The Beta Calendar is Up

I'm probably the only person in the world playing with it right now, but I love it. I keep going back to stare at it and bask in its beauty.

It ported over everything I had on it in the labs and it looks good. They've even made some improvements to what was in the lab. I was even able to export the calendar to my google calendar.

The only issue I've had so far is when I exported the calendar to Google, it exported all of my subscribed church calendars to one calendar in Google. Not a big deal, but I am hoping to find a way to export the different calendars as different colors to Google. (I haven't been able to play with this much because the sync function seems to be tweaked at the moment)

Is anyone else playing with this? Seen any problems or pitfalls?

Overall, I say great job to the development team.

nutterb wrote:I'm probably the only person in the world playing with it right now, but I love it. I keep going back to stare at it and bask in its beauty.

It ported over everything I had on it in the labs and it looks good. They've even made some improvements to what was in the lab. I was even able to export the calendar to my google calendar.

The only issue I've had so far is when I exported the calendar to Google, it exported all of my subscribed church calendars to one calendar in Google. Not a big deal, but I am hoping to find a way to export the different calendars as different colors to Google. (I haven't been able to play with this much because the sync function seems to be tweaked at the moment)

Is anyone else playing with this? Seen any problems or pitfalls?

Overall, I say great job to the development team.

I would agree that it's definitely looking good. I spent some time this past week reviewing the calendar and found one problem that I have reported and received a response that "they're working on it."

I entered a repeating event starting on the 1st Monday in February and continuing for the year on every Monday (FHE). February worked fine as did the 1st two Mondays in March. The last three Mondays in March were blank and my repeated event was on the Sunday instead.

I tried this several times with the same result. Obviously it's still in Beta and they'll get this nailed soon I'm sure. Bottom Line? I like what I'm seeing and congratulate those who are doing the work.

nutterb wrote:I'm probably the only person in the world playing with it right now, but I love it. I keep going back to stare at it and bask in its beauty.

If the beta is up for general use, is there a URL that you can share?

boomerbubba wrote:If the beta is up for general use, is there a URL that you can share?

Sorry, should have included it before.

https://beta.lds.org/church-calendar/

Interestingly, the Conditions of Use document for the beta site include the following restrictions, which are also included verbatim in the similar document on lds.org and the production version of LUWS:

You may not post material from this site on another web site or on a computer network without our permission. You may not transmit or distribute material from this site to other sites.

I have always taken those words to mean that I cannot load the LUWS calendar data exported from LUWS into my Google Calendar. And here the same boilerplate language seems to restrict a key feature of the new calendar, which is linking from Google Calendar even more directly -- unless we do so with "permission."

So, do we have "permission" to use this feature and store this data in Google Calendar? And if so, do we also have "permission" to use the equivalent LUWS data there?

as far as the calendar is concerned the quick reference guide in the help contains instructions on how to export to google and other calendar applications.

Just a note on google calendar, the refresh of calendars external to google seems to be pretty slow, new events can take several hours and updates to existing events sometimes don't update at all, this is a google problem and has left several google calendar users frusterated:mad:, other calendars such as Sunbird are much better at refreshing events.

boomerbubba wrote:So, do we have "permission" to use this feature and store this data in Google Calendar? And if so, do we also have "permission" to use the equivalent LUWS data there?

I know nothing authoritative but I always interpreted 'post' here in the common usage of putting up for public (or semi-public) display. In other words, using a non-computer example, if I post a paper on a bulletin board I'm putting it up for others to see. If I just put the same paper on my bedroom wall for my own reference, I don't say that I post it on the wall, but rather I just put it up. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary definition also includes this public element associated with post.

So I have taken that condition to disallow putting the information on a website visible to others. However, I didn't think putting it on a private Google calendar (sync'ed to my Android phone) violated the conditions. True, someone could break into my account and see it but someone could also break into my house and see it on my bedroom wall.

Of course, it may be easier to break into Google calendar than my house so I wouldn't really want very sensitive data there. So personally I'm fine with putting church events in Google calendar so it's on my cell phone but I keep the membership directory in a password-protected/encrypted program uploaded directly from my desktop computer (of course, I also use the MLS export rather than LUWS and it has confidential information and additional restrictions on it's use and protection).

Techgy wrote:I entered a repeating event starting on the 1st Monday in February and continuing for the year on every Monday (FHE). February worked fine as did the 1st two Mondays in March. The last three Mondays in March were blank and my repeated event was on the Sunday instead.

I tried this several times with the same result.

And it is not even leap year! [grin]

eblood66 wrote:So I have taken that condition to disallow putting the information on a website visible to others. However, I didn't think putting it on a private Google calendar (sync'ed to my Android phone) violated the conditions.

You may be right. I am really wanting to be convinced that you are, because I also am an Android user. So my primary calendar is my Google Calendar. It just lacks any church items that I haven't keyed in, which makes it much less useful.

What puts me off is the language that adds "... or on a computer network without our permission." That seems like it could cover a lot of things.

I happen to agree with your common-sense view of what the policy ought to mean, but it just needs some simple statement from someone in authority that we do have permission to do this.

Notably, the beta version of the calendar potentially includes "private" items that are not even shared with the general unit membership. But apparently these items also can be exported to Google or other online calendar services.

eblood66 wrote:So I have taken that condition to disallow putting the information on a website visible to others. However, I didn't think putting it on a private Google calendar (sync'ed to my Android phone) violated the conditions.

This seems like a reasonable assumption, but I would recommend two changes:

1. Modify the Conditions of Use to explicitly allow this (since the current wording can also reasonably be interpreted to disallow it).
2. Modify the Conditions of Use and the application to specifically tell users not to make any calendar that syncs with a LUWS calendar public.

Assuming that the Church still wants LUWS calendar information to be reasonably private, it seems like that second point is required, since otherwise naive users will blithely sync LUWS calendar information with Google calendars that they have chosen to make public.

I would add that the policy predicament for Android users also extends to LUWS membership rosters, which is covered by the same blanket language. If I load the CSV or vCard exports from LUWS into my standard Android Contacts app, that syncs with my Gmail contacts.

boomerbubba wrote:What puts me off is the language that adds "... or on a computer network without our permission." That seem like it could cover a lot of things.

Again, not authoritative, but here's one other data point. This exact same language applies to all of lds.org, not just LUWS. And if interpreted broadly, it would seem to prohibit the use of the many online RSS aggregators. But the church provides a link for RSS subscriptions right on the home page. I can't imagine that the church expects that nobody will use online RSS services.

Of course, you might assume that the act of supplying the RSS feed constitutes permission. But if that's true then the act of providing the calendar feeds should also constitute permission. But then, as Alan mentions, it would be good to add additional guidance somewhere to tell members to keep sync'ed calendars private.

nutterb wrote:Sorry, should have included it before.

https://beta.lds.org/church-calendar/

I'm glad you posted that. It seems the youth have taken over just beta.lds.org. I can't find a way to get to the calendar from the top level domain. I don't remember it like that yesterday.

Anyone else put off by the open display of ages in the admin function?

RussellHltn wrote:I'm glad you posted that. It seems the youth have taken over just beta.lds.org. I can't find a way to get to the calendar from the top level domain. I don't remember it like that yesterday.

