Is the instructions in the help section current?

“"Reservations" has been renamed to "Restrictions" to better describe how it works. It hasnever been a "reservation" in the normal sense of the word.” By russelhltn
“The About Reservations help topic has not yet been updated with the new terminology, but if you read it carefully, it will help you understand the essential differences between Restrictions and Events.” By aebrown
“chriswoodut wrote: The instructions on the help pages is out of date.

Yes, we're aware of that. The team that did the documentation was let go. I'm not sure what the church has arranged to replace them.”

I am a Ward Executive Secretary. My Bishop is the current Agent Bishop. I have been invited to give our Stake Presidency an FYI about the current workings of the Calendar. Question

1. Is the help section still out of date?
2. If it is should I inform them, or simply explain that it is minor, and look out for the term reservation and substitute it with restrictions?
3. Are there any Major issues that I should be aware of?
4. If there are do you suggest that I inform them?
5. Is the current version 2.3 ? (Woops I found it 3.5 looks to be the current version)

I am not really trying to trick them, I just suspect that even if the help section is out of date that for someone who is just starting on the calendar it is not going to be a big issue.

I am excited about this opportunity to possibly get the correct and full use of the lds.org calendar for our Stake center and possibly for all the buildings in the Stake. Can you give me any advice? My approach will be to hopefully explain and show the basics, with an positive training about the role of our building scheduler. I will also suggest that to begin with that one of the Ward administrators be assigned to be over the calendar for the ward. Which he should get trained and then in turn train the presidencies of his ward. Your input to what I am trying to do would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for all that you do!

1968leocomeeatabite wrote:1. Is the help section still out of date?

I belive so.

1968leocomeeatabite wrote:2. If it is should I inform them, or simply explain that it is minor, and look out for the term reservation and substitute it with restrictions?

That's all I can think of. No major changes to function has been made. Just bug fixes.

1968leocomeeatabite wrote:Can you give me any advice?

The biggest is that the old system of one person handling the scheduling for multiple units is dead, Dead, DEAD. If they want, one person can do the scheduling for stake-level functions or for a single ward, but NOT for multiple wards in a stake. If they have the least bit if trouble wrapping their head around that, I would not recommend that you have any building scheduler at all. All problems can be resolved by communicating with the unit that holds the conflicting event.

As long as everyone understands the rules, restrictions are unnecessary. Virtually all problems with the calendar comes from trying to hold to the old model of a single point of contact for scheduling. That job is now managed by the computer and no one has the necessary permissions to do it properly.

The second tip is that sometimes repeating events have problems. In that case, make it a single event and then edit it to make it a repeating event.

Third, you will need a calendar for scheduling private events. Make sure to set up a process for that. Members cannot do that for themselves.

russellhltn wrote:As long as everyone understands the rules, restrictions are unnecessary. Virtually all problems with the calendar comes from trying to hold to the old model of a single point of contact for scheduling. That job is now managed by the computer and no one has the necessary permissions to do it properly.

I told the building scheduler for our stake center that I was concerned because the reservations/restrictions that the previous scheduler had created for weekdays/weeknights had expired in October, leaving only restrictions for Fridays and Saturdays. She said she wasn't worried about youth activities on weeknights because all three wards that meet in the stake center knew the rules and communicate well with each other. I guess that is OK, but I still worry that someone in the stake will create a stake event that conflicts with those youth events.

As long as everyone understands the rules, restrictions are unnecessary. Virtually all problems with the calendar comes from trying to hold to the old model of a single point of contact for scheduling. That job is now managed by the computer and no one has the necessary permissions to do it properly.

Ok I get what you are saying! And it might be worth avoiding those problems. But if it was presented as something like: Now that the leadership can schedule events with the needed rooms etc. for a safety we will need to go in and restrict the use to certain rooms to certain ward for certain nights just like the Stake has given us so that each ward will have a regular time to have their Pack night, R.S. night, and youth weekly Mutual night (or combined activity). The Safety being that a presidency or even a ward administrator can not schedule on an assigned night of an organization. Even as I type this I see that what you say goes both ways about everyone understanding the rules. I kinda like the idea that as long as the building scheduler and the ward administrator and stake administrator understands the use of restrictions it probably will work good.

drepouille wrote:I guess that is OK, but I still worry that someone in the stake will create a stake event that conflicts with those youth events.

