How can a member request to schedule the building online?

I am a High Counselor in my Stake (Cincinnati Ohio East) and have responsiblity as the Facilities Representative. This, as you know, is different that being a Building Scheduler. I got to thinking that there is nothing on the new church website, that Iknow of, that directs a member to know who the current building scheduler is or some sort of link to their information and to start an email to that person. I know that only assigned building schedulers can reserve the building rooms and put it on the calendar, but how is a typical member suppossed to know who this person is, especially if 3 or 4 wards share the same building?

Please advise how this is managed online, if at all.

Thanks,
Steve Saatkamp
513-683-8182
Steve.M.Saatkamp@fuse.net

It's really up to the ward/stake as to how it's done and who does it. It might be the building scheduler, it might not.

The best way to get the word out would be using the newsletter or to direct them to their ward leaders who should know.

smslas wrote:I got to thinking that there is nothing on the new church website, that Iknow of, that directs a member to know who the current building scheduler is or some sort of link to their information and to start an email to that person.

Click the down arrow to the right of the location name in the "Locations" box in the lower left side of the calendar window to find out who the building scheduler is. After the arrow is clicked there is a link a the top of the drop-down titled "Contact building scheduler". All the building schedulers for that location with their telephone number and email address is listed.

The building scheduler listed there may not be what your stake calls a building scheduler. The role of building scheduler for the calendar is defined in the calendar help Rights and Roles. If your stake is using a single point of contact for building scheduling then the building scheduler may also have the roll of calendar editor.

If your stake is using the distributed model of scheduling for which the current calendar is designed around then members should not be contacting the building scheduler to schedule events and book rooms. Instead they should be scheduling the events themselves or contacting the appropriate calendar editor if they do not have edit rights to the appropriate calendar.

smslas wrote:I know that only assigned building schedulers can reserve the building rooms and put it on the calendar...

This statement leads me to believe your stake is using the single point of scheduling model rather than the distributed scheduling model the calendar was programmed around. Either that or you are confused about what a reservation is and what an event is and how both are used in the current calendar system.

smslas wrote:Please advise how this is managed online, if at all.

Stakes and units using the calendar as it is programmed under the distributed scheduling model do not need to contact the building scheduler to book rooms for events. Instead they create the events themselves and the calendar system manages, or prevents, conflicts. The role of the building scheduler, as planned in the distributed model of the calendar, is to resolve conflicts and make reservations. The term reservation is a misnomer in that it does not book the rooms but rather restricts which unit can book rooms. Further discussions of these concepts and definitions are found in many other threads found in the Calendar forum.

Further information details about the calendar can be found in the Calendar Help.

jdleesley states: If your stake is using the distributed model of scheduling for which the current calendar is designed around then members should not be contacting the building scheduler to schedule events and book rooms. Instead they should be scheduling the events themselves or contacting the appropriate calendar editor if they do not have edit rights to the appropriate calendar.
But that is a quantum leap for a 'Plain Member' ie a Non-Leader Member to go to Calendars and find 'Create a Calendar' and give it a name and wait until an Admin spots it and approves it. Once that is done however that member can schedule events at will. That is the Church Distrbutive model as I read it. Potentially a ward could have 100+ calendars.
One for each 'Plain member'. Correct? or am I halucinating here?

WWS36 wrote:jdleesley states: If your stake is using the distributed model of scheduling for which the current calendar is designed around then members should not be contacting the building scheduler to schedule events and book rooms. Instead they should be scheduling the events themselves or contacting the appropriate calendar editor if they do not have edit rights to the appropriate calendar.
But that is a quantum leap for a 'Plain Member' ie a Non-Leader Member to go to Calendars and find 'Create a Calendar' and give it a name and wait until an Admin spots it and approves it. Once that is done however that member can schedule events at will. That is the Church Distrbutive model as I read it. Potentially a ward could have 100+ calendars.
One for each 'Plain member'. Correct? or am I halucinating here?

Although it could be done that way, I've never heard of a ward trying to distribute scheduling that broadly. It's much more practical to

• create a limited set of calendars for the organizations in the ward, and configure the organization leaders as editors of those calendars
• designate a person to schedule the few remaining events that the other members may want to request

In my experience, the total requests during a year that are in the second category is under 10; it makes no sense to add an extra hundred or more calendars and associated editors to handle the possibility of such a tiny number of requests.

WWS36 wrote:jdleesley states: If your stake is using the distributed model of scheduling for which the current calendar is designed around then members should not be contacting the building scheduler to schedule events and book rooms.

It depends on how the ward/stake has set this up. In the case of ward leaders, you are correct. They just schedule the event in their calendar.

But "plain members" will need to contact someone for their family events. Depending on how the unit has decided to organize that, it could be the building scheduler. I suggest contacting a member of the bishopric to see who is doing that.

In our Ward, organizational presidencies are the editors of their organizations calendar. In the case of "Ward Activities" the Bishopric members are the editors. The Bishopric generally delegates this responsibility to the Ward Website Administrator who maintains items on the "Ward Activities" calendar and monitors the organizational calendars.

Thank you Bro. Lessley. I was not aware that clicking the down arrow would provide the name of the building scheduler. I don't think the average member would think to do that either. Unfortunate that a description or link is not in a more obvious place to be used. Hopefully, over time, this application will become more user friendly.