I believe it has been that way for a while. The youth application was the first to go to beta. Just yesterday several other apps, including Calendar went to beta. From what I can tell, there is still more to come. In stage when I sign in the home page gives me access to the new beta apps. I'm guessing that parts of the beta roll out are not all done.

ryan jones wrote:I believe it has been that way for a while.

That may be. I'm having a hard time keeping beta and labs straight. The link I used yesterday did have the app name in it, so that's probably part of my confusion - I didn't see the top-level beta.

ryan jones wrote:I believe it has been that way for a while. The youth application was the first to go to beta. Just yesterday several other apps, including Calendar went to beta. From what I can tell, there is still more to come. In stage when I sign in the home page gives me access to the new beta apps. I'm guessing that parts of the beta roll out are not all done.

On a whim, I tried https://beta.lds.org/directory/ and it works! It would have been nice if the youth site hadn't just taken over the root domain. I totally lucked out on this guess. Any other ideas for other betas?

Ryan, can you tell us what other apps were supposed to go beta and maybe we can guess the URLs from there?

oregonmatt wrote:Ryan, can you tell us what other apps were supposed to go beta and maybe we can guess the URLs from there?

Well, to answer my own question, I tried the other apps from labs.lds.org, and https://beta.lds.org/general-conference seems to work. The main page at https://beta.lds.org/main seems really incomplete, and https://beta.lds.org/parents doesn't seem to work at all.

RussellHltn wrote:That may be. I'm having a hard time keeping beta and labs straight.

That's easy to understand. We are lucky enough to add a Stage, QA and dev layer onto that :rolleyes:, and it can be fun to keep them straight.

oregonmatt wrote:On a whim, I tried https://beta.lds.org/directory/ and it works! It would have been nice if the youth site hadn't just taken over the root domain. I totally lucked out on this guess.

I found out that the directory beta was up when I saw and clicked on the 'My Directory' link in the drop down menu under 'Me' on the calendar page.

oregonmatt wrote:On a whim, I tried https://beta.lds.org/directory/ and it works! It would have been nice if the youth site hadn't just taken over the root domain. I totally lucked out on this guess. Any other ideas for other betas?

Ryan, can you tell us what other apps were supposed to go beta and maybe we can guess the URLs from there?

On stage the main app you get to after logging in is member. On beta this only lists the general conference app for now. On stage it also lists Ward and Stake Directory and Ward and Stake Calendar.

RussellHltn wrote:Anyone else put off by the open display of ages in the admin function?

Not me, so long as it is understood that the admin, who is called to that position, will have such privilege. Even within MLS, the last time I looked, it was possible for a user with the lowest level of privilege to see adult ages and more. (Maybe that's a bug, and should be pursued in a different thread.)

boomerbubba wrote:

RussellHltn wrote:Anyone else put off by the open display of ages in the admin function?

Not me, so long as it is understood that the admin, who is called to that position, will have such privilege.

Back when I was the admin for my Stake's LUWS I found it helpful to correctly select the person I needed, there were many times that the search would bring up a father and son for example that either had the same name or the father went by his middle name and that was the son's first name.

This is WONDERFUL!

Although, looks like the server just started having problems... seems like there might be a few kinks to work out as more people find out about it and more bugs are found and resolved.

Thanks for all of this!

ryan jones wrote:there were many times that the search would bring up a father and son for example that either had the same name or the father went by his middle name and that was the son's first name.

Yes, that's understandable. And LUWS did use birth date which in my mind is more sensitive. But LUWS only used that when selecting the person. The new calendar shows it anytime you look at the admin list. It's one thing to have access to it. It's another to show it where it may not be needed.

I guess what I need to know is just who can see that page? Only admins? What level is "admin" expected to go down to? The Deacon President to approve the Deacon's calendar? I think in many cases units had the person who did the Sunday program be an admin so they could update the site.

RussellHltn wrote:I guess what I need to know is just who can see that page? Only admins? What level is "admin" expected to go down to? The Deacon President to approve the Deacon's calendar? I think in many cases units had the person who did the Sunday program be an admin so they could update the site.

The admins that are automatically added are described in the help file here. You'll find the usual suspects (bishopric, clerks, etc.) I think it's important to note that most people will now be assigned as individual calendar editors instead of overall administrators. The help document is pretty clear about the difference.

I just sent a link to my stake presidency to take a look and for them the one way sync is going to be a problem. Some kind of two way sync would be great (webdav auth against lds account?)

si.

I visited the beta site and all I get is the earth loading icon in the top center of the page. I can not manage any subscriptions or anything. The site is blank for me. Is this site down? Does it take hours for it load my info? What is wrong?

i think the whole beta.lds.org is having issues right now - was fine earlier though, so they're probably just doing something…

As of 12:13 pm MDT the site is functioning fine. It was probably some maintenance being performed.

dannykos wrote:i think the whole beta.lds.org is having issues right now - was fine earlier though, so they're probably just doing something…

rchurch6 wrote:I visited the beta site and all I get is the earth loading icon in the top center of the page. I can not manage any subscriptions or anything. The site is blank for me. Is this site down? Does it take hours for it load my info? What is wrong?

Hence, the term "BETA".

obviously.

So I finally started playing around with the new calendar last night. After a while I realized that there needs to be a "main" calendar designated somehow. It seems logical that organizations can choose to create their own calendars. I guess for now I'm going to recommend to that our ward create and designate a "Ward Activities" as the "main" ward calendar.

I'm also thinking that for the average member accessing the calendar for the first time, there needs to be an intuitive "look here first" option. I am assuming that the calendars are sorted alphabetically, which would mean the to get the "main" calendar at the top of the list it would have to be called "Activities" instead of "Ward Activities."

I'm thinking that a standard list of Calendars might include:
Ward Activities
Stake Activities
Young Men/Scouts
Young Women
YSA
Primary
Cub Scouts
Activity Day Girls
Relief Society

Any other thoughts?

I thought about what would constitute a good starting list of calendars. But in doing so realized that those people responsible for each calendar that would be created should be the ones to create them. In other words if the ward young men presidency wanted a calendar they would create it. If they determined they wanted to split events between a YM activities calendar and a Scouting calendar then that was their call.

Your thoughts about some starting ideas for calendars is a good idea. As an assistant stake clerk I created several calendars for those areas I had responsibility as well as what I thought would be needed for other stake auxiliaries. I then realized I was stepping into the auxiliaries and even the stake presidency's callings in an attempt to help but should leave it to them to decide. I am trying to train them about the calendar instead of doing it for them. Transitioning from the old single calendar to multiple layered calendars is a concept they have not transitioned to yet and that challenge is what I am working on.

I think the idea of a main calendar has some merit. But also note that some people may see that main calendar as the place to put everything rather than creating another calendar specific to the needs of the creator of the calendar. For a ward I can see a "Ward Announcements" or somethng similar as being a good generic main calendar. The only issue to be resolved is who will have edit rights beyond the bishopric. If too many people have edit rights then the flexiblility of the layered calendar will be lost when a large number of users look to one calendar for information.

jdlessley wrote:I think the idea of a main calendar has some merit. But also note that some people may see that main calendar as the place to put everything rather than creating another calendar specific to the needs of the creator of the calendar.

