To me, the problem isn't the software as much as the help file needs some tweaking. Which is a very easy fix, comparatively speaking.

Gary_Miller wrote:The only problem I see here is that the Building Scheduler would only be able to create a calendar (subject to approval by a admin), for the ward where his records are.

The calendar used by the Building Scheduler could be a stake calendar.

Gary_Miller wrote:That does not help for all the other wards that use the building.

In any case, for stakes that choose to use this method, the calendar used by the building scheduler is probably a private calendar. Its sole purpose is to create an event so that the location/rooms are properly booked. It wouldn't really matter whether it were a ward or stake calendar; any calendar can book a location/room.

aebrown wrote: It wouldn't really matter whether it were a ward or stake calendar; any calendar can book a location/room.

Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think this is correct. If the "private Events" calendar is not a Stake calendar, then unless you have a different person for each building (which we do not), you cannot book rooms in other locations. Our "Private Events" calendar is a Stake Calendar so that the person called as the building scheduler (me) can book locations/resources in any of the locations.

RBeatse wrote:Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think this is correct. If the "private Events" calendar is not a Stake calendar, then unless you have a different person for each building (which we do not), you cannot book rooms in other locations. Our "Private Events" calendar is a Stake Calendar so that the person called as the building scheduler (me) can book locations/resources in any of the locations.

Actually it is correct. Any calendar editor can book events in any building. The one restriction on location assignments is that a building scheduler can't make reservations in a building that he is not assigned to, but that has nothing to do with events anyway.

But if you're having a stake-wide private events calendar, it would make more sense to make it a stake calendar, even if a ward calendar is technically feasible.

aebrown wrote:Actually it is correct. Any calendar editor can book events in any building. The one restriction on location assignments is that a building scheduler can't make reservations in a building that he is not assigned to, but that has nothing to do with events anyway.

But if you're having a stake-wide private events calendar, it would make more sense to make it a stake calendar, even if a ward calendar is technically feasible.

Glad to be wrong. Thanks for the clarification

RBeatse wrote:This is not even viewable by most of f the Stake but if someone tries to schedule something, they will see that it conflicts and are told to contact me where I can tell them where the problem is.

This would be very frustrating if I went to the week view for a building and saw no event scheduled so tried to schedule a event but received a conflict and could not figure it out due to it being on a calendar I could not see. Especially if there was no message directing me to the "Building Scheduler".

While this may be one way to use a Private calendar I don't see a need for it to be private.

Private calendars are good for events where your not scheduling the facility but want to have the event placed on an agenda, such as Bishopric appointments or Organizational Presidency meetings.

Gary_Miller wrote:This would be very frustrating if I went to the week view for a building and saw no event scheduled so tried to schedule a event but received a conflict and could not figure it out due to it being on a calendar I could not see. Especially if there was no message directing me to the "Building Scheduler".

While this may be one way to use a Private calendar I don't see a need for it to be private.

Private calendars are good for events where your not scheduling the facility but want to have the event placed on an agenda, such as Bishopric appointments or Organizational Presidency meetings.

While I can see your point, after lots of discussion, this is the way that it was decided by our Stake Presidency. It is their call on this one. We are still getting people used to this and maybe their minds will change after more experience.

RussellHltn wrote:The above is not a good combination. And can lead to Building Schedulers using the Reservation function like a calendar.

I see this happening all the time. Mostly due to members being use to calling the Building Scheduler to book the building and the building scheduler not understanding thier role. So all that happens is the building being reserved through a reservation when all that was really needed was the booking of an event on a calendar. Building schedulers need to start referring members back to the calendar editors to book an event instead of making a reservation that is not needed.

RussellHltn wrote:I think we all agree that's a bad idea.

Correct.

RussellHltn wrote:To me, the problem isn't the software as much as the help file needs some tweaking. Which is a very easy fix, comparatively speaking.

Correct the help file may need some tweaking. However Building Schedulers also need to take the time to magnify their calling by understand their role and the role of other calendar users. It all a matter of one getting trained, reading the handbooks (in this case the help file).

