Is...the church's calendar tool worth it?

We're investigating using an online stake-wide calendar. I'm just wondering if the church's calendar tool is the way to go, or if it's old fashioned and we should seek out more modern solutions.

The reason I ask is that 15 years ago as a ward clerk, I had a rough experience using the church calendar. It was a time sink I don't want to experience again. Back then I was tasked with implementing a ward calendar. I used the church's calendar tool. I personally used various programs and played around with Mozilla Sunbird (I even helped write an extension for it to assist me). I passed papers around every Sunday asking people to update the calendar. I showed them how they could get the calendar on their own computers. But it just never took. Not a single person used the online calendar despite sincere effort by myself and many leaders. The process was too cumbersome in many ways. I learned back then that larger scale calendar organization is incredibly hard to pull off and can easily fail.

Fast forward to today. We're wondering if an emphasis on calendaring at the stake level can work. Honestly, my first impression after 15 years is that it feels as though the church's calendar tool has only made a little progress. The website calendar is somewhat slow. I can't see a way to add calendar events on the app. I can't find a way to sync it (instructions say "The settings options are found in the Gear icon on the right side of the calendar toolbar"), but I see no such settings on the mobile app or the website. Printing isn't a feature. We can't easily make the calendar public facing, it's hidden behind a church login. Looking at the forums it seems that a few features only get rolled out every few years. The calendar feels like it's just...slowly plodding along with minimal development. A quick view of forum chatter gives me the impression the tool isn't well accepted or widely adopted. Am I missing something? Have other stakes pulled off full active calendar use?

I'm almost wondering if we're just better off creating a Google account for a stake wide calendar, and a Google ward calendar for each ward in the stake. Then we manage it from there? We've already got a stake website that's well known among our members, we can very easily make these calendars public facing there. We've got Google accounts already for the stake and wards. Should we go down that road instead?

My main motivation is 1) Make a calendar that works for your average church member. 2) To avoid spending months trying to get one calendar tool to work when another calendar tool is much better. I'm just curious as to others experiences. If you had to start from scratch, what would you pick?

I've been using the church calendar for the same amount of time you have with a similar observation about the OLD calendar in what we called the http 1.0 online church tools. The calendar tool the church implemented after that was the most sophisticated resource they created and it was awesome, honestly, anyone who ever worked in a corporate world and reserved rooms and projectors, etc.. could navigate the tool rather easily. Also, it really depended on wards and stakes implementing their default schedules (like Tue - Ward 1, Wed - Ward 2, etc...) There was a little bit of work required to make it amazing, you could turn it on for reserving individual rooms, or just for the whole building depending on stake/ward needs. It allowed you to book events, and reserved the kitchen or the gym, the RS room or wherever. And yes, it did/does have the ability to sync to google, MS, apple calendars, etc.. it was an amazing tool that was utterly decimated in the last upgrade - There was another thread that indicated a required upgrade to a component with a security vulnerability caused them to go early or whatever goobly gook language we'll never know - The calendar as it exists in this very point-in-time has some limitations that we hope they'll have put up.

Now the honest problem. The % of people working in leadership and doing the calendar that understand how it works is pretty small, all it takes is someone who doesn't take the time to figure it out and for that person to be 'in charge' of training to destroy a great tool.

But if you're starting from scratch, I'd pick the church calendar.
Some of the reasons:
1. Authorization can be done by church calling and controlled with the church account and granularity to give leaders specific access to specific calendars
1.a You can even put in the specific calling so that authorization is only setup one time and continues regardless of who has the calling
2. Ability to schedule Building/rooms in the building to allow granular access to the meetinghouse (the RS can meet during the same time YW/YM is going by everyone reserving only the rooms they need)
3. Ability to subscribe to calendars or not (I only have girls, I subscribe to the YW calendars, I don't need to subscribe to the YM)
4. Ability to provide event organizer info so conflicts can be worked out directly without needing to involve leaders and relying on them to care enough to try and work it out

I don't know if the calendar will ever return to it's former glory, with the church I think they'll likely just keep it as it is at this point. But I would always recommend the church solution because the next person that comes along may not have the google knowledge you do, or maybe they'll want to change it to Apple, or whatever.... keep using the church stuff, with it's limitations as they may be, is always going to be better in my mind from the larger picture.

The last pain-point around this is that Gospel Living is adding more calendaring content and who knows where that is going.... ROFO

Agreed. There is never any guarantee that the person who succeeds you will have the knowledge, experience, or interest in maintaining the unique tool you have created. It is always best to use the standard tools provided and supported by the organization, even if they are far from perfect. None of the tools, documents, or spreadsheets that I left to my successors have ever been retained.

johnshaw wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:49 pm Now the honest problem. The % of people working in leadership and doing the calendar that understand how it works is pretty small, all it takes is someone who doesn't take the time to figure it out and for that person to be 'in charge' of training to destroy a great tool.