No one else in my unit has started making calendars yet, and I have lost the ability to experiment with it on the beta site due to a recent change in calling. So one thing I am curious about is when there is more than one calendar present (i.e. Ward Activities, Scouts, YW, etc.), as long as these are not created as private calendars, can the average member see all of the events of the different (public) calendars by default, or do they have to manually subscribe to each one? Or put another way, are they initially automatically opted-in/subscribed to all public calendars, or initially opted-out of all calendars?

If they are initially opted-out of all public calendars, I can see the scenario of a member checking the new calendar for the first time and not seeing any events, and then thinking that there is nothing useful on the calendar. I would like to know about this in advance so that I can take preemptive and remedial action in those scenarios.

When a user logs in for the first time:

1) They are shown the main calendar view with a "Getting Started" overlay. The overlay explains what the system is and what a calendar is and what a calendar subscription is

at the bottom of the overlay there are two buttons: "Next" and "Close Getting Started"

If they click "Next":

2) They are shown the Manage Subscriptions page with another getting started overlay. The overlay explains what the manage subscriptions page is for and how to create a new calendar.

There is one button at the bottom of the overlay, "Close".

After they click "Close", the user is left on the Manage subscriptions page and they are NOT subscribed to any calendar by default.

that's it... so if they want to subscribe, they can easily click the "Subscribe" links right there.

This is current as of 5/6/2010 at 1:10pm MDT on beta.lds.org/church-calendar. It may change in the future.

jbh001 wrote:Or put another way, are they initially automatically opted-in/subscribed to all public calendars, or initially opted-out of all calendars?

The 'customer' for this project (i.e. the Priesthood Department) has requested an enhancement in our next release that will cause all members to be automatically subscribed to all calendars in their ward. It will then be up to the member to unsubscribe from undesired calendars. After our next release, members logging in for the first time will see all calendars and events that have been created.

jdcr256 wrote:The 'customer' for this project (i.e. the Priesthood Department) has requested an enhancement in our next release that will cause all members to be automatically subscribed to all calendars in their ward. It will then be up to the member to unsubscribe from undesired calendars. After our next release, members logging in for the first time will see all calendars and events that have been created.

I assume this also means that as new calendars get added, all members will automatically be subscribed to the new calendars. So if they don't want to be subscribed to the new calendar(s), they'll have to go back into their subscriptions and remove those new automatic subscriptions.

Is that correct?

It's important for wards and stakes to understand these kinds of issues, since they will affect their strategies for subdividing calendars. The new calendars are wonderfully flexible, but local units will have to determine the tradeoffs between flexibility for users, ease of management, and enforcement of standards.

Alan_Brown wrote:I assume this also means that as new calendars get added, all members will automatically be subscribed to the new calendars. So if they don't want to be subscribed to the new calendar(s), they'll have to go back into their subscriptions and remove those new automatic subscriptions.

Is that correct?

Yep, that's correct. There is also a new companion requirement to allow members to opt-out of this auto-subscribe mode, but I'm not sure if that will make it in the June release. This will allow the best of both worlds. Members who don't pay that much attention will be auto-subscribed, and thus won't miss any data, while those (like me) who like to control what data they consume won't have to worry about rogue calendars elbowing in.

Personally, I'd like to see calenders also marked if they should be a part of this auto-subscribe or not.

It's one thing to have a single female auto-subscribed to EQ activities or for a childless couple to be auto-subscribed to the Sunbeam calendar. But having the bulk of the ward auto-subscribed to the Bishop's leadership meeting calendar - I don't think that's such a good idea.

jbh001 wrote: I'm thinking that a standard list of Calendars might include:
Ward Activities
Stake Activities
Young Men/Scouts
Young Women
YSA
Primary
Cub Scouts
Activity Day Girls
Relief Society

Any other thoughts?

That's nice for traditional wards, but for our YSA Ward having most of those calendars would simply be noise that would deter use of the site. (Yes, its hard to get website usage even with my tech-savy age group )

Instead, perhaps a 'training' introduction for the web admin's first login might be useful... esp. as they need to work closely with the secretaries of the various groups/quorums/societies to create a custom solution that works for their ward, not (just) the preferences of us Ward Web admins. (And this would require a firm understanding of the features of the site)

If we are getting granular, what about ARP? Elders? HP? Ward Mission?

seguetester wrote:If we are getting granular, what about ARP? Elders? HP? Ward Mission?

All of those that apply in a YSA Ward are all calendars I've added in our ward. (Though, what in the world is 'ARP'??)

I've even made calendars for their meetings, in an attempt to make the site more useful for collaboration. For example, who teaches which Sunday in Elders' Quorum, or when the Relief Society Presidency is meeting. Great when integrated with Google Calendar (as I have on my Android)!

jbh001 wrote:
I'm thinking that a standard list of Calendars might include:
Ward Activities
Stake Activities
Young Men/Scouts
Young Women
YSA
Primary
Cub Scouts
Activity Day Girls
Relief Society

Any other thoughts?

As we are in the process of trying out the calendar, and waiting for some improved functionality (like printing ability,) we are using it on a limited basis. I've assumed each organization (jbh001's listing) would create their own. Nobody has yet, and I created one months ago for the primary, and it sits idle. I still get calendars at my house for my kids from scouts and young women made on other calendaring sources, but these organizations seem to be waiting for a more polished "final product" before they transition to beta calendar.

For the leadership though, to begin, we've first tried to copy from those "paper lists" we keep as a bishopric and create our calendars, as follows:

Ward events: considered our "master" calendar. currently it mirrors our LUWS calendar until we actually "transition."
Ward Leaders Meeting schedule: not private, contains all the bishopric-leaders meetings with fun acronyms: PEC, BYC, organization PPI's etc.
Bishopric schedule: Private, contains Bishopric only items
Bishopric conducting schedule/talks: Private, contains the rotating conducting schedule for all bishopric responsibilities and talk assignments / topics..who conducts sacrament meeting, priesthood, who writes the bishopric topic in the newsletter this month, etc.
Bishopric Interviews: Private
Counselor Interviews: Private

While we understand some of the calendars could be combined into one, we like the ability to "click them off" individually when we don't need to see the data they contain.

Many bishopric scheduled items on calendars are repeating, and the ability to make repeating exceptions is really needed to make maintaining these less work. Example: Choir practice is every Sunday except the second Sunday, Bishopric meeting is every Tuesday except the second Tuesday because that is relief society, Temple recommends are signed by the stake every Sunday except fast Sunday, etc. Yes, I know this is on the list of enhancements to come...

I'm wondering what the intended interplay for the new calendars is. I have our ward tentatively set up similar to kisaac (above) but I just would like to be clear.

Will each organization create its own calendar and have the other members subscribe?

Will the admins create calendars for the different organizations and assign ownership rights to members?

Will organizational calendars be set up from Salt Lake, and tie admin rights to the leaders as identified by MLS, thus eliminating concerns about handing over rights when callings are changed?

Will there only be one Calendar with all events aggregated on it? (Meaning that the ability to create multiple calendars is intended for individuals use at their own discretion.)

I haven't been able to find information on what the intended use is. I really want to get others in the ward to start playing with the calendar, but it would be nice to do it right.