Gary_Miller wrote:This would be very frustrating if I went to the week view for a building and saw no event scheduled so tried to schedule a event but received a conflict and could not figure it out due to it being on a calendar I could not see. Especially if there was no message directing me to the "Building Scheduler".

Actually the week view does show an event it just doesn't give you any details about what the event is if it's on a private calendar. So it's not all that bad.

RBeatse wrote:While I can see your point, after lots of discussion, this is the way that it was decided by our Stake Presidency. It is their call on this one.

Lots of times the Stake Presidency does not have all the facts or a good understanding of how a system works (especially if it a new system) when decisions are made. Often its because the individual giving the presentation does not fully understand how the system should or could work. Other times the decision is based on no facts except, that is how we have always done it. From your original post it sounds like a mixture of all the above.

Now that you have a good understanding or how the system should/could work. It might be a good time to go back to the Stake Presidency with some further information and a new proposal.

RBeatse wrote:We are still getting people used to this and maybe their minds will change after more experience.

Maybe but I think its better to put all the changes on the table at one time during the learning stage. Then all involved are implementing the changes at one time instead of constantly being frustrated due to constant change. This is not to say change is not going to happen it just makes sure change is at a minimum.

eblood66 wrote:Actually the week view does show an event it just doesn't give you any details about what the event is if it's on a private calendar. So it's not all that bad.

I stand corrected. I had not yet experiences a private event being scheduled so just supposed it would not show up.

Did a quick private test calendar and event, then using my wife's log on went and looked at the week view. Sure enough there was a private event, I could not see anything but the times, location and rooms being used.

Now I'm beginning to think a private calendar is the way to go for private events. After all no one else really needs to know what the event is just that the building is being used at that time.

Yep, Time to go make our Family Events Calendar a Private calendar.

Gary_Miller wrote:Now I'm beginning to think a private calendar is the way to go for private events. After all no one else really needs to know what the event is just that the building is being used at that time.

I see a couple of good reasons for that: 1) It keeps the Private Events calendar out of the general membership's sync feed without them having to manually remove it. 2) It would tend to discourage any "party crashers" looking for a free meal.

The only reason I can think of against private calendars is that some people are experiencing problems with them. Such as being dropped as a viewer.

Thanks for pointing out the inconsistency in the help file and the need for greater clarification about this topic. I'll make some adjustments. I think I need to add a topic called "Creating Family Events." From what I can tell, the best practices are as follows:

* Don't contact the building scheduler to create this type of event.
* If a building scheduler is contacted, don't create the event as a reservation (because this doesn't reserve the building for a specific group -- it still will allow the building to be available for the ward as a whole).
* Contact the executive secretary, who liaises with the bishop and can secure permission for these type of activities.
* Have the executive secretary schedule this as an event on the Family Calendar.

Let me know if I misinterpreted the outcome of this thread.

John I don't think specifying a specific calling is the right thing to do. Who the point of contact for each ward/stake could be different, I would suggest using administrator instead of Exec Secretary as its more general in nature and would cover who ever the unit leaders call.

I don't think there needs to be any verbiage relating to "liaison with the bishop" as this may or may not be required in many units. Most Bishops who I have worked with see no need to micro manage to that level and will just rely on who ever they have appointed to manage the calendar.

For instance in my ward we have just appointed a Calendar Coordinator, Bro. Brown mentioned his stake does the same thing. The Calendar Coordinator, at least in my ward, responsibilities is to train others on the use of the calendar, schedule events on calendars which are not assigned to a specific organizations (such as the private event calendar), work with the building scheduler and other wards in the building to solve conflicts, as well as working with stake calendar administrators to solve any issues relating to the calendar.

The Calendar Coordinator has administration rights so they can add, edit and view events on all calendars, with the exception of the bishopric private calendars. Basically they are the go to person in the ward for anything to do with the calendar. The only draw back is we had to add them as an by name because "Calendar Coordinator" is not on the standard calling list.

johnsonth wrote:* Don't contact the building scheduler to create this type of event.

That would depend on how the stake/ward has organized the function. In our case, the Building Scheduler does handle that.

