Enhancement Request: Sync separate from Subscriptions

Here is one of two enhancements that would be really helpful:

1) In the "Subscriptions" menu, have two "Subscribe/Unsubscribe" columns - one for the "Website" calendar and another for "Synced" calendars. In my personal calendar, I don't want to see all the calendars that I need to see when performing administrative duties.

[Moderator note: This thread is the result of splitting one thread opening post into two threads. This was done so each topic can be discussed separately. The other topic is discussed in the Two of Two Enhancement Requests (please) thread. Remember, only one topic per thread. Please see the Code of Conduct for details.]

I think your description is pretty clear but I just to make sure I understand the intent. You'd like to be able to control which calendars are included in the ical sync independent of the calendars included in your main display of the calendar. Is that correct?

kyleq wrote:You'd like to be able to control which calendars are included in the ical sync independent of the calendars included in your main display of the calendar. Is that correct?

Hopefully that's in the works, since I know that's been requested before.

Russel, if that's how it works would you please explain how to do it. I to would only like to sync specific calendars to my Google calendar, bet yet be subscribed to all the ward calendars when I visit LDS.org.

kyleq wrote:I think your description is pretty clear but I just to make sure I understand the intent. You'd like to be able to control which calendars are included in the ical sync independent of the calendars included in your main display of the calendar. Is that correct?

About a year ago, jdcr256 said here that a CalDav implementation was being considered to address this. I don't know what ever became of that. But it sounded promising for suggestions such as the one in the OP. And if you review the topic I linked to, you'll see many more viewpoints on this same issue.

Gary_Miller wrote:Russel, if that's how it works would you please explain how to do it.

I said it was "in the works" not "currently available". I also want to set my lds.org calendar differently then my sync. In my case, I want to see everything on the web page, but only sync the items I need to attend.

russellhltn wrote:In my case, I want to see everything on the web page, but only sync the items I need to attend.

+1 (and +1 for my stake clerk, +1 for my stake president, +1 for... others)

As an administrator with folks coming to me to understand one thing or another, and for various other reasons, it is often helpful to be able to see everything, even if I wouldn't otherwise subscribe to it... so if I could just sync the "important" ones to my Google calendar, that would be a fantastic fix. As it is, I'm subscribed to everything and turn most of it off most of the time by un-checking it in the calendar view, but because of that I get way more than I want on my sync.

I'd be satisfied with something as labored as or similar to unsubscribing to the ones I don't want synchronized, setting up the sync with that list, and then going back and re-subscribing to all the others if the sync would remember what I was subscribed to at the time I set it up. Unfortunately even that doesn't work. (I'm sure that is so we can add to the subscription list later as new calendars are added or callings change, etc. and not have to re-set-up the sync)

kyleq wrote:I think your description is pretty clear but I just to make sure I understand the intent. You'd like to be able to control which calendars are included in the ical sync independent of the calendars included in your main display of the calendar. Is that correct?

Yes please. That is it exactly.

As a stake website administrator, I need to see everything for administering the calendar. So, I cannot unsubscribe from the events that don't apply to me personally. As a result, I don't integrate the LDS calendar with my personal calendar because it creates too much noise in my personal calendar. This enhancement would be huge for me (and I think any website administrator).

Ideally I'd like to be able to have each subscription in the LDS calendar appear as a calendar in my iCal calendar or google calendar.

That way, in google or on my iOS device I could turn off or on each LDS subscription that I have so I can see the events pertinent to the task at hand, just like I do while browsing lds.org.

russellbaird wrote:Ideally I'd like to be able to have each subscription in the LDS calendar appear as a calendar in my iCal calendar or google calendar.

I can see how that could be useful for some people.

But to offer a contrasting viewpoint, I would absolutely not want it to work that way. I already have multiple calendars on my Google Calendar. I love having the LDS.org calendar consolidated into one calendar. Then I can turn it on or off as needed. If I had to check or uncheck 30 boxes for each of my subscribed LDS.org calendars, I'd find that very tedious.

aebrown wrote:I would absolutely not want it to work that way. I already have multiple calendars on my Google Calendar. I love having the LDS.org calendar consolidated into one calendar. Then I can turn it on or off as needed. If I had to check or uncheck 30 boxes for each of my subscribed LDS.org calendars, I'd find that very tedious.

I agree. But as indicated in the original post, it would be nice to be able to select (in LDS.org) which of my subscribed calendars are consolidated and appear as my LDS.org calendar in my Google calendar. The way it works now, I don't find integrating my LDS.org calendar into my personal (Google) calendar useful at all. In fact, I leave it permanently off in my Google calendar. I only check it (at LDS.org from a PC) when I have to for my calling. It is too noisy to be useful in my personal calendar.

