Events dropping

I oversee the calendar in the Stake. Two building schedulers for two different buildings have reported to me that the events added to the reservation calendar have disappeared. They are wondering why and what to do next.

I have not heard of events simply disappearing. In my experience, this is caused by one of the following:

• The events are not visible because the right calendars are not subscribed to, or are not checked as visible on the main calendar view
• The events are repeating events that have hit the end of their repeating rules (e.g., they repeated through December 31, 2012, and so they don't appear in 2013)
• Someone else deleted the events, perhaps unintentionally.

What if none of the above apply? I haven't looked into this yet myself, but I am getting the same thing from two different individuals working on two different calendars. One scheduler is stating that there was a message from the church which advised the info was dumped by the Church itself. I will look more into it. What additional info would you need/want?

It would certainly be helpful to know about the " message from the church which advised the info was dumped by the Church itself." How was that message sent? What did it say?

Other questions that might be helpful would be: is there any pattern to the missing events? Are they repeating events? If so, are they individual events out of a series of repeating events, or an entire series? Are they on private or public calendars?

You mentioned a "scheduler"; are we really dealing with events here, or are you talking about Reservations (they are quite different)?

I will get more info on this. But these are being dropped from the Reservation calendar, not calendar events.

rosesj wrote:I will get more info on this. But these are being dropped from the Reservation calendar, not calendar events.

Almost all reservations are repeating, and repeats are limited to two years. So for many people, those repeats expired at the end of the year. So I would recommend that they look at earlier months (last year) to see if those reservations are in place for the earlier instances, and if their "repeat until" date has recently passed. If so, the mystery is solved.

A recent release has changed the way the reservation calendar works. It used to be that it opened to the building that you had Building Scheduler power over. But not it's opening to the first building in the list. You have to highlight the building of interest on the left to see the reservations for that building.

Also: I see some points of confusion here. You talk about events but then say "on the reservation calendar". Which are they? Are they events or reservations? Note that it's a bad practice to use a reservation as a placeholder for an event.

True events will not appear on the reservation calendar if they are set for "Other Location", even if the name of that other location is set to the same building.

russellhltn wrote:Also: I see some points of confusion here. You talk about events but then say "on the reservation calendar". Which are they? Are they events or reservations? Note that it's a bad practice to use a reservation as a placeholder for an event.

I already raised that same question here, and rosesj responded that it is indeed reservations (not events) that are being discussed (even though the word "events" has been mistakenly used at times).

Would you suggest to not use the reservation calendar as a general practice? Just block the building using "events" vs. "reservations"?

rosesj wrote:Would you suggest to not use the reservation calendar as a general practice? Just block the building using "events" vs. "reservations"?

The Reservation calendar is more properly titled the Restriction calendar, and it appears that this terminology change will be made in the next release of Calendar.

It's perfectly fine to use the Reservations calendar as long as you use it properly, meaning that you use it to place restrictions on which units can schedule the building at certain times. For example, you could use it to allow only Ward A to create events that schedule the cultural hall on Tuesday evenings, and Ward B is the only unit that can schedule the cultural hall on Wednesday evenings.

But you'll have much grief if you attempt to use the Reservations calendar to book the building for events such as the funeral of Sister Smith on January 12. That should definitely be an event, not a Reservation (Restriction).

Thanks for the training. Any other groovy suggestions?

rosesj wrote:Thanks for the training. Any other groovy suggestions?

I think you'll find it helpful to study the help documentation for About Reservations, particularly the section on "Reservations Versus Scheduled Events."

rosesj wrote:Would you suggest to not use the reservation calendar as a general practice? Just block the building using "events" vs. "reservations"?

The calendar "reservations" are really "scheduling restrictions". They were never intended to block off the building for events. It was only intended to allow "Ward A" to have a "ward night" where other wards would not be able to place events. "Ward A" would still need to schedule events to show what they are doing for their night.