From the various messages I've seen here, I'm led to believe that in most cases it is Building Scheduler is the person who handles family events. But that might only be because that's when the problems start - in that the only right the Building Scheduler has is to create reservations. If it was anyone else, it would be obvious that if they didn't already have rights, that they should have rights to at least one calendar to carry out their calling.

So really, the problems start when the stake designates a building scheduler and nothing else. Because the only tool that person has is to use reservations.

Perhaps a pop-up warning when changing the building scheduler to say that they must have edit rights to at least one calendar would help. I'm not sure what else to suggest unless we want to hard-code a Family Event Calendar.

At least updating the help file is proof "they're doing it wrong" and not "the system is broken".

But, while we're on the subject. Just what is a "Stake building specialist" and why should they be a default admin to the stake calendar? Seems like there's some overlap here.

johnsonth wrote:From what I can tell, the best practices are as follows:

* Don't contact the building scheduler to create this type of event.
* If a building scheduler is contacted, don't create the event as a reservation (because this doesn't reserve the building for a specific group -- it still will allow the building to be available for the ward as a whole).
* Contact the executive secretary, who liaises with the bishop and can secure permission for these type of activities.
* Have the executive secretary schedule this as an event on the Family Calendar.

I like the topic title "Creating Family and Other Private Events". I think the topic should have an opening that outlines the issue. This issue is driven by the need by members to schedule family and other private events at a location. Most ward calendars are created for and around the ward and ward organizations. An additional calendar may be needed to schedule family and other private events. This calendar can be either a ward calendar or a stake calendar. The choice of one or the other has advantages and disadvantages.

I see the best practices as the following:

• Create and appropriately name a calendar to schedule family and private events.
• Identify a point of contact for scheduling these events on the calendar. This point of contact must have edit rights for this calendar.
• The building scheduler should know who the point of contact is for each ward/branch at her/his location.
• If the building scheduler is the point of contact, she/he should create an event on the family and private events calendar and avoid using a reservation (because this doesn't book the building or rooms/equipment -- it still will allow the building or rooms/equipment to be booked by any calendar editor in the ward for which the reservation is made.)
• If the building scheduler is the point of contact, the calendar can only be created in her/his ward or it must be created as a stake calendar. A ward calendar is only viewable by members of the building scheduler's ward and members of other wards/branches must use the Calendar week view to see these events (For more information about viewing other ward events see "Concepts:Locations" in Viewing the Calendar in the Calendar Help.).

As discussed in this thread, bullet two can be any number of people or a group of people. The most obvious group would be the default administrators. Identifying someone other than an administrator as the point of contact is a local preference.

jdlessley wrote:An additional calendar may be needed to schedule family and other private events. This calendar can be either a ward calendar or a stake calendar. The choice of one or the other has advantages and disadvantages.

I would not recommend making it a ward calendar unless there will only be one ward meeting there for the foreseeable future. Even then, the Scheduler will have to be a member of that ward.

As a stake calendar, the person may have to be added by name, since ward callings can't be used for rights on a stake calendar. That's the only downside I see.

johnsonth wrote:* If a building scheduler is contacted, don't create the event as a reservation (because this doesn't reserve the building for a specific group -- it still will allow the building to be available for the ward as a whole).

A good starting point that I think we're all in agreement would be to add something to the "Making Reservations" page to indicate that Reservations should NOT be used in place of events. Currently it only has "good examples" but no "bad examples".

RussellHltn wrote:I would not recommend making it a ward calendar unless there will only be one ward meeting there for the foreseeable future. Even then, the Scheduler will have to be a member of that ward.

The statement quoted was a lead in to the best practices. It is a general statement of many possible ways to handle family and private events. Obviously there would have to be further explanation about using a ward calendar as the "Family Events" calendar. I would not recommend a ward calendar either if the building scheduler is the one scheduling the family and private events. I would recommend a stake calendar in that situation. If a ward calendar is used then each ward in a location would all have to be using the same method of scheduling family and private events. A ward calendar would then also have to have a point of contact to enter the event into the ward calendar.

The simplest of all the approaches, to me, is the single stake calendar with building schedulers added as editors.

RussellHltn wrote:As a stake calendar, the person may have to be added by name, since ward callings can't be used for rights on a stake calendar. That's the only downside I see.