I fully agree that exporting the lds.org calendar into my personal calendar is useless. Anytime I need to see when ward or stake activities are schedule, I log in to lds.org. That turns out to be (slightly!) less painful than having the entire lds.or calendar in my mobile device.

And I agree that it would be nice to select in lds.org which of my subscribed calendars get exported.

You noted that you have exported the lds calendar into your google calendar, but leave it permanently off. You could do the same for your 30 ward and stake calendars (a one-time task). And if you make that one-time investment, you then have the ability to selectively turn on which ever one you need at the moment, while leaving the rest off. That way the painful noise-signal ratio is more manageable.

I might could be persuaded to lump them all together if I could pick a small enough subset of them so that when I turned on the whole mess I still had a high signal to noise ratio.

And then again, if I picked a small enough subset of them, that might make managing them individually a not-so-painful task...

As a compromise, suppose we had a check-box to allow us to select which subscriptions to export, and a radio button pair to indicate whether to export them as a single calendar or as individual calendars?

russellbaird wrote:I fully agree that exporting the lds.org calendar into my personal calendar is useless.

I disagree. My subscriptions are setup to only subscribe to calendars that contain events that I wish to attend. It works fine.

That said, I don't work with the calendar on a regular basis. When I do, I have to turn on subscriptions to the calenders in question so I can see them on lds.org, make the changes, and then restore my subscriptions before my next sync. So for ward leaders, there is a flaw that needs to be addressed, but for the rank and file that don't worry about scheduling church events, I think it works just fine.

russellbaird wrote:You noted that you have exported the lds calendar into your google calendar, but leave it permanently off. You could do the same for your 30 ward and stake calendars (a one-time task). And if you make that one-time investment, you then have the ability to selectively turn on which ever one you need at the moment, while leaving the rest off. That way the painful noise-signal ratio is more manageable.

From a technical standpoint, exporting to individual iCal files may work. But you'd have to repeat that process regularly if you want your calendar to stay up to date.

russellbaird wrote:I might could be persuaded to lump them all together if I could pick a small enough subset of them so that when I turned on the whole mess I still had a high signal to noise ratio.

And then again, if I picked a small enough subset of them, that might make managing them individually a not-so-painful task...

And that's what I think is behind the OP's request. The way I'd use it is to send the calendar of events I'm to attend to my personal calendar via the sync and then send everything to the front page of lds.org. I'd also want to send the complete calendar to LDS Tools since I can select calendars in the app. But that's just me.

russellbaird wrote:As a compromise, suppose we had a check-box to allow us to select which subscriptions to export, and a radio button pair to indicate whether to export them as a single calendar or as individual calendars?

Unless the iCal file supports it, exporting as multiple files would require multiple URL - one for each file. That's a non-trivial change in demand on church servers. Not to mention complexity.

Having the calendar online has been a great time saver. I love the feature. My only complaint is that when I subscribe to my Stake PPI's I get all their PPI's on my Phone. I really only want to subscribe to my PPI's. Unless the Stake goes in and creates a calendar for just me, which won't happen, I am left to know their whole schedule.

I am very thankful for the LDS.ORG and all their wonderful apps that help me get my calling done more efficiently. Thank you!

+1 for getting separate caldav URL for individual calendars. Would like to add just the young men calendar to a website we use for scouting but I have to add the entire calendar or modify my subscriptions on lds.org to only include the young men calendar.

joebuckwalter wrote:+1 for getting separate caldav URL for individual calendars. Would like to add just the young men calendar to a website we use for scouting but I have to add the entire calendar or modify my subscriptions on lds.org to only include the young men calendar.

From the calendar sync page: "This URL is provided for your own personal use. It should not be shared with anyone else."

There are a plethora of calendars (ward, stake, organization-specific) that I can subscribe to on lds.org. It would be really nice if they could be treated as separate calendar objects when syncing to an iphone. I don't necessarily want to unsubscribe from these calendars...I would just like the ability to display or undisplay certain calendars individually. Can this suggestion be incorporated in the next release?

If the iPhone LDS Tools is like the Android one, you can do that now using LDS Tools.

If you're asking for the selection of calendars on the lds.org page to be different than what is in your sync, that's been requested. No idea if and when that will happen. The iCal format makes for limitations on what can be done. I really doubt that we'll have individual syncs for each calendar.

[Moderator note: I moved this post into an existing topic for this issue]

jlw223 wrote:There are a plethora of calendars (ward, stake, organization-specific) that I can subscribe to on lds.org. It would be really nice if they could be treated as separate calendar objects when syncing to an iphone. I don't necessarily want to unsubscribe from these calendars...I would just like the ability to display or undisplay certain calendars individually. Can this suggestion be incorporated in the next release?

This has been requested many times, over the course of at least two years. So I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to be incorporated in the next release.

But if you review the posts in this topic (and particularly this post, which links to an older topic for this issue), you'll gain some perspective on the issue.