If they schedule the youth activities as events, there's no problem.

I'm not saying that restrictions are not useful, but it's caused far more problems when people try to revert to the old system.

russellhltn wrote:

1968leocomeeatabite wrote:The Safety being that a presidency or even a ward administrator can not schedule on an assigned night of an organization.

This line of thinking only leads to trouble. Restrictions are to a UNIT, not an organization. Only events block something off for exclusive use.

"The Safety being that a presidency or even a ward administrator can not schedule on an assigned night of another ward." would be correct

Yes, Thank you, a very good point that would need to be made. I guess that in this case if a conflict arose that it would be the unit (ward) to resolve a conflict.

1968leocomeeatabite wrote:I guess that in this case if a conflict arose that it would be the unit (ward) to resolve a conflict.

I may regret saying this, but someone with Building Scheduler rights in the system can edit events scheduled in his/her assigned building. In that sense the Building Scheduler can act as a referee. But since any change would have to be communicated back to the responsible party, I'm not sure as that's much of an advantage.

Keep in mind that all Bishoprics and Presidencies have full edit rights to all ward calendars. So it's not necessary to track down some quorum secretary to resolve it - anyone in the top-level of the unit can do an immediate fix.

russellhltn wrote:If they schedule the youth activities as events, there's no problem.

I'm not saying that restrictions are not useful, but it's caused far more problems when people try to revert to the old system.

And there is the problem. The building scheduler had created reservations/restrictions for each ward's weekly youth events, but the wards never created the actual events. When the restrictions expired in October, it left nothing -- no restrictions or events -- on any calendar. The bishoprics simply talk to each other to deconflict their youth activities.

russellhltn wrote:Keep in mind that all Bishoprics and Presidencies have full edit rights to all ward calendars.

From my experience, none of the bishoprics or branch presidencies in my stake are interested in using their calendars. Therefore, they do not encourage their ward council members to use their calendars. I have seen some units (mostly Relief Society) using Facebook, Yahoo groups, or just paper calendar handouts to advertise their planned events.

I recently volunteered to be in the nursery for a Thursday night Relief Society event. I wasn't sure of the start time, so I looked at the ward calendar. Nothing. I asked my wife, who looked on the Relief Society Facebook wall, and found the start time. When I went into the nursery, I happened to find a printed calendar that showed the event. I don't know what software was used to create that calendar, but obviously, the Relief Society presidency was not interested in using the calendar on lds.org.

I think the bottom line is that members either want to use paper or a PED (smartphone or tablet) to see their calendar events. In all cases, the members do not want to bother with a username/password to access the calendar. So if the Church wants members to use a standard authorized calendar, then the Church must make it easily accessible on PEDs (iOS, Android, etc).

drepouille wrote:So if the Church wants members to use a standard authorized calendar, then the Church must make it easily accessible on PEDs (iOS, Android, etc).

For the bulk of the members - it is - via sync. But that only works for events. I only log into the calendar if I need to make a change. For daily use, I use the sync because it updates every day and the church events of interest show up in my personal agenda view. I could use LDS Tools, but that requires a manual sync.

Edit: I agree that the members do not want to go to yet another website to get their calendar. They want the information to come to them. That's why they like facebook (which they check for other things anyway) or yahoo (I assume it's the email function). But by scheduling events and using the sync, they can go one better and have it on their PED.

drepouille wrote:I have seen some units (mostly Relief Society) using Facebook, Yahoo groups, or ...

I guess they have a problem following the Handbook.

drepouille wrote:And there is the problem. The building scheduler had created reservations/restrictions for each ward's weekly youth events, but the wards never created the actual events. When the restrictions expired in October, it left nothing -- no restrictions or events -- on any calendar. The bishoprics simply talk to each other to deconflict their youth activities.