While not a downside per se, there is a difficultly in getting some stakes to use a stake calendar for scheduling family and private events. They may not have the vision of how simplified a single stake calendar would be in managing this special need. Our stake has not been convinced to use a single stake calendar. Each location, and actually each ward, is left to their own devices.

A ward calendar for each ward would be the best way for a private calendar, managed by a ward administrator, keeping things at the lowest possible level makes for sound management practices.

If you were to put it at the stake level using a building scheduler rights to edit a calendar would make it so people may have to communicate with someone they may not be familiar with. Doing so would be a step backwards from what the new way of calendering is designed to do. It also cause to much micro management.

I made an attempt to update the calendar help around the topics discussed in this thread. See "Scheduling Funerals, Weddings, Family Reunions, and Other Private Events" on the Scheduling Events page.

I may revisit that, but I hope this addresses some of the immediate concerns about having building schedulers schedule events.

john, looks good thank you.

johnsonth wrote:I made an attempt to update the calendar help around the topics discussed in this thread. See "Scheduling Funerals, Weddings, Family Reunions, and Other Private Events" on the Scheduling Events page.

I may revisit that, but I hope this addresses some of the immediate concerns about having building schedulers schedule events.

The way you've worded this will work great in my stake, since we don't have building schedulers schedule events.

The problem with your categorical advice -- "Do not contact the building scheduler with event requests.... Building schedulers are not calendar editors nor calendar administrators, and they cannot schedule events" -- is that many stakes have chosen to have building schedulers handle requests to schedule private events. It's a natural choice, after all, since the building scheduler is the only person(s) that the Calendar system actually gives regular members contact information for. Such stakes generally set up a calendar (usually a private stake calendar) and give the building scheduler rights to add such events to it.

I know that blurs the roles of building scheduler and calendar editor, but it's not an unreasonable choice, given the way the calendar user interface currently works. And some stakes have very specific policies regarding the scheduling of private events, and the building scheduler is a convenient person who can enforce those policies if all such requests are channeled through him or her.

and the clerk will schedule the event on a general ward calendar.

There's two problems with that. In our stake, any requests for the stake center are routed to the stake executive secretary.

Secondly, why would a private event be on a "general ward calendar"? Funerals maybe, but not weddings unless the entire ward is invited. I'd suggest changing that part to "the appropriate calendar".

RussellHltn wrote:In our stake, any requests for the stake center are routed to the stake executive secretary.

Talk about micromanagement.

In general with the exceptions of where the stake offices are located and stake events are held, the Stake Center is just another Meeting House.

aebrown wrote:The problem with your categorical advice -- "Do not contact the building scheduler with event requests.... Building schedulers are not calendar editors nor calendar administrators, and they cannot schedule events" -- is that many stakes have chosen to have building schedulers handle requests to schedule private events. It's a natural choice, after all, since the building scheduler is the only person(s) that the Calendar system actually gives regular members contact information for. Such stakes generally set up a calendar (usually a private stake calendar) and give the building scheduler rights to add such events to it.

Thanks for the feedback. I softened this section a bit:

[INDENT]Unless your ward or stake prefers to involve the building scheduler in event scheduling, recognize that building schedulers are not calendar editors nor calendar administrators, and they cannot schedule events. Building schedulers can create reservations, but a reservation does not reserve the location for a specific group, nor is a reservation an event (see Reservations Versus Scheduled Events for more details). [/INDENT]

I also direct people to the executive secretary rather than clerk.

To be honest, I think we will eventually see a change in the building scheduler role within the calendar application. Not for a while, but maybe in the next major version. We've found that it's harder to change church culture than application functionality. But right now developers have their hands full, so we haven't revisited this topic with the kind of discussion that we want to have.

If you don't mind Tom here are some recommendations.

The "Scheduling Events" second paragraph I recommend making this change starting with the second sentence. "If your event doesn't fit on any specific calendar (such as a funeral or wedding), contact a calendar administrator (such as a clerk, executive secretary, or website administrator) or building scheduler with the request. The event can be added to an appropriate calendar. See ...".