I believe the idea follows the old model of Calendar Creator (if you've ever used that software). Typically, I'd see each organization having their own calendar. Perhaps two calendars - one for members and one for leaders. Each individual then signs up for the calenders that pertain to them and ignoring any that do not.

The final details being whatever the local leaders decide to do.

BensMeister wrote:Will each organization create its own calendar and have the other members subscribe?

That's a local decision; one ward may choose to have a Youth calendar, another may have a Young Men calendar and a Young Women calendar, and another may have Deacon, Teacher, Priest, Beehive, Mia Maid, and Laurel calendars. It's just a tradeoff between consistency, simplicity, and flexibility. But individual members can then choose to subscribe to any of the calendars that they can see.

BensMeister wrote:Will the admins create calendars for the different organizations and assign ownership rights to members?

A limited set of people (admins) have rights to create calendars. But once the calendars have been created, the admins can give Editor rights to whoever will be managing that calendar. From that point, the Editor(s) can manage the calendar and the admins shouldn't have to worry about the calendar.

BensMeister wrote:Will organizational calendars be set up from Salt Lake, and tie admin rights to the leaders as identified by MLS, thus eliminating concerns about handing over rights when callings are changed?

That would be a nice enhancement, but I see no indication that this will be a feature anytime soon. Although the overall administrators have administration rights because of their callings as identified in MLS and CDOL, calendar Editors are actual members by name. There is currently no way to connect a calendar to an organization, so there is no way to connect an organization's leaders to a calendar.

BensMeister wrote:Will there only be one Calendar with all events aggregated on it? (Meaning that the ability to create multiple calendars is intended for individuals use at their own discretion.)

The ward (or stake) can create as many calendars as the leadership decides. If a ward chooses to create just one calendar, that's their prerogative; in that case all events will obviously be viewable in one calendar. But if there are multiple calendars, then there are some features that will allow them to be aggregated in some ways:

1. This post describes upcoming features for conflict detection and resolution. So when you try to add an event to one calendar, you can be warned that an event on another calendar is at the same time.
2. People can subscribe to multiple calendars (as long as they have at least view permission). If someone subscribes to all the calendars, then they will see the events from all the calendars laid out on the same view.
3. Also, if you have subscribed to all the calendars, then when you sync your calendars to any iCal-compatible calendar (Google, Outlook, Apple), you will see all the events in one place.

Alan_Brown wrote:Although the overall administrators have administration rights because of their callings as identified in MLS and CDOL, calendar Editors are actual members by name. There is currently no way to connect a calendar to an organization, so there is no way to connect an organization's leaders to a calendar.

There is an enhancement item in Jira to allow editors to be assigned by calling. It was entered by the Calendar app product manager and it's assigned to 'Version 1.3 Queue' so I expect it will happen, it's just a question of when.

Any idea on the projected roll out of 1.3 in relation to taking the project out of beta?

RussellHltn wrote:Any idea on the projected roll out of 1.3 in relation to taking the project out of beta?

I believe that the current beta version is 1.2 but I beyond that I don't have any information (and I don't even know that for certain). I've been observing the development fairly closely but I'm not actually working on that community project so I don't have any information except what's been posted on the forums and whats in Jira and SVN.

RussellHltn wrote:Any idea on the projected roll out of 1.3 in relation to taking the project out of beta?

1.3 will be released soon (hopefully within a month) but we don't have an actual date yet, due to technical reasons not related to the calendar project itself. As for coming out of beta, there are still a lot of new features, technical tweaks, and bug fixes that need to be made. As far as I know, there is no planned date to come out of beta, but it should be sometime this year. My biggest fear is that the powers that be will remove the 'Beta' flag prematurely.

Everything we release into beta should be useable (more or less), and the calendar data behind it is fully backed up and will persist when we go to full production. The official word is "wait to use this as your main calendar until it is finished". But that's just the cautious party line. In reality, as long as you are familiar with the current limitations, go ahead and use it however you see fit.

I was under the impression that the goal was to be ready for the next calendar year - that most, if not all units would transition at that time.

RussellHltn wrote:I was under the impression that the goal was to be ready for the next calendar year - that most, if not all units would transition at that time.

That's my impression as well, but when is "that time"? Many units do their calendaring on an ongoing basis. Such units need to stay at least 3 months ahead. I suppose some overachievers might even want to be 6 months ahead. In that case, the need for putting 2011 events on a calendar will occur anytime in the next 3 months.

There will come a time when a unit has to switch over. I personally don't want to enter any 2011 events on the old calendar, but I want to stay at least 3 months ahead, so by the end of September our stake will be ready to switch over. That means we'll have to enter the October-December events in the new calendar, but every unit will have to make a choice to either have some duplication or require members to use two different calendars.

BensMeister wrote:
Will there only be one Calendar with all events aggregated on it?

While I would like to see a main calendar that collects all events from all calendars (aggregated) for conflict checking, or even generating a "main ward" calendar, (again, as discussed here,) there has only been mention of "conflict checking" features across all your calendars...not an hierarchical relationship or automatically "aggregating" of events to one calendar.

I'm taking a wait and see attitude, and so far I really like what I see.

kisaac wrote:While I would like to see a main calendar that collects all events from all calendars (aggregated) for conflict checking, or even generating a "main ward" calendar, (again, as discussed here,) there has only been mention of "conflict checking" features across all your calendars...not an hierarchical relationship or automatically "aggregating" of events to one calendar.

What would be the purpose of this aggregate calendar? It sounds like the conflict checking feature is on its way, and anyone (with at least view permissions for all the calendars) can subscribe to all the calendars by simply checking each of the calendars in the calendar view page. Then you'll see all the calendars, each color coded, displayed on the same calendar view.

I'm having a hard time understanding what additional capability would be provided by creating a new aggregate calendar.

Alan_Brown wrote:I'm having a hard time understanding what additional capability would be provided by creating a new aggregate calendar.

Same here. The only "capability" it would bring to the table is a requirement to enter everything twice, once on the relevant calendar, and once on the aggregate calendar.

Alan_Brown wrote:What would be the purpose of this aggregate calendar? It sounds like the conflict checking feature is on its way, and anyone (with at least view permissions for all the calendars) can subscribe to all the calendars...

While a "master" calendar that "collects," or aggregates automatically was, of course, a suggestion before we knew "conflict checking" was a feature they were building into the next beta calendar update. Perhaps it will solve most problems.

However, from a leadership standpoint, how do you get past the fact that the "conflict decision" will be made by each organization as they schedule across their own calendars, as nothing is "approved" by an admin anymore? In our ward, calendaring is discussed in leadership meetings, as we all look at paper printouts from the LUWS and stake calendars, and I see an aggregate, or "master" calendar as one solution to help wade through all the events and decide which ones have priority over others. I think of it as a final calendaring approval process-I can't think of how you could do this without an aggregate calendar. Especially in those cases where the organization didn't think that their scheduled event conflicted, but ward or stake leadership does.

While obviously not the only suggestion, I would appreciate a "master" calendar that aggregates (automatically) for ward leadership scheduling purposes. I guarantee I will miss "pack meeting" if it only appears on the cub scout's organizational calendar!

oregonmatt wrote:Same here. The only "capability" it would bring to the table is a requirement to enter everything twice, once on the relevant calendar, and once on the aggregate calendar.