Which only reinforces my belief that the best way to transition to the new system may be to abolish building schedulers and restrictions altogether. Force them to use events. Because there were no events, there's nothing for the members to sync to their PEDs. Which in turn drove people to look for other methods to "publish" the calendar to the ward.

drepouille wrote:From my experience, none of the bishoprics or branch presidencies in my stake are interested in using their calendars. Therefore, they do not encourage their ward council members to use their calendars. I have seen some units (mostly Relief Society) using Facebook, Yahoo groups, or just paper calendar handouts to advertise their planned events.

Such a problem can be solved with proper messages from the stake leaders. Our stake leaders have made it very clear that the only official way to book a building is to have an event on the online calendar. In the first year we had a couple of problems where people thought they had a building booked because they published the event in their ward bulletin or some other way, only to find that someone else (who had properly scheduled the building) was in the building when they arrived. Sure, it was awkward for those couple of cases, but the people who failed to use the LDS.org calendar had no excuse.

I suppose that if there is only one ward that ever uses a building, you could get away with alternate scheduling methods, but in our multi-unit buildings, we simply don't allow any other methods. You don't have to get burned too many times to figure out that you have to put an event on the LDS.org calendar, or you don't have the building.

Once the event is properly booked on LDS.org, feel free to advertize it in any number of other appropriate ways, but make sure the event is booked before you do any other advertizing.

Several years ago, when we were using the "Stake and Ward web sites" calendar, my wife had scheduled a Family History Fair at the stake center for the third Saturday of October, and placed it on the calendar nearly a year ahead of time. As the event approached, we saw signs popping up in our meetinghouse (not the stake center) for a multi-ward Relief Society Super Saturday in our meetinghouse on the same date. My wife nearly cried. She asked the ward Relief Society president if she had consulted the stake calendar, and received a blank stare.

Oh well. Live and learn.

russellhltn wrote:For the bulk of the members - it is - via sync. But that only works for events. I only log into the calendar if I need to make a change.

That is the problem. They will not login to a web site to create an event. It has to be as easy as creating a calendar event on their PED.

I mentioned Handbook 2 in our stake council meeting last week, and the stake RS president seemed genuinely interested in the section number I referenced.

If I may make a comment about the Lesson Schedules here without highjacking the thread, I wish I could look there to see which Gospel Doctrine lesson we have this week. The teacher doesn't even tell us which lesson she is teaching at the start of the class. It takes me 10 or 15 minutes to figure out which lesson she is teaching. I've asked her to at least write the lesson number on the board. Oh well.

drepouille wrote:That is the problem. They will not login to a web site to create an event. It has to be as easy as creating a calendar event on their PED.

In my experience, there is no difficulty in members being motivated to login to a website to create an event, as soon as they understand that that is the only way to get the building scheduled. Our stake has dozens of calendar editors who use LDS.org to create events. Although I've heard a few requests for making it easier to do on a smartphone, I have never heard of anyone who refused to create an event because they had to use a web site.

drepouille wrote:That is the problem. They will not login to a web site to create an event. It has to be as easy as creating a calendar event on their PED.

I don't know as that will happen anytime soon. An API would have to be created and then LDS Tools updated to use it. Currently, I'm not seeing a lot of development action. TPTB are directing the developer's efforts somewhere else right now.

But aebrown has listed a leadership solution - if it's doesn't exist on the lds.org calendar, then they have last priority for a conflicting event. (Not just facilities, but conflicting audience.)

russellhltn wrote:Keep in mind that all Bishoprics and Presidencies have full edit rights to all ward calendars

I understood this differently. I agree that the bishoprics or "Ward Administrators" have full edit rights to all ward calendars. I understood that the presidencies have rights to their calendars only, or the calendars of which the Ward Administrator gave them when a calendar was set up.

Saying this a different way. When anyone goes to the calendar and clicks in the upper right hand corner on settings one of the options is Calendars. He clinks on calendars and the calendars that he has rights to edit are listed. In addition if a calendar has been approved (By an administrator) for anyone that is not currently serving in a presidency, I suspect that that calendar will show for that person.

Am I wrong on this?

Let me re-phrase: Keep in mind that all Bishoprics have full edit rights to their public ward calendars and Stake Presidencies have full edit rights to all of their public stake calendars. In both cases, clerks and executive secretaries are included.