Listing all the calendar administrators in the parentheses I don't think is necessary since the user can go to "Rights and Roles" to see who all the administrators are. I think leaving the list generic covers both the ward and stake administrators. Of course the stake has an additional administrator, stake building specialist, that may be the point of contact (calendar editor) for scheduling these special events.

I'm still pondering the "Scheduling Funerals, Weddings, Family Reunions, and Other Private Events" section. The part that is causing the most thought is where it says "In most cases, contact the ward or or stake executive secretary...". Some users could view this as the best, or only, person to contact, or as the only choice for the special events calendar editor. We have seen it many times in these forums that if the help doesn't mention something then some users take that to mean it is not possible or not approved. And likewise, if the help only mentions one way, or in this case, one position, then that position is the only approved position. I'm hoping this is rare across the Church. But it does cause some thought.

jdlessley wrote:I'm still pondering the "Scheduling Funerals, Weddings, Family Reunions, and Other Private Events" section. The part that is causing the most thought is where it says "In most cases, contact the ward or or stake executive secretary...". Some users could view this as the best, or only, person to contact, or as the only choice for the special events calendar editor.

How about "Check with your ward or branch leaders to find the contact person for private events ...". Unless you want to go into Handbook territory, you don't want to be specifying a specific calling.

johnsonth wrote:We've found that it's harder to change church culture than application functionality.

And it's very hard to tell at times what is church culture and what is church policy...the two often become one in our minds.

jdlessley wrote:If you don't mind Tom here are some recommendations.

The "Scheduling Events" second paragraph I recommend making this change starting with the second sentence. "If your event doesn't fit on any specific calendar (such as a funeral or wedding), contact a calendar administrator (such as a clerk, executive secretary, or website administrator) or building scheduler with the request. The event can be added to an appropriate calendar. See ...".

Thanks for the suggestion. I incorporated this edit but removed the building scheduler from the list of suggested contacts.

Coincidentally, about an hour ago a colleague stopped by my cube and asked how he reserves a room for a meeting tomorrow in the stake center. What's fundamentally unintuitive about the calendar is that you "reserve"/schedule a room at the same time you schedule an event. I think people are used to seeing these as two separate activities. Even if we change the term "reservations" to something else, people still won't get the idea that they -- regular members -- can "reserve"/schedule rooms.

johnsonth wrote:What's fundamentally unintuitive about the calendar is that you "reserve"/schedule a room at the same time you schedule an event. I think people are used to seeing these as two separate activities.

I disagree with the characterization of it being "fundamentally unintuitive." Rather, the problem is years of a culture that separates the two activities. If it weren't for that history, I would think it is fundamentally unintuitive to have to do two different actions just to get an event set up properly -- separating the location from the event makes no sense. And for people who use other calendaring systems in a corporate environment (such as Outlook), you always schedule the event with the room.

I'm not saying that this aspect of the system will not be misunderstood -- we have abundant evidence that it is causing confusion. But it's not like the old system was perfect -- we had many, many problems with people scheduling events and failing to contact the building scheduler to reserve the building. Two years into it, I think we have significantly fewer problems now than with the classic calendar. It just takes time for the new system to sink in.

johnsonth wrote:Even if we change the term "reservations" to something else, people still won't get the idea that they -- regular members -- can "reserve"/schedule rooms.

I guess you used the term "regular members" to distinguish from schedulers, but it's only calendar editors who can schedule rooms. That's a much smaller set of people to educate.

johnsonth wrote:I think people are used to seeing these as two separate activities.

I think your right here. People were alway use to having to call the building scheduler to schedule a room for the event they just put on the calendar. If the room was not available at the time they wanted to have it they just scheduled for a different time.

Change is hard, but changing ones paradigm is even harder. This will take time but it is worth the time.

johnsonth wrote:Even if we change the term "reservations" to something else, people still won't get the idea that they -- regular members -- can "reserve"/schedule rooms.

In this case it even harder trying to help people understand that they don't have to call the "Building Scheduler" all they need to do is put the event on the calendar. Especially when leadership is still putting: "To schedule the building, call Brother Soandso - XXX-XXXX" in the Sunday bulletin, and Bro. Soandso is just the "Building Scheduler".