I guess I am suggesting I would like two "relevant" calendars. One, a master calendar for leadership, and then the many organizational calendars. My thought was that a "master" calendar could automatically collect all events, thus no double-entry, and that would be a major benefit to me as I would not have to collect manually the important events off many organizational calendars to highlight on my agendas at leadership meetings.

As the beta calendar stands right now, I am doing double entry.
How are others doing this with beta calendar?

kisaac wrote:In our ward, calendaring is discussed in leadership meetings, as we all look at paper printouts from the LUWS and stake calendars, and I see an aggregate, or "master" calendar as one solution to help wade through all the events and decide which ones have priority over others.

A good print or report function would also accomplish this...I've heard that the printing ability on beta calendar is also being redone.

We'll wait and see...It's all been good!

kisaac wrote:While obviously not the only suggestion, I would appreciate a "master" calendar that aggregates (automatically) for ward leadership scheduling purposes. I guarantee I will miss "pack meeting" if it only appears on the cub scout's organizational calendar!

I guess I am suggesting I would like two "relevant" calendars. One, a master calendar for leadership, and then the many organizational calendars. My thought was that a "master" calendar could automatically collect all events, thus no double-entry, and that would be a major benefit to me as I would not have to collect manually the important events off many organizational calendars to highlight on my agendas at leadership meetings.

I'm not trying to be offensive, but it appears you haven't quite grasped the paradigm shift of the new system. The master calendar of which you speak is simply the sum (or concatenation) of all of the individual calendars. In any function (such as ward council calendaring) where de-confliction would occur, it would be imperative that any printout of the "ward calendar" be made while all calendars were visible. The beauty of having many separate calendars is so that someone who not involved in specific programs (such as someone who does not have a child in primary) can ignore personally irrelevant items.

Don't worry. It took me a while to figure it out, and if we as the tech community take a bit to do so, it may take even longer for the "average" member.

oregonmatt wrote:I'm not trying to be offensive, but it appears you haven't quite grasped the paradigm shift of the new system.

Don't worry. It took me a while to figure it out, and if we as the tech community take a bit to do so, it may take even longer for the "average" member.

“A man’s a fool who takes an insult that isn’t intended."

Now, to get my "average" ward council and bishopric to make the "paradigm shift" from paper to computer screen! (And not "worrying," but waiting until I can give them the paper calendar they want until they do switch "online.")

not having been in this debate, for me the simplest solution would seem to be a default calendar view, with a list of available calendars, all ticked 'on' by default. The default calendar thus shows all events automatically aggregated from all available calendars.

Then - for anyone not wishing to see events from YW or High Priests or whatever, can just untick those from the list, and then only be shown events from the remaining selection.

There is an issue in Jira for auto-subscribing to public calendars, it appears that it will be implemented in the next release.

I am guessing that this is in line with the same issue that is causing the Directory issues that we're currently seeing, but calendars cannot be created right now. It looks like it's getting hung up on the part that relies upon the membership data for editors and viewers. Also, the menu has question marks in it when you're on certain screens of the beta site. It seems to indicate brokenness at this point.

Existing calendars can get events added, but I cannot create or modify existing calendars. Now I bet people are going to wonder why I made such a big deal about these calendars at ward council.

Beta. Got it.

Hope it will get resolved soon.

I have only been using the Beta calendar for a couple of weeks and plan to introduce it to the Ward Council this Sunday. I wish the print functions worked but, until then, I'm able to "subscribe" to the calendar in iCal (on the Mac) and print it from there. However, that combines all of the calendars into one and takes away the color coding that would separate ward stuff from stake stuff. Also, I've had to create my own version of a stake calendar because, it seems, the stake isn't using the Beta calendar yet.

I wish I could never bother with the old calendar anymore. The new one is so much better! So, please, activate the print function.

dobrichelovek wrote:... calendars cannot be created right now. It looks like it's getting hung up on the part that relies upon the membership data for editors and viewers.
...
Hope it will get resolved soon.

I duplicated this problem last night (excellent analysis of the issue, by the way), but am happy to report that it seems to be working fine now. (The directory seems to be fixed at the same time, as reported here.)

I am excited for our ward to start using the new calendar system. Consequently, I created a few calendars this week, but did not make them private in hopes that all members could view them. When my wife logs in to the calendar, it is up and running for her, but when she goes to subscriptions, no calendars are available for her to subscribe to. Is there something I should do differently when creating a calendar, or does this fall under the authentication issue that is affecting the directory? Thanks in advance for your help!

I love the new calendar functionality and was wondering when is the go live for the new calendar and other new tools as well? I remember looking at the new Home Teaching / Visiting Teaching website as well. Of course the big one is when will MLS be available over the internet so HP/EQ/RS don't need to drive to the ward / stake buildings to enter in information for visits / changes in companionships etc..?

thanks,
Jason Bowne

Maybe because it's still "beta" it's not foolproof yet.
It shows I am logged in, and I can see the calendars I previously created, but cannot add an event or a new calendar. The "Select Subscription" page is empty.

duanegrasse wrote:Maybe because it's still "beta" it's not foolproof yet.
It shows I am logged in, and I can see the calendars I previously created, but cannot add an event or a new calendar. The "Select Subscription" page is empty.

It's working fine for me once I login. I can see all the calendars on the Select Subscription page, and I can add events to existing calendars or new calendars.

When you say that you "cannot add an event", what do you mean? Do you get an error message when you click the Add Event button? Or do you not see that button? Or are you describing what happens when you click on a date in the month view or drag a time range in the week view?

Perhaps it has something to do with the permissions associated with your calling. I am an assistant stake clerk, and also the stake website administrator.

I'm getting the "spin" on the beta calendar this afternoon. Anyone else having this issue?

macsense wrote:I'm getting the "spin" on the beta calendar this afternoon. Anyone else having this issue?

Same here. Firebug indicates it's getting an error 500 (internal server error) when requesting https://beta.lds.org/church-calendar/se ... 320799000/.

macsense wrote:I'm getting the "spin" on the beta calendar this afternoon. Anyone else having this issue?

I get nothing

macsense wrote:I'm getting the "spin" on the beta calendar this afternoon. Anyone else having this issue?

They were trying to do a new deploy today and they were having challenges. I don't know if they finished it or not.

Please give me a link if these questions are answered elsewhere -- I did some searching, but did not come across the answers.

I've been following the beta development on the new unit calendaring and I had some questions --

1. For their 2011 calendaring -- should units continue to use the current legacy calendering or can units start using the new beta calendaring?

2. Is there a plan and timeframe for units to transition from the old to the new?

3. Are there any plans to provide an import/export feature with the new beta calendaring that would be available before January 2011?

4. What is the approximate schedule for the remaining features of the beta calendar site?

Thanks.

Rob

robm wrote:Please give me a link if these questions are answered elsewhere -- I did some searching, but did not come across the answers.

I've been following the beta development on the new unit calendaring and I had some questions --

1. For their 2011 calendaring -- should units continue to use the current legacy calendering or can units start using the new beta calendaring?

