Invite other calenders to an event

I find scheduling an event for multiple groups is very cumbersome and either creates a very cluttered calendar view with many events that represent the same event or it creates one time use calendars. I recommend the ability to invite other calendars to an event and then allow calendar owners to accept events. In addition when a user views calendars that are subscribed to the same event the event should be collapsed to one visible event on the calendar possible shown with " Multi-group" or stripping the color of the event with those calendars that have accepted the event. In addition calendar owners should be notified if they have been invited to an event or if an event has been canceled.

Use Case:
The Young Men would like to schedule an event with the Young Women and Relief Society. This is a one-time event. It is a rare case that these three groups would schedule something together but the YM do schedule events with many of the other auxiliary groups in many different combinations throughout the year (e.g. YM schedule an activity with the Bishopric and the elders quorum, or the Primary and the YW)

Current scheduling options:
1. Have the YM, YW, and RS book an event on each of their respective calendars
Under this option three events are created and if the YM move the event they must notify the other groups using some other means other than the calendar. This also creates three events on the calendar for those who can see all three groups, such as the bishop. This option clutters the calendar with unnecessary entries which represent the same event.
2. Create a combined YM, YW, RS calendar
Under this option a calendar is created which all members must subscribe to. For those with auto subscription to new calendars they begin to have many single use calendars that must be managed and maintain. The option does not scale well.

danielterry wrote:Current scheduling options:
1. Have the YM, YW, and RS book an event on each of their respective calendars
Under this option three events are created and if the YM move the event they must notify the other groups using some other means other than the calendar. This also creates three events on the calendar for those who can see all three groups, such as the bishop. This option clutters the calendar with unnecessary entries which represent the same event.
2. Create a combined YM, YW, RS calendar
Under this option a calendar is created which all members must subscribe to. For those with auto subscription to new calendars they begin to have many single use calendars that must be managed and maintain. The option does not scale well.

or Option 3:
Since this event affects a large portion of the ward, put it on the general ward activities calendar.

This topic has been discussed many times, and you have a good point. But adding such features would add complexity both to the engineering of the system and to the user interface. Is it worth it? Perhaps, but our ward and stake tend to use option 3 for such events, and it works reasonably well.

Thanks for the additional option. I think your option works well when there are not many events to manage. Our ward and stake uses the calendar very heavily and they have followed a least permissions model meaning i only have rights to schedule events on calendars which I absolutely need access such as the YM calendar. The bishopric is the only ones that have access to book to the general ward calendar. I think i could probably ask them to create a new ALL SHARED EVENTS Calendar.

One questions about your option does that mean that who ever subscribes to that calendar will see events that may or may not be relevant to them? eg if i am in the Relief Society and the YM and YW have a combined activity I would see that on my calendar?

danielterry wrote:One questions about your option does that mean that who ever subscribes to that calendar will see events that may or may not be relevant to them? eg if i am in the Relief Society and the YM and YW have a combined activity I would see that on my calendar?

It's certainly true that some events will appear on the calendar that are not relevant to every subscriber. But that's going to be the case unless you have a huge number of calendars for every possible group of people. The other extreme is to have one calendar with all events on it, and then everyone sees a lot of irrelevant events. I think there's a reasonable balance somewhere in the middle (and that balance will be different for different wards) where there's a reasonable number of calendars (10-15 feels about right) and yet they are structured so that most subscribers to a particular calendar find that most of the events are relevant.

danielterry wrote:2. Create a combined YM, YW, RS calendar
Under this option a calendar is created which all members must subscribe to. For those with auto subscription to new calendars they begin to have many single use calendars that must be managed and maintain. The option does not scale well.

Because of the number of combined YM/YW events, I think most units have a separate calendar for that. So, for most wards, they'd have two events - one on the RS calendar and the combined YM/YW.