So Bro. Soandso does what he has always done and puts it on the calendar as a "reservation" just like he has always done, because he does not know any better. Why does this happen, I have a couple of theories, but for the most part it due to a lack of understanding, due to a lack proper training. Not just understanding and training of the "Building Scheduler" but understanding and training of the Stake and Ward leaders, the ones who are suppose to do the training for Brother Soandso.

Did I mentioned; Change is hard, but changing ones paradigm is even harder. This will take time but it is worth the time.

Gary_Miller wrote:Did I mentioned; Change is hard, but changing ones paradigm is even harder. This will take time but it is worth the time.

Ages ago, my company put me though a Franklin seminar (before it became Franklin Covey). One the take-always was "only have one calendar". If you have two, they're going to get out of sync and cause problems.

It really makes a lot of sense to use events to book rooms. That way when events change, the bookings change as well. I would not want to see that go away because of "traditions of our fathers".

What could help is tweaking the language of the Edit Event screen. There's really no clue that the "Location" information is anything but to tell members where to go. If it said "Reserve" or "Block off" then the calendar editors are more likely to understand the purpose - and to select ALL rooms they'll be using and not just the initial meeting place.

johnsonth wrote:Thanks for the feedback. I softened this section a bit:

I'm afraid it's somewhat of a moving target! We all do it differently. Some stakes have not even activated online scheduling yet, so any mention of online calendar scheduling in the help or the guides for those stakes would be incorrect. But I think your are doing a great job trying to accommodate us.

aebrown wrote: And for people who use other calendaring systems in a corporate environment (such as Outlook), you always schedule the event with the room.

You're right. I'm certainly not advocating two calendars or anything similar. Just something that fits more seamlessly into the existing church culture about how we schedule events and reserve rooms.

If we altered the Edit Event screen with a column that said, "Would you like to reserve a room for your event?" or something to that effect (with a little on-screen explanation), what then would you call the scheduling rules that the building scheduler sets up? "Scheduling rules"? Maybe simply bringing the word "reserve" into the scheduling workflow would clarify the process.

Also, good point about calendar editors being a subset of regular members.

johnsonth wrote:If we altered the Edit Event screen with a column that said, "Would you like to reserve a room for your event?" or something to that effect (with a little on-screen explanation), what then would you call the scheduling rules that the building scheduler sets up? "Scheduling rules"? Maybe simply bringing the word "reserve" into the scheduling workflow would clarify the process.

We've previously talked about renaming the "building scheduler" to "building coordinator" as well as changing "reservations" to "restrictions".

If you do that, then using "reservations" in the event screen might be OK. But I'd be worried about people thinking that the "new reservation" is the same as the "old reservation". So I'd suggest a different terminology, at least for awhile. Some ideas might be "book" or "block off".

johnsonth wrote:If we altered the Edit Event screen with a column that said, "Would you like to reserve a room for your event?" or something to that effect (with a little on-screen explanation), what then would you call the scheduling rules that the building scheduler sets up? "Scheduling rules"? Maybe simply bringing the word "reserve" into the scheduling workflow would clarify the process.

I do like the idea that RussellHltn started of putting a little more explanation and emphasis on the "Location" field so that people understand its purpose and importance.

In previous discussions, I think there was a pretty strong consensus for changing the term "Reservations" to be "Restrictions"; they are pretty much just restrictions on what locations/rooms people can book. That choice made to change the original term "assignment" to be "reservation" was (IMHO) an awful choice that has led to tremendous confusion. Once that term is changed to something else, the word "Reservation" would become available to use for what people naturally think of, which is the action that happens when you associate a location/room with an event; we currently tend to call that "booking" here, but I'd rather call it "reserving."

I like the recommendations you propose and the term "restrictions." I'll add an item to the JIRA backlog for the calendar lead to review.

johnsonth wrote:I like the recommendations you propose and the term "restrictions." I'll add an item to the JIRA backlog for the calendar lead to review.

In this post that you made about 9 months ago, you said that you had already added a JIRA item for considering adopting the term "restriction."

aebrown wrote:In this post that you made about 9 months ago, you said that you had already added a JIRA item for considering adopting the term "restriction."