The beta calendar has gone live as of about 13 August 2010. Instead of using beta.lds.org to access the ward calendar, you should start using new.lds.org. I'm sure the legacy calendar at lds.org will still function for a while, but there does not appear to be any link between events in the legacy ward calendar at lds.org and the calendar at new.lds.org

I've been able to go in on the Stake level and activate the buildings. However, when I go to add a Building Scheduler it just spins after I hit save. Also when trying to edit what resources can be scheduled seperately I get the same result. For example, when clicking on the different rooms in the meetinghouse. I've tried several times throughout the week, and no change yet.

Is there a bug, or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks!

jsnauvoo wrote:I've been able to go in on the Stake level and activate the buildings. However, when I go to add a Building Scheduler it just spins after I hit save. Also when trying to edit what resources can be scheduled seperately I get the same result. For example, when clicking on the different rooms in the meetinghouse. I've tried several times throughout the week, and no change yet.

Is there a bug, or am I doing something wrong?

The building scheduler issue is indeed a bug. I reported the issue with adding a Building Scheduler about 2 weeks ago using the Feedback mechanism, but when I tried it again yesterday, it was still a problem. However, I am certain that it was not always a bug, since I was able to add building schedulers prior to that -- as evidenced by the fact that the building schedulers I added back then are still listed. I just can't add or change building schedulers at this point.

But I cannot duplicate what you report about "trying to edit what resources can be scheduled separately." I just played with it, and I could check and uncheck any of the standard specific resources, or add and delete any custom reservable resources, and Save worked just fine.

jbh001 wrote:The beta calendar has gone live as of about 13 August 2010. Instead of using beta.lds.org to access the ward calendar, you should start using new.lds.org. I'm sure the legacy calendar at lds.org will still function for a while, but there does not appear to be any link between events in the legacy ward calendar at lds.org and the calendar at new.lds.org

Is the calendar going to stay at new.lds.org, or will is revert to lds.org when the change is complete? In other words, do I need to start teaching the members a new URL to remember? (They are having trouble with the old ones, still.)

lajackson wrote:Is the calendar going to stay at new.lds.org, or will is revert to lds.org when the change is complete? In other words, do I need to start teaching the members a new URL to remember? (They are having trouble with the old ones, still.)

You're braver than me
Given the number of issues that are still unresolved with the calendar and directory I'm hoping for a miracle between now and sometime around early November.

Given the fact that the current LUWS calendar is supposed to pass into oblivion by the end of the year and be replaced with the new version, we're going to need time to get calendar dates into place and wards trained in the use of the new features.

It would of tremendous help if we had some feedback on the issues that have been reported and their status.

techgy wrote:You're braver than me

Last night, after months of careful computer work, file parsing, LUWS, MLS, CDOL, and the whole rest of the alphabet was used to process a very important list of names, I got a pencil out and wrote on a piece of paper the information I needed, just before I got up to the pulpit to announce it.

I still think technology is wonderful. So does my pencil. It feels very wanted at critical moments in time. [grin]

techgy wrote:Given the fact that the current LUWS calendar is supposed to pass into oblivion by the end of the year and be replaced with the new version

Where did you hear that? That's not a "fact" from anything I've seen. As far as I know, the current LUWS calendar will continue to be around as long as the LUWS exists. That will be quite a while, given that development hasn't even begun yet on several elements of the current LUWS (lesson schedules, News and Information, etc.).

Just because the new calendar goes live, there's no reason to assume that the old calendar goes away. They are on totally different sites. There's no way the developers would force such an unreasonably tight transition schedule on us.

Alan_Brown wrote:As far as I know, the current LUWS calendar will continue to be around as long as the LUWS exists.

Facts are hard to come by :rolleyes:, but I wouldn't agree with that impression. I don't know what would be so hard about migrating parts of "new" into LUWS.

I think having a new and a old in production at the same time is just going to confuse the members.

Alan_Brown wrote:Where did you hear that? That's not a "fact" from anything I've seen. As far as I know, the current LUWS calendar will continue to be around as long as the LUWS exists. That will be quite a while, given that development hasn't even begun yet on several elements of the current LUWS (lesson schedules, News and Information, etc.).

Just because the new calendar goes live, there's no reason to assume that the old calendar goes away. They are on totally different sites. There's no way the developers would force such an unreasonably tight transition schedule on us.

I can't recall exactly the source, but I believe it might have been from a phone call to support. It's been a while since I heard it, but I do believe it was from a reliable source. However, it would be nice if we had a little more time.

I'll see if I can find the source.

RussellHltn wrote:Facts are hard to come by :rolleyes:, but I wouldn't agree with that impression. I don't know what would be so hard about migrating parts of "new" into LUWS.

I think having a new and a old in production at the same time is just going to confuse the members.

Well, I can certainly see why it would be a huge technical challenge to integrate the new into LUWS -- the whole security model is completely different for the two sites.

But in any case, I wasn't just making up my statement. I participate in a mailing list in which a senior technical writer for the Church participates; he has direct access to the developers of the new Calendar application. And he said that the old website would probably be operational through the end of 2011, and that the LUWS would not be phased out until all its elements have been developed for the new site.

I know that's just hearsay to you at this point, but I'll take that statement over speculation any day.

So, you've received additional information since post #52?

RussellHltn wrote:So, you've received additional information since post #52?

I did get that additional information since my post #52, but I'm not sure what you're trying to imply with your question. I would say almost exactly what I said in that post today, except that I wouldn't agree with your statement quite so much now. Each stake will have to make a transition, and that transition will require a cutover date. That cutover doesn't have to be the same date for every stake. Some may choose to switch on November 1, others on January 1, some on April 1. Whatever they choose is up to them. I can't speak for all those stakes.

Alan_Brown wrote:Each stake will have to make a transition, and that transition will require a cutover date. That cutover doesn't have to be the same date for every stake.

In other words, there will be two different URLs, the current LUWS and a new one to learn, and each stake will decide how far to carry the LUWS calendar (as long as it is still available to use) and when to begin using the beta/new calendar site (or whatever it winds up being called).

I knew that I'd read somewhere a transition date for moving to the new calendar. I found one such reference HERE. There may have been others more official, but at least it's a start.

techgy wrote:I knew that I'd read somewhere a transition date for moving to the new calendar. I found one such reference HERE. There may have been others more official, but at least it's a start.

That's simply a reference from a community member that he planned to have his stake transition on January 1. It has nothing to do with any directive from the Church.

I think it's quite clear that stakes will make all sorts of different decisions as to when and how they will make the transition. Some stakes will try to make the transition before the end of this year, others on January 1, and still others well into 2011. Because LUWS isn't going away very soon, they have that flexibility, and that's a good thing.

I thought I read somewhere that they expected the New calendar to be completed for the 2012 calendar year and shutdown the current calendar at that time and units could use either one until then.

I can't find where I read this, maybe it was a dream...

It would appear that there's no official release date yet for the new calendar and directory. Like many, I'd been told by someone, somewhere that it was this year. I'm glad to admit that my assumption is incorrect. It certainly didn't appear that target was going to be met.

