Getting Access to all ward calendars

I am a building scheduler, so I need to see the calendars of all the wards that attend in the building. How do I get that access?

At this time, the only way to get access to other ward calendars is to become a member of the stake presidency, or get a out-of-unit leader calling in the other wards.

You (or any other member) can see all activities scheduled at a building by selecting the location on the left side.

The old model of one person doing all the building scheduling for multiple wards really doesn't work at all well in this system. In the long run you're better off having all wards do their own scheduling.

I (or any other member ) can only see activities that are stake activities (created by a stake leader) or activities from their ward only.

I schedule for my stake building. It is the largest building, has three wards, and has the baptismal font, which is why the Stake wants someone separate from the high council to do scheduling.

I appreciate your suggestions and will give that feedback to my stake leaders.

benjamingolightly wrote:I schedule for my stake building. It is the largest building, has three wards, and has the baptismal font, which is why the Stake wants someone separate from the high council to do scheduling.

Our stake center is similar. We let each ward schedule their own events, but the stake does lay down the rules as to what days the wards can use. (Restrictions can be used to assist with this, but we haven't been using them for the past year.) Since only ward leaders can schedule events, one would hope they know how to follow directions. If you've got leaders who go rogue on you just because they can, you've got far bigger problems than calendaring.

Then one person in the stake handles the private events using a stake calendar set aside for that function. The HC over missionary work has access to a stake missionary calendar to schedule the missionary activities.

I find it helpful to think about setting up the system for the benefit of the members - both to view and to sync and THEN see building scheduling as something that is automatically coordinated from it rather than the other way around.

We are considering the requirement of letting building schedulers see all the calendars that can schedule their building (multiple wards). Can you provide me a good use case why this is important? You can see all the events that they have scheduled for your building. - Dave Crockett - calendar product manager.

CrockettDR wrote:We are considering the requirement of letting building schedulers see all the calendars that can schedule their building (multiple wards). Can you provide me a good use case why this is important? You can see all the events that they have scheduled for your building.

I can think of a couple:

• To look for ward events that haven't booked the building in error. That way, if you're going to book the building for something else, but you see there's a "no location" event scheduled, it might be wise to ask questions. The alternative is that someone learns a harsh lesson.
• Along the same idea - you can check to see if all the wards have scheduled their Christmas parties. If Ward C has decided to hold their party somewhere else, then you need not worry about holding a spot for them in the building schedule.
• To look for ward events that haven't booked a room because the room they need isn't on the list. (This is also one of the reasons I'd like access as STS - to see if our room setup is meeting local needs.)

If a ward in my stake has created an event using a location, I can see that event on the calendar no matter what ward created the event (I used my minor daughter's log in to check - she has just average permissions). I just need to select the show locations box. I can also see restrictions if I select the restrictions box. If the wards do not select a location I cannot see events unless I am subscribed to the calendar and I can only subscribe to stake calendars and my own ward calendars. This is what I would expect to happen.

The calendar gets very busy if I have show selected for all the wards in my stake so I usually leave show off in the locations except for my own ward unless someone asks me to see what is going on.

I am a Sister called to be the agent ward building scheduler. Since the calendar has changed, I no longer can view other ward calendars in order to make sure if I make a private reservation (restriction and event) it is not going to interfere with a ward activity. In addition to looking at the calendar, when I had the viewing option to see all of the wards, I also coordinate by phone contact with the other ward schedulers but sometimes it prevents me from needing to bother the other scheduler if I can already see that there would be a conflict simply by glancing at all of the calendar views. Also, when a ward receives a restricted access for an activity, it isn't preventing them from going into their ward calendars to schedule an event that states that they actually could have access to the entire location, which is not true since later on another ward member from that ward or another ward may want to schedule an event in another part of the building. The restrictions are not reflecting on the ward calendar event schedules saying they have access to an entire location. I have had some member's have verbal conflicts about who has what room that evening because of this when I have a restriction set up on a routine basis for a pack night in the primary room, for instance.

willfordbj wrote:Since the calendar has changed, I no longer can view other ward calendars in order to make sure if I make a private reservation (restriction and event) it is not going to interfere with a ward activity.

Prior to the upgrade to Calendar 2.7 nobody could view the calendars of other units - not even building schedulers. Now the stake presidency and stake high council can view all public stake and public stake unit calendars. See this post earlier in this thread. However, everybody previously had, and continue to have, the ability to view all scheduled events at a location. This is what you were doing to view all the events at your location. This capability still exists. Only the UI has changed. Now instead of only being able to view all the events scheduled at a location in Week view they can now also be viewed in Month view.

willfordbj wrote:Since the calendar has changed, I no longer can view other ward calendars in order to make sure if I make a private reservation (restriction and event) it is not going to interfere with a ward activity.

