Double booking on calendar

Our stake building has 2 wards, 1 branch, and stake office in it. Wards/branches can schedule the calendar OK, but if the stake schedules an event it can double book the areas taken by the ward. If the ward schedules and event it can double book the areas taken by the stake. What am I missing, I'm getting confused?

We've experienced the same problem. Why isn't there a notification that there is something already booked?

There should be no double booking if the wards and stake are using the calendar system properly. You haven't given a lot of details, but here are some possibilities:

• Either the stake or wards are using Reservations when they should be using Events to schedule the building. Although Reservations can be useful when they are used properly, the only reliable way to book the building is to create an event.
• Someone is creating events that say in the title, description, or "Other Location" field where these events take place, but the events don't actually select the location and choose the appropriate room(s). Only when the location and rooms are specifically selected can the system check for conflicts.
• We've occasionally heard of cases where the stake administrator has set up two locations for the same building. Then one unit schedules the chapel in Location 1 and another schedules the chapel in Location 2, and of course the system sees no conflict, even though Location 1 and Location 2 are actually for the same building.

I'd recommend that you take a specific example of a reported double booking and examine both events carefully to make sure that they are for the same time, same location and rooms, and that they are both actually events (neither one is a Reservation).

It looks like your 3rd possibility is correct. How are those locations removed without losing all the saved locations or will they have to be re-entered?

cradams wrote:It looks like your 3rd possibility is correct. How are those locations removed without losing all the saved locations or will they have to be re-entered?

You don't have to re-enter all the events, but they do all have to be edited manually to change the location. So I'd recommend that you do the following:

1. Determine which location you will keep. If one of the locations can't be deleted because it was created automatically from the FM Group's database, you'll need to keep that one (you can test this by editing the location and seeing if it has a pink "Remove" button to the right of the "Save" button at the bottom). If both can be deleted, analyze your events and figure out which location has the most events associated with it. Let's call the location you're keeping "Location 1" and the other one "Location 2".
2. Immediately edit Location 2 and uncheck the box by "This location can be scheduled by Wards and Stakes" so that no one else will add events to that location.
3. Edit all the events associated with Location 2 and change them to use Location 1.
4. If you have used Reservations for Location 2, they would need to be manually entered by a building scheduler in Location 1.
5. If a building scheduler was associated with Location 2, consider if they should be associated with Location 1.
6. When you are done, delete Location 2. There's no big rush to do this step, so I'd recommend that you take the time to make sure you really have nothing left that is associated with Location 2.

This all assumes that you have stake administrator rights. If you don't you'd need to ask a stake administrator to do this.

Note that if any of the events you edit are repeating events, it's possible that any exceptions to the repeating rule will change to conform to the rule when you save your edit. So if this might be the case, you'd want to make sure you understand the exceptions so that you can recreate them if need be.

I'm not sure if you can delete the location if it came from the FM Group's database. But off hand, I can't see how to tell which is which.

RussellHltn wrote:I'm not sure if you can delete the location if it came from the FM Group's database.

That's a good point, and that factor certainly should be the first thing you look at before determining which location will stay and which will be deleted. I adjusted my instructions accordingly.

RussellHltn wrote:But off hand, I can't see how to tell which is which.

It's actually pretty easy to tell which is which. Just edit the location. If it has a pink "Remove" button down at the bottom (to the right of the Save button and Cancel link), then it was manually created. If it doesn't have a pink "Remove" button then it was created by the FM Group and can't be deleted.

aebrown wrote:It's actually pretty easy to tell which is which. Just edit the location. If it has a pink "Remove" button down at the bottom (to the right of the Save button and Cancel link), then it was manually created. If it doesn't have a pink "Remove" button then it was created by the FM Group and can't be deleted.

OK, I missed that when I was trying to look for it.

I'm not getting anywhere, let me start again and try to clarify what is going on.
1. there are 2 wards and 1 branch in the stake center
2. in the location assignment area the original setup had ward 1 and ward 2 listed together on a tab (this must have come from the FM group)
3. there was no setup for the stake assignment, so I added one for the stake and assigned areas it could book
4. the stake does have areas to be assigned that exist in the ward tab like chapel, cultural hall and kitchen like you thought
5. here is the problem..the wards can book fine, they are on the same tab - no double booking, but the stake can double book the ward location and the wards can double book the stake location.
6. I can't take the stake and delete it because then I have no way to book locations for stake events. I am still missing something you are telling me, I've been looking at this so long now it is all looking the same to me. (sorry)

Can you post a screen shot of what you're looking at?

cradams wrote:I'm not getting anywhere, let me start again and try to clarify what is going on.
1. there are 2 wards and 1 branch in the stake center
2. in the location assignment area the original setup had ward 1 and ward 2 listed together on a tab (this must have come from the FM group)
3. there was no setup for the stake assignment, so I added one for the stake and assigned areas it could book
4. the stake does have areas to be assigned that exist in the ward tab like chapel, cultural hall and kitchen like you thought
5. here is the problem..the wards can book fine, they are on the same tab - no double booking, but the stake can double book the ward location and the wards can double book the stake location.
6. I can't take the stake and delete it because then I have no way to book locations for stake events. I am still missing something you are telling me, I've been looking at this so long now it is all looking the same to me. (sorry)

Your problem comes in step 3. The descriptions that come from the FM group are not always completely accurate and might be misleading. You should not have added a new location for the stake, because that creates two locations in the calendar system for the single building (your stake center). Having two locations for the same building makes conflict checking impossible.

Instead, what you should have done is to add the stake as a unit assigned to the original location that came from the FM group (see Specify Locations Units Can Reserve). You may still need to do that, in addition to the steps I mentioned.

You also may want to edit the location that came from the FM group to have a name and description that are more accurate and fit the way that you refer to the building. For example, if the default name is "Ward A, Ward B, Branch C" and it has that same description, you might want to change the name to "Stake Center" and the description to "Ward A, Ward B, Branch C, and the Stake".

But you absolutely have to eliminate your second location (the one you created for the stake), following the steps I gave you earlier. I'm guessing that the incorrect assumption you made in step 6 was caused by a misleading default name for the location that came from the FM group. You will be able to schedule stake events on that location with no difficulty if you follow the steps I listed above, and you'll make sure that no one else has confusion if you fix the location's name to be more accurate.

You are absolutely correct. I looked at it so long nothing made sense. I stepped away for a few a hours and it straightened out. I followed the directions as given and "voila" all was corrected. Thanks so much for helping and your patience.

cradams wrote:You are absolutely correct. I looked at it so long nothing made sense. I stepped away for a few a hours and it straightened out. I followed the directions as given and "voila" all was corrected. Thanks so much for helping and your patience.

You're certainly welcome. And thanks for reporting back on your success -- it's very helpful to people who may read this thread in the future to see an indication that the proposed fix actually worked.