Thanks for the correction.

techgy wrote:It would appear that there's no official release date yet for the new calendar and directory. Like many, I'd been told by someone, somewhere that it was this year. I'm glad to admit that my assumption is incorrect. It certainly didn't appear that target was going to be met.

Thanks for the correction.

Well, that depends on your definition of "release." As far as I know, it is still the plan that there will be a usable release this year. So I don't think anyone is saying that it will not be released this year.

However, additional features will continue to be added. LUWS and the new Calendar and Directory will continue to coexist for quite a while. The phaseout of LUWS is still quite a ways out.

Alan_Brown wrote: But in any case, I wasn't just making up my statement. I participate in a mailing list in which a senior technical writer for the Church participates; he has direct access to the developers of the new Calendar application. And he said that the old website would probably be operational through the end of 2011, and that the LUWS would not be phased out until all its elements have been developed for the new site.

I know that's just hearsay to you at this point, but I'll take that statement over speculation any day.

While the Wiki can't be assumed to contain official information, I just found the following in the Calendar Help section:

Q. How long will the previous calendar remain operational? If the previous calendar is still operational after the release of the new calendar, how will wards and stakes be motivated to convert to using the new calendar?
The previous calendar will probably remain operational until the end of 2011. However, the new calendar is now available for use in 2010. In October, at least 100 stakes will begin using the new calendar as their official calendar for all 2011 events. Throughout the year the calendar will undergo improvements and other additions. By the time the old calendar is discontinued, the new calendar will include the ability to import events from the old calendar.

I found this post which may have given me my impression. But all it says is that it should be ready for use by 2011, nothing about replacing the current calender.

However, I'd like to see some means for a unit to disable the existing LUWS calender so that units can make sure only one is in use. Having two calenders is a recipe for confusion and conflicts.

RussellHltn wrote:I'd like to see some means for a unit to disable the existing LUWS calender so that units can make sure only one is in use. Having two calenders is a recipe for confusion and conflicts.

I suppose a unit could depopulate any future items in the existing LUWS calendar, and perhaps even leave just one item at the changeover date announcing the change and providing the link to the new site.

Depopulating would help, but it wouldn't stop members from trying to submit events.

If you're feeling rebellious, you could make a repeating event in the old calendar with the code below.

I've noticed that attempts to create calendar items in June 2011 fail. The dates default to a July date and cannot be changed. I duplicated this problem on both a Mac & PC running Safari and Firefox respectively. I have reported this using Feedback on new.lds.org.

Anyone else seeing this?

macsense wrote:I've noticed that attempts to create calendar items in June 2011 fail. The dates default to a July date and cannot be changed. I duplicated this problem on both a Mac & PC running Safari and Firefox respectively. I have reported this using Feedback on new.lds.org.

Anyone else seeing this?

It's working just fine for me. I created a date for August 2011 and it went onto that date without a complaint.

techgy wrote:It's working just fine for me. I created a date for August 2011 and it went onto that date without a complaint.

But can you create an event for June 2011?

macsense wrote:I've noticed that attempts to create calendar items in June 2011 fail. The dates default to a July date and cannot be changed. I duplicated this problem on both a Mac & PC running Safari and Firefox respectively. I have reported this using Feedback on new.lds.org.

Anyone else seeing this?

Yes, I noticed that, too. It's actually a problem with every June. Most strange (and most annoying).

Alan_Brown wrote:Yes, I noticed that, too. It's actually a problem with every June. Most strange (and most annoying).

And speaking of strange, as I was testing this, the site stopped responding to me for a few minutes. I got Invalid Request no matter what I did. But now it is back up, and the strange behavior with the month of June is gone. I can schedule events for June with no problems at all.

Hmmmmmm.

The transition from LUWS to "new" does bring up some how-to questions. I have been wondering about the move and how to handle it. If the stake tells all members we will move to "new" on Jan 1, 2011 and the wards in the stake center schedule on a "first-come-first-served basis it may be possible for a ward to tie up Saturday mornings in the gym for every day that the stake sports program will need without an end. If so then the stake may want to get there first.

srweight wrote:If the stake tells all members we will move to "new" on Jan 1, 2011 and the wards in the stake center schedule on a "first-come-first-served basis it may be possible for a ward to tie up Saturday mornings in the gym for every day that the stake sports program will need without an end. If so then the stake may want to get there first.

Do you mean to tell me that the new calendar does not have a stake override function? [hehehe. Just kidding]

The stake should be able to get there first. They are the ones setting the transition date. Of course, the following year would be a different matter.

srweight wrote:The transition from LUWS to "new" does bring up some how-to questions. I have been wondering about the move and how to handle it. If the stake tells all members we will move to "new" on Jan 1, 2011 and the wards in the stake center schedule on a "first-come-first-served basis it may be possible for a ward to tie up Saturday mornings in the gym for every day that the stake sports program will need without an end. If so then the stake may want to get there first.

There are a couple of ways for a stake to address this. One is to only have one designated building scheduler for the stake center. Then there is no way for the other wards to tie up the building without the scheduler's approval. The stake controls the resource, and thus controls who is designated as a building scheduler.

Also, the calendar has the ability to block out times for wards to essentially own a resource. So the stake could say that Ward A gets the stake center's gym every Saturday from 7-9, Ward B from 9-11, and Ward C from 11-1. Then each ward is free to schedule (or not schedule) that resource in those time blocks, but not in any time block belonging to another ward. The stake can also block out any time or day ranges and then no one can schedule time in those blocks except for a stake administrator.

I would think it would be rare to designate multiple schedulers for a single building with no rule other than first-come-first-served, but if a stake wants to do that, they certainly can. I think, however, that each stake has plenty of better options for scheduling.

lajackson wrote:But can you create an event for June 2011?

Yup. No problem at this end. I created a date in June 8th of 2011 and it went where it was supposed to. Nothing in July and I had no problem in removing it.

Alan_Brown wrote:And speaking of strange, as I was testing this, the site stopped responding to me for a few minutes. I got Invalid Request no matter what I did. But now it is back up, and the strange behavior with the month of June is gone. I can schedule events for June with no problems at all.

Hmmmmmm.

Someone is monitoring this thread...

Actually, it appears to have been a known bug which was fixed in Version 1.4 of the calendar, which was released yesterday. It was probably just pushed public today.

Alan_Brown wrote:The building scheduler issue is indeed a bug. I reported the issue with adding a Building Scheduler about 2 weeks ago using the Feedback mechanism, but when I tried it again yesterday, it was still a problem. However, I am certain that it was not always a bug, since I was able to add building schedulers prior to that -- as evidenced by the fact that the building schedulers I added back then are still listed. I just can't add or change building schedulers at this point.

FYI, this bug also seems to be fixed on the new release that went live yesterday. It's nice to see good progress being made.

Alan_Brown wrote:FYI, this bug also seems to be fixed on the new release that went live yesterday. It's nice to see good progress being made.

I was hoping that the latest release would have addressed an issue that I'd reported a while back. When an event is scheduled on any given day and resources are assigned to it, I get a message that reports a conflict in resources except that the conflict is on an adjacent day.

Case in point. The General RS Broadcast on a Saturday in September will use the chapel, overflow, and the cultural hall (for a dinner afterwards). The next day - Sunday is Fast Sunday for our stake and I get a conflict between the two events. I've already reported this and verified that the entries are correct.