Yes, exactly. The app may be what tips me in the church's favor. Can calendar entries be created on the app? I couldn't find a way to do it. Or does a person first have to have their calling entered by a clerk, and then they can do it?

The calendar on the app isn't exactly front and center (I honestly didn't know it existed on the app until I looked around for it today). But virtually every leader I know uses the app. So maybe with training it can be enough?

And yes, it did/does have the ability to sync to google, MS, apple calendars, etc.. it was an amazing tool that was utterly decimated in the last upgrade

I saw that sync is broken and has been for a while. That might be my deal breaker. If we can't print, can't sync, and the calendar is hidden behind a login, then the calendar tool is in a worse state for us now than it was 15 years ago.

This is partially why I'm going down the Google route. We use Google sites already for the stake webpage. All internal notes are in Google Docs. We use Google emails per unit to "own" the Zoom accounts. It wouldn't be that much harder to mix in Google calendaring into all this, it's fairly easy. Whoever takes over my position is going to have to understand using Google suite products anyway.

drepouille wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:58 pm There is never any guarantee that the person who succeeds you will have the knowledge, experience, or interest in maintaining the unique tool you have created. I

This is always solid advice. Much of our past two years has been throwing together anything that reasonably works for broadcast and online support. Now we've spent the last year cleaning up our processes and making our solutions permanent. The goal is simplifying anything we can so that our eventual replacement can manage our work more easily.

brad_p wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 1:18 pm Can calendar entries be created on the app?

Website only at this stage for editing, but viewing can be done in the Member Tools app.

and the calendar is hidden behind a login

The calendar SHOULD be behind a log in. There is no need for the world to know that the young women will be in the cultural hall at a certain time for instance.

caillines wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 4:13 pm

and the calendar is hidden behind a login

The calendar SHOULD be behind a log in. There is no need for the world to know that the young women will be in the cultural hall at a certain time for instance.

Way back in LUWS days (Calendar 1.0), we had a member express concern about the calendar. Anyone who knew he was in the YM leadership would know what nights he left his wife and young daughter home alone.

Calendar 1.0 did allow some events to show on a public facing webpage. Part of the test to gain rights to the calendar instructed us not to place certain events (such as Youth) on the public-facing part. I don't remember if it had a reason. Possibly predators or outside youth wanting to crash the event.

For events that you want to invite the public to, there's social media. I'll refer to General Handbook 38.8.20.2 "Members’ Use of the Internet in Church Callings" for details.

One nicety about the church system is is automatically grants and removes access as members move in/out of the ward. New move-ins are probably expecting to see events in the church calendar.

If leaders in your stake aren't using the Church calendar tool after a lot of training and prodding, unfortunately, I think it's optimistic to think they'll use the custom calendar tools you set up for each ward either.

russellhltn wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 4:40 pm Calendar 1.0 did allow some events to show on a public facing webpage. Part of the test to gain rights to the calendar instructed us not to place certain events (such as Youth) on the public-facing part. I don't remember if it had a reason.

Interesting. I can't remember that. Though to be fair, my Website Administrator calling training was pretty basic.

caillines wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 8:23 pm Interesting. I can't remember that.

It was quite a while ago. [grin]

Yes, we were told not to post details of certain events on the public main page as a safety consideration. An event might give a date, but not a time, for example, so that those who were not invited would not have enough details to access the event.

It sort of defeated the purpose of having the calendar in those instances. But even back then we were being cautioned about certain safety issues that have since become even more rampant.

The church website calendar can be very informative if utilized correctly by all organizations. I prepared a binder of info for all new building schedulers and personally train each one. It really helps a lot and they have handouts to distribute when a change is made in ward council participants.

The biggest drawback I have is that "member tools" does not show the entire picture when someone is looking on their phone. When running a blood drive I had the YM President show up with the young men to play basketball in the cultural hall saying "tools showed that your event ran from 1pm to 7 pm". Which was quite true but what it does not show is 2 hour set up nor 2 hour clean up time allowed for an activity. I actually had the building scheduled until 9 pm. They were disappointed. But great opportunity for calendar instruction and reminder about scheduling an event and not just showing up. As a stake building scheduler I find the "tools app" of little use for me in my calling.

Church programmers are working very hard to get this new calendar up and running and feedback is helping a lot in that process. I am very grateful for the strides they have made since 11-15-22 release.

casper684 wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 4:49 pm When running a blood drive I had the YM President show up with the young men to play basketball in the cultural hall saying "tools showed that your event ran from 1pm to 7 pm".

The old "if no one is using it then I can use it" trap. And a perfect example if why that doesn't work.

Just a matter of proper training emphasizing that website calendar is what is used for scheduling and to use it. But I agree totally.