using the stake calendar

Right now our Stake President wants only me, the Stake Building Scheduler, to put items on the stake calendar and schedule the building. We have 4 wards that use the building. Can I designate calendars for each ward so they can only see their own ward activities? If someone from a different ward in our stake wants to see only stake events, can I designate a calendar for only stake events so they don't see the ward events that are going on in the stake center building?

KathrynBellows wrote:Right now our Stake President wants only me, the Stake Building Scheduler, to put items on the stake calendar and schedule the building. We have 4 wards that use the building.

Not supported. At least that's not how the system is designed to be used.

KathrynBellows wrote:Can I designate calendars for each ward so they can only see their own ward activities?

You can create a separate stake calendar for each ward, so they can subscribe to the calendar of interest, but there's no security to prevent them from seeing all the activities.

KathrynBellows wrote:If someone from a different ward in our stake wants to see only stake events, can I designate a calendar for only stake events so they don't see the ward events that are going on in the stake center building?

You can have as many calendars as you want, so yes, you can do that. However, the members are likely to find that one calendar per unit is too limiting. For example, not all members are interested in what the YM/YW do.

As the stake building scheduler I schedule all events in all buildings in our stake. I recently made changes to our calendar. Previously I had a stake calendar for the Burlington Building (which didn't meet at the stake center) and they could see their events for that building on the stake calendar. Recently I changed their events to the location calendar named Burlington but now members of the Burlington ward can't see the events on their phones. But they can see them on the computer if they set their filters for the Burlington building. What can we do so they can see their ward events on their phones?

KathrynBellows wrote:As the stake building scheduler I schedule all events in all buildings in our stake. I recently made changes to our calendar. Previously I had a stake calendar for the Burlington Building (which didn't meet at the stake center) and they could see their events for that building on the stake calendar. Recently I changed their events to the location calendar named Burlington but now members of the Burlington ward can't see the events on their phones. But they can see them on the computer if they set their filters for the Burlington building. What can we do so they can see their ward events on their phones?

The LDS Tools app (which you are referring to when you say "on their phones") only shows events that are on calendars that the user has subscribed to. Users can't subscribe to location calendars. The only way for them to see their ward events is for those ward events to actually be on a ward calendar. Events can only be put on ward calendars by ward calendar administrators or editors. Doing so would require your stake to change to a more distributed scheduling model (which is really what the online calendar system is designed for) and have wards schedule their own events.

Your stake has chosen to forego all the benefits of distributed scheduling. That's certainly an option, and you are welcome to continue to do so. But there are pros and cons of your centralized approach. One huge con is that members have limited visibility to events, and that includes the fact that they have no ability to receive notifications of events. But you simply need to be aware of the tradeoffs and make your decision as a stake.

My personal opinion is that stakes who choose a centralized model are worried about problems that although real are not really as big as they fear. When the new calendar system came online a few years ago, some of our stake leaders were worried that giving control to individuals to schedule the buildings would result in chaos. There were a few bumps along the way as people adjusted to the new system, but it's working great now. People have visibility to ward and stake events, and the system prevents conflicts. On very rare occasions someone needs to work out priorities (e.g., a funeral has to be scheduled on top of existing events), but that's very rare.

KathrynBellows wrote:As the stake building scheduler I schedule all events in all buildings in our stake.

Again, that's not how the system is designed to be used. The old system of one person doing all the scheduling made sense in the era of paper calendars and the trouble of syncing them up. There could be only one paper calendar that was fully up to date. Trying to make the new system fit the "old way" results in issues such as what you're experiencing.

While having individuals do their own scheduling seems terrifying, the fact is these individuals are ward and stake leaders - individuals that should be trusted to "play nicely".

If it were up to me, your position would be renamed to "Building Scheduling Supervisor". Someone who people go to when they have a problem, but someone who is not a part of day-to-day scheduling.

So our stake has decided to let wards do their own scheduling. Is there a way to export a stake calendar to a ward calendar?

KathrynBellows wrote:So our stake has decided to let wards do their own scheduling. Is there a way to export a stake calendar to a ward calendar?

Not really. You can use the sync URL to get a iCal file of the events, but I don't think that can be imported.

If someone has edit rights to both the ward and stake calendar in question, I think they can move the event between calendars. (At least I know you can move an event between stake calendars.) That would have to be done one event at a time, but it would be much easier and less error prone then deleting all the stake events and having the wards manually create them.

Note that the location calendar can still be used to schedule non-ward or non-stake events, for example marriages, receptions, reunions, funerals, etc. in the meetinghouse. Ideally everything else will go on a ward or stake calendar and show as being in the given building.