Change Contact for event?

I'm the Ward Website Administrator in my ward. I've been creating new Calendars and adding events to our ward calendar on behalf of the auxiliaries and members with other callings, but of course this means that I'm listed as the Contact for each event by default, being the event creator.

Is there a way that I can change the contact for the event?

If not, then may I request a new calendar feature that gives Website Administrators the option of assigning a different contact or even multiple contacts to an event?

The only workarounds I can think of are to either handhold the auxiliaries every time they want to add an event to the calendar (the less-than tech savvy majority at least), or get them to log in to ldstools on my laptop so I can create the events on their behalf using their account.

shem.simmons wrote:Is there a way that I can change the contact for the event?

No. The contact is the last person to create or edit the event.

You're certainly not the first person to wish that this were possible. See, for example:

• Listing responsible person when scheduling an activity
• Who owns the "event" in the calendar
• Don't know who made reservations

shem.simmons wrote:If not, then may I request a new calendar feature that gives Website Administrators the option of assigning a different contact or even multiple contacts to an event?

Certainly you may request such a feature, by using the Feedback link on LDS.org.

shem.simmons wrote:The only workarounds I can think of are to either handhold the auxiliaries every time they want to add an event to the calendar (the less-than tech savvy majority at least), or get them to log in to ldstools on my laptop so I can create the events on their behalf using their account.

Another approach some people have used is to note in the description of the event who the contact is for the event.

aebrown wrote:Another approach some people have used is to note in the description of the event who the contact is for the event.

Except I expect most people will view the calendar from the LDStools app on their mobile device, where the Contact is displayed under it's own heading, in a font that's at least twice the size of that in the description, and touch-linked to their contact info in the directory.

I'll give the Feedback link a try, but I suspect I'm going to to be doing a lot of handholding for the next few months at least.

I received a rather swift reply to my feature request:

We will look into this. In the meantime you may specify a contact person in the description of the event, as it is done in my stake.

I'll confess that considering the number of others who have already made this request, "We will look into this" does not instil much confidence that the previous requests have been given any real attention. Is there anything that can be done to expedited this feature's development? Anywhere I can add my name to the proverbial list of people that want to see this feature released in the near future?

I'm used to being the guy that works in a department that actually makes these kinds of changes happen, is there anything the community can do to help make these changes? Volunteer time and code? Anything?

shem.simmons wrote:Anywhere I can add my name to the proverbial list of people that want to see this feature released in the near future?

People are generally used to some kind of democratic decision-making in organizations. Be it customer service or government. But in most cases, that doesn't apply to the church. No one is taking a vote. It's usually the Priesthood Department that sets priorities (including what projects receive priority for development ahead of time spent on the calendar.)

The calendar was developed with the idea that by in large quorums and auxiliaries would do their own calendaring. In the grand view of all the needs of the church, the fact that "contact" may not always be right probably doesn't rank as a big issue. If it was up to me, I'd relabel the field to "last updated by" and call it fixed. I'd want to preserve "who changed this" over "who is responsible for this event". (Particularly when you consider how many default admins there are.) One would hope that the name of the calendar would indicate who needs to be contacted in the event of a conflict. (If the calendar is "Relief Society", you contact the Relief Society President, etc.)

Then there's the whole issue of how should "Contact" work? I don't think we want to set that on each and every event. That would be quite a bit of additional humbug. I'm thinking about a calendar-level field of who is ultimately responsible for event scheduling of that calendar. (Is it the RS President, or has that been assigned to the RS Secretary?)

shem.simmons wrote:I'm used to being the guy that works in a department that actually makes these kinds of changes happen, is there anything the community can do to help make these changes? Volunteer time and code? Anything?

I don't think so. The system integrates into other systems, etc. It would be hard to create a functional sandbox that could be used for development that didn't expose live information. You could look into the service missionary opportunities, but I think you'd be assigned projects according to the church's needs, not what you want done.

Default contacts for calendars would make a lot more sense, and you're absolutely right about it saving a lot of humbug... Actually, I agree with everything you've said, those are much better solutions.

I've already submitted my application to serve a tech mission, just waiting for someone to need me.