I did not intended to extend that statement to ward presidencies. They have whatever rights have been set up for them.

russellhltn wrote:Keep in mind that all Bishoprics and Presidencies have full edit rights to all ward calendars

I understood Russell as saying, "Keep in mind that all Bishoprics and [Branch] Presidencies have full edit rights to all ward [and branch] calendars."

I didn't think Russell was referring to priesthood and auxiliary presidencies.

Such a problem can be solved with proper messages from the stake leaders. Our stake leaders have made it very clear that the only official way to book a building is to have an event on the online calendar. In the first year we had a couple of problems where people thought they had a building booked because they published the event in their ward bulletin or some other way, only to find that someone else (who had properly scheduled the building) was in the building when they arrived. Sure, it was awkward for those couple of cases, but the people who failed to use the LDS.org calendar had no excuse.

I suppose that if there is only one ward that ever uses a building, you could get away with alternate scheduling methods, but in our multi-unit buildings, we simply don't allow any other methods. You don't have to get burned too many times to figure out that you have to put an event on the LDS.org calendar, or you don't have the building.

Once the event is properly booked on LDS.org, feel free to advertize it in any number of other appropriate ways, but make sure the event is booked before you do any other advertizing.

In my experience, there is no difficulty in members being motivated to login to a website to create an event, as soon as they understand that that is the only way to get the building scheduled. Our stake has dozens of calendar editors who use LDS.org to create events. Although I've heard a few requests for making it easier to do on a smartphone, I have never heard of anyone who refused to create an event because they had to use a web site.

Just like to say that I like the positive approach which aebrown has related. I will proceed on the hope that our Stake Presidency will see the vision and make it known that the way to schedule the building is to do it online at LDS.ORG. I would like to ask aebrown for permission to use these two posts/quotes and share them with my agent bishop and Stake Presidency. Do I have your permission? Is it proper to use forum posts in training or FYI sessions. Is it OK to represent you as a church employee or moderator of the forum? Thank you, to all, this forum is very informative!

1968leocomeeatabite wrote:I would like to ask aebrown for permission to use these two posts/quotes and share them with my agent bishop and Stake Presidency. Do I have your permission? Is it proper to use forum posts in training or FYI sessions. Is it OK to represent you as a church employee or moderator of the forum?

Everything I post here is intended to help others. So I certainly give my permission for anyone to use anything I've posted here for any Church-related purposes. And since my posts are public and identify me as a Community Administrator, you can identify me as such.

Note, however, that I am simply acting as a community member when I post here; my statements are no more authoritative on these topics than those of anyone else who participates in the LDSTech forum. But to the extent that my experiences can be helpful to others, feel free to share them.

Thank you much, I think that your statements will go along way to make a strong point that If they choose to approach the implementation of the calendar as an entire stake, such a statement or approach needs to happen. Thank you again for all that you guys do!

1968leocomeeatabite wrote:If they choose to approach the implementation of the calendar as an entire stake

I don't see that there is much choice to implement the calendar as an entire stake. To do other wise would just cause conflicts and confusion.

It also seems to me that choice to use the on line calendar has already been made by the Church Leadership. Now its our responsibilities as members to embrace it and use it to its fullest extent.

The heading of this thread asks, "Is the instructions in the help section current?" I have noticed that they have taken the help section from the wiki and placed it on the help section on lds.org or "Record Keeping and Technology support" (did I refer to this correctly?)

In the Calendar help section I have noticed that they give a date as to when the documentation was updated. This is very helpful, and it looks to me that this will be ongoing, as the calendar is perpetually in beta. So I assume that we could instruct our editors that the help section is good to go to and is useful, please be aware that it is ongoing and check the dates of which the documentation was updated. It was fun to see that the overview section was updated only a few weeks ago, this is great, thank you!

Could anyone give us an update to the status of the missionaries that are updating the help section? What are the goals, have they accomplished their assignment? What will happen in the future?

The help section for the Calendar is helpful and up to-date. Notice the date on the articles, they are within the last couple of months. Thank you much for the updates.
https://www.lds.org/help/support/applic ... r?lang=eng