Calendar Not Recognizing Conflicts

As the building scheduler I reserved the entire building on a certain day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for a wedding. A week later, a member of our ward created a calendar event for the same day (12 p.m. to 7 p.m.) for several rooms in the building for a different wedding.

Question: Shouldn't the ward member who scheduled the 2nd wedding received some sort of conflict notice that the building wasn't available? The 1st wedding didn't appear on our ward calender so she thought she was good to go, and when the calendar let her schedule the building it basically confirmed that in her mind. Luckily she contacted me to "be sure" it was scheduled right and there weren't any conflicts.

Sorry if this has been addressed before and I missed it.

Thanks in advance.

detblow wrote:As the building scheduler I reserved the entire building on a certain day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for a wedding. A week later, a member of our ward created a calendar event for the same day (12 p.m. to 7 p.m.) for several rooms in the building for a different wedding.

Question: Shouldn't the ward member who scheduled the 2nd wedding received some sort of conflict notice that the building wasn't available? The 1st wedding didn't appear on our ward calender so she thought she was good to go, and when the calendar let her schedule the building it basically confirmed that in her mind. Luckily she contacted me to "be sure" it was scheduled right and there weren't any conflicts.

Sorry if this has been addressed before and I missed it.

Thanks in advance.

This has been addressed many times, but it's not that easy to search for, so no apologies are needed.

The problem is that you used a "Reservation," when only an event truly books the building. Reservations are simply restrictions on who can schedule an event, so you shouldn't rely on a reservation as a means of booking the building. That should only be done by a calendar editor/admin who can create an event (some stakes choose to make a building scheduler a calendar editor for a private stake calendar for these purposes; others choose to just have the a ward calendar editor/admin put such events on a ward calendar).

My guess is that you created a reservation for the first wedding and assigned it to your ward. All that means is that no one except a calendar editor/administrator from that ward can create an event. But they can indeed create an event, and the event should win.

See Reservations versus Events in the help system for more details.

Now I guess I'm really confused. I thought creating a reservation booked the building. Thank you for the clarification.

So, in my situation, where the 1st wedding has nothing to do with our ward I should still put it on the ward calendar and book the building that way? If I understand correctly, everything would need to be booked using the ward calendar and not through reservations (even if there is a reservation already there)?

Thanks a bunch!

A reservation does not book the building, but simply denies people outside the designated ward from creating events for the location/room. It is a confusing term; many people think it should be renamed to be a "restriction," as discussed in the thread Reservation terminology.

I highly recommend that you read the article I linked to about reservations; that will help you understand what a reservation truly is, and why you must make sure that you create an actual event if you want to avoid double booking of the location. Reservations should only be used for situations such as when Ward A gets the cultural hall on 1st and 3rd Tuesdays, and Ward B gets it on 2nd and 4th Tuesdays. Then Ward A can create an event that actually books the cultural hall on a 1st Tuesday; Ward B can't book the cultural hall at all on any 1st Tuesday.

To answer your specific question, everything does need to be booked using an event on a ward or stake calendar. Trying to use a reservation for that purpose will only bring you grief.

detblow wrote:I thought creating a reservation booked the building.

We're working on having "Reservations" renamed to "Restrictions" to more accurately reflect what it does.

detblow wrote:So, in my situation, where the 1st wedding has nothing to do with our ward I should still put it on the ward calendar and book the building that way?

Depending on your rights, it needs to be placed on some calendar, either ward or stake. However, it can be placed on a private calendar (to avoid having all the members see it). And you may want to title the calendar it something like "Private Events", "Family Events", "Resources only" or something like that.

You can work with a default admin to set up an appropriate calendar and make sure you have the needed rights to use it.