If you're talking about since 2.x (which we've been using for several years now) that is correct. But if you're talking about the change made in the past week, that's not true. But see 2.7 FAQ for why you may have having trouble seeing it now.

willfordbj wrote:In addition to looking at the calendar, when I had the viewing option to see all of the wards, I also coordinate by phone contact with the other ward schedulers but sometimes it prevents me from needing to bother the other scheduler if I can already see that there would be a conflict simply by glancing at all of the calendar views.

As long as those events have booked the location as part of the event, that's still the case.

willfordbj wrote:Also, when a ward receives a restricted access for an activity, it isn't preventing them from going into their ward calendars to schedule an event that states that they actually could have access to the entire location, which is not true since later on another ward member from that ward or another ward may want to schedule an event in another part of the building.

Certainly they can put anything into the description. Can't prevent that.

willfordbj wrote:The restrictions are not reflecting on the ward calendar event schedules saying they have access to an entire location. I have had some member's have verbal conflicts about who has what room that evening because of this when I have a restriction set up on a routine basis for a pack night in the primary room, for instance.

It sounds like you are attempting to use restrictions to book events. That doesn't work well - as you've found out. You really need to use events to book a location. When you set a restriction for a ward, you're only restricting it to the ward - not to a specific group. Anyone in the ward can schedule as they see fit.

This system doesn't work well for the "old way" where one person handled the whole schedule for the building. If the wards are using their calendars, it's much better to let the wards do their own scheduling. You can set restrictions as to which nights each ward has the building. The role of the Building Scheduler is more supervisory rather than an active part of the process.

Thank you

I am really confused and fairly new at this. I appologise if I am frustrating anybody. I was just learning to use the old version before this new change. I am trying to understand what you are saying but it is difficult to understand because it sounds like you are saying that I CAN see all of the building events that are scheduled but on my view I have not been able to see that. On my view, I can only see my ward, stake led activities, restrictions, and events that I or the other schedulers have booked. I can't see what another ward might have booked. It sounds like I am not supposed to be able to see other ward calendars, but that I am supposed to be able to see what is scheduled for the building. Is that correct? Doesn't quite make sense to me. The Stake clerk said I should comment and learn from here. I don't know what wiki is.

willfordbj wrote:It sounds like I am not supposed to be able to see other ward calendars, but that I am supposed to be able to see what is scheduled for the building. Is that correct? Doesn't quite make sense to me.

Correct. When a event is scheduled, there are three choices for locations:

• "Church Facility" (where a building and room(s) are selected)
• "Other Facility" (such as a local park)
• "No Facility"

If an event is scheduled using "Church Facility" and you select to view that facility in your calendar, you'll see the event.

But you can't see ward events for other wards that take place at a "Other Facility" or "No Facility".

There's something else that might be at play here: If the locations were not set for "This location can be scheduled by Wards and Stakes", then that building would not be available under "Church Facility". Prior to 2.7, you as a building scheduler could see see the restrictions calendar. But with 2.7, you may not be able to. (See Calendar 2.7 not allowing creation of new restrictions.)

It appears that if ward members are not understanding that they need to enter a location for their event, doubled up events could take place with either the person who entered the event location having the valid event scheduled and rooms reserved or multiple people thinking that they have them reserved. Also, this is a good reason to show the ward calendars as stated above by another scheduler because we can look at their calendar and see they have not entered a location. If I am entering a reservation and another ward other than mine has entered an event for the "same building" and only I have entered a location and the other member has not, we are going to have a double booked room and upset members calling us with conflicts. It's not going to go over well if there is not training to the members or an "all ward calendars" viewable by the schedulers to try to locate a problem in advance.

willfordbj wrote:It appears that if ward members are not understanding that they need to enter a location for their event, doubled up events could take place with either the person who entered the event location having the valid event scheduled and rooms reserved or multiple people thinking that they have them reserved.

That has not been a problem in our stake -- it's obvious to most people that they need to specify the location in order to actually book the room. In any case, we have been very clear in all our training that if you don't have an event on the calendar with a location/room specified, you don't have any claim to the building. Early on, we had one or two situations where people made a mistake, and they paid the price and learned the lesson. But it has not been a problem at all for several years.

And we certainly wouldn't expect our building schedulers to review every event on every calendar (even if it were technically possible) to see if by chance someone neglected to add a location. There's no reasonable way to detect every newly added event, so that would be very difficult to stay on top of. That sounds like a ton of work, and would not be completely effective in finding problems anyway.

One potential solution would be to add checkboxes under the other locations to see events scheduled at "Other Facility" or "No Facility"

I have a similar question, I'm a clerk with a ysa Ward and for Ward activities we will often coordinate with the family stake to use the building because it's closer to where the members of the ward live. We are working with the family stake to find a way to be able to see what is on their calendar so that we can make sure the building is free before we start announcing activities. What would be the best way to accomplish this?

AsayI wrote:I'm a clerk with a ysa Ward and for Ward activities we will often coordinate with the family stake to use the building because it's closer to where the members of the ward live.

The key is to set up the facilities so you can see their building. If you don't see it, then have the other stake add your ward to the building.

You don't need to see their calendar-you need to see the building.