I tracked down that JIRA item. My JIRA item suggestion was a duplicate of another JIRA item addressing the same issue, so these two items were consolidated to one. The other JIRA item proposed the idea of changing the term "reservations" to "facility holds." This item was then marked as a P1 (blocker) and assigned to the next version of the calendar (3.0).

I added an extensive comment arguing that we change "reservations" to "restrictions," and that we use "reserve a room" on the Edit Event screen.

Whether this change gets implemented or not depends on team discussions, direction from leaders, available resources, and other factors. I also do not know if we have a firm target release date for 3.0, because resources are tied up with other higher priority projects. Still, 3.0 will happen eventually.

Here's my comment on the JIRA item. Let me know if you think it's on target:

This topic keeps resurfacing in the forums each time someone experiences confusion about the term reservations. For example, see these threads:

• https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?9971-Reservation-terminology&p=76073
• https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?13522-Reservations-worth-it/
• https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?13735-Calendar-help-for-private-events

The consensus in the forums seems to be the following:
1. Change the term "reservations" to "restrictions."
2. On the Edit Event screen, use "reserve a room" to refer to the act of scheduling a room.

I agree with these recommendations. Here's why. Church members undeniably use the phrase "reserve a room" when referring to scheduling a room. The term "reserve" is embedded within Church vocabulary. We can't just switch it out, because whatever other term we use, people will still ask, "So how do I reserve a room for my meeting?"

Our error was in using the term reservations in the building scheduler's workflow rather than the member's workflow. We need to let members use the term "reserve a room" when they schedule an event. This will help increase awareness that they actually can schedule a room. This term should appear on the Edit Event screen.

For building schedulers, we just need to change their term from "reservations" to "restrictions." This terminology change will help encourage building schedulers to stop creating reservations when they should really just be scheduling a room. Right now building schedulers keep reserving rooms for single events, such as a BBQ on a Saturday for an Elder's Quorum. This is because the EQ has been trained to "reserve the pavilion" for their activity, so they ask the building scheduler to "reserve" a room.

In turn, the building scheduler "reserves" a room, but really the building scheduler should have never reserved a room at all. The building scheduler should have directed the calendar editor to schedule the room. We need to put the term "reserve" back into the event scheduling workflow so that the EQ president knows he can reserve a room without involving the building scheduler.

What building schedulers are actually doing is "restricting" who can reserve what resource at what time. They are putting limitations on the free-for-all reservation functionality. That is why the term "restrictions" fits so well.

johnsonth wrote:Here's my comment on the JIRA item. Let me know if you think it's on target:

That looks like a good summary that covers the essential points. I particularly liked your insightful comment that the current usage of the term "reservation" grew out of too much focus on the building scheduler's workflow while ignoring the workflow and terminology of regular members and calendar editors.

I guess my only concern about the sequence of the changes is the one RussellHltn raised: if we change the term "reservation" to be "restriction" in the building scheduler context, and immediately start using the term "reserve" in a different context (booking a room/location as part of an event), might that be confusing to some people? I don't know, but it's worth considering. I imagine that the term "reservation" as currently used in the calendar is not familiar to many people outside building schedulers, some admins, and a handful of editors, so the potential for confusion if we make the changes simultaneously could be minimal.

RussellHltn wrote:We've previously talked about renaming the "building scheduler" to "building coordinator"

Any hope on getting this item in JIRA, too? It also leads to a lot of confusion. I think there was also a suggestion of having a ward "Calendar Coordinator" who is the ward contact for scheduling. We could put that as a standard calling in CDOL and by default make that calling a calendar administrator

johnsonth wrote:I made an attempt to update the calendar help around the topics discussed in this thread. See "Scheduling Funerals, Weddings, Family Reunions, and Other Private Events" on the Scheduling Events page.

I may revisit that, but I hope this addresses some of the immediate concerns about having building schedulers schedule events.

I finally had a chance to check out the updates and I think they are an improvement and should help avoid the confusion I was concerned about.

While reviewing those changes I also re-read the Reservations Versus Scheduled Events section and I've got a couple other suggestions/concerns but since they don't have to do with private events specifically I'll start another thread for them.