Is anyone else seeing this?

techgy wrote:I was hoping that the latest release would have addressed an issue that I'd reported a while back. When an event is scheduled on any given day and resources are assigned to it, I get a message that reports a conflict in resources except that the conflict is on an adjacent day.

Case in point. The General RS Broadcast on a Saturday in September will use the chapel, overflow, and the cultural hall (for a dinner afterwards). The next day - Sunday is Fast Sunday for our stake and I get a conflict between the two events. I've already reported this and verified that the entries are correct.

Is anyone else seeing this?

The resource scheduling tests for possible conflicts. It then reports both "resource conflicts," which are hard conflicts; and "Events at other locations." The first category seems to work reliably (except for one case I'll mention later). That is the most important situation, since it prevents you from double-scheduling a resource. I have not seen hard conflicts reported for an event on another day. Is that the kind of conflict you're seeing in the specific case you mentioned?

The possible conflicts for "Events at other locations" do seem to look more broadly than is necessary; they look at adjoining days, which doesn't seem necessary, and although they do advertise that they are looking at events which are scheduled for different resources, it seems more annoying than helpful to show so many events that aren't really conflicts. Perhaps if it were labeled more clearly it would be less annoying -- for the first section, make it clear that these are hard conflicts that will stop you from scheduling on top of an existing reservation; for the second section, make it clear that these are some other events that are okay from a resource perspective, but might possibly involve some of the same people, who can't be two places at the same time, or may be frustrated that they are involved in events on consecutive days.

The one case that is a problem with hard conflict checking concerns changing a single-day event to a repeating event. If you have scheduled a resource for a single-day event and then later decide that it needs to be a repeating event, when you try to save those changes, you are told that the resource is already scheduled for that first day and so you can't save your changes. Well, duh! Of course it's scheduled for that day -- I'm the one who scheduled it. I just want to extend that schedule to multiple days in the future, of which the single day is just the first instance. I have reported this bug. The good news is that this problem doesn't occur when you are adjusting an existing repeating event -- just when you go from single to repeating.

Alan_Brown wrote:The resource scheduling tests for possible conflicts. It then reports both "resource conflicts," which are hard conflicts; and "Events at other locations." The first category seems to work reliably (except for one case I'll mention later). That is the most important situation, since it prevents you from double-scheduling a resource. I have not seen hard conflicts reported for an event on another day. Is that the kind of conflict you're seeing in the specific case you mentioned?....

I've posted a snapshot of the screen showing the conflict report.
I've tried this multiple times and each time, depending upon what day(s) I check for conflicts, I get various reports. Sometimes it's reporting a conflict for a previous day, sometimes the report's for the next day. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to what I get. If I turn off the resource and just use "Other Location" the problem doesn't show because no resource is being used.

Once the conflict is reported I cannot save the event.

techgy wrote:Once the conflict is reported I cannot save the event.

I'm not seeing that. If there is simply a possible event conflict, I can still save the event (see the Save button at the bottom):
But if there is a hard resource conflict, I cannot save the event (the only option at the bottom is Cancel):
When I look at your screen shot, I can't tell if you have a Save button or not, since you cropped off the bottom of the popup window. Or is it possible that you showed the whole popup window, and your real issue is that your browser is not displaying the whole popup window? You should always see at least a Cancel link at the bottom; I suppose it's possible that the presence of the conflict information causes the Save button and Cancel link to not be displayed. This could be because your browser window is too small, or some other setting.

Alan_Brown wrote:I'm not seeing that. If there is simply a possible event conflict, I can still save the event (see the Save button at the bottom):



But if there is a hard resource conflict, I cannot save the event (the only option at the bottom is Cancel):



When I look at your screen shot, I can't tell if you have a Save button or not, since you cropped off the bottom of the popup window. Or is it possible that you showed the whole popup window, and your real issue is that your browser is not displaying the whole popup window? You should always see at least a Cancel link at the bottom; I suppose it's possible that the presence of the conflict information causes the Save button and Cancel link to not be displayed. This could be because your browser window is too small, or some other setting.

I guess I can always claim senility.:rolleyes:
When I check for conflicts the screen that comes up shows a scroll bar at the right, but the bar is all the way to the bottom of the screen. This was giving me the impression that there was nothing below this. The only way I could see the "Save/Cancel" buttons was to grab the top of the screen and drag it upwards.

However, the issue of the software checking for a conflict on an adjacent day is still there. I see no sense in doing a conflict check for a Sunday when the event's on a Saturday and doesn't extend beyond that.

Edit: I just discovered that an event scheduled in building "A"'s chapel will report a conflict in an entirely different building on the same night. From the point of being realistic I suppose that may be intended since it would be poor tactics to schedule an event in two buildings that draw the same crowd.

Quick questions for a new beta calendar user:

Who can create locations/resources in the new calendar? I am in the bishopric with the agent bishop and the stake has assigned us to manage the resource calendar in the old LUWS calendar. We would like to transition to the new calendar for ongoing resource requests, but there aren't any resources and I can't see an option to manage them like I have for managing the calendars.

Thanks in advance.

Michael Kenning

Mr.Intel wrote:Who can create locations/resources in the new calendar? I am in the bishopric with the agent bishop and the stake has assigned us to manage the resource calendar in the old LUWS calendar. We would like to transition to the new calendar for ongoing resource requests, but there aren't any resources and I can't see an option to manage them like I have for managing the calendars.

Locations are under the control of the stake. The list of approvers for the the stake includes the stake presidency, stake clerks (including assistants), stake executive secretary, and stake website administrator.

For any particular location (typically a building), any of those approvers can then designate any member of the stake as a building scheduler simply by editing the location and adding a scheduler. Then when that scheduler looks at Options for the calendar, he/she will see options for "Manage Locations and Resources" and "Manage Resource Assignments" (which will both be limited to the assigned location, of course).

It sounds like you need to to ask one of those stake leaders to add you as a scheduler.

Anyone else seeing the dates for every Saturday on the monthly calendar missing? It appears they are cut off for me.

macsense wrote:Anyone else seeing the dates for every Saturday on the monthly calendar missing? It appears they are cut off for me.

It would appear that about 20% of the right side of Saturday has been covered by the subscribed calendar information.

It would better if Saturday could be 20% longer instead of shorter :rolleyes:

FAQs to guide your ward/stake in transitioning to the new Calendar can be found here:

[font=&quot]https://tech.lds.org/ldshelp/index.php5 ... ition_FAQs[/font]

This is indeed discouraging. Up till now the help pages were indicating we could start using the new calendar for our 2011 planning. I wonder why the change. Especially in light of the fact that the instructions say we can use it for private calendars in 2011. I've been pushing hard to get our stake on the new calendar and especially to employ the new locations & resources features.

Additionally, with the release of LDS Tools for smart phones, they will have no calendar data for members to use if we have to wait until 2012.

I certainly hope they change this policy or offer an explanation.

I have no desire to question the decision or policy, just looking for guidance...

If a certain unit has already started using the new calendar within the unit, and we're willing to continue using it, knowing that it's still in development, does the policy FAQ imply that we should abandon this path-already-in-progress, do we need to look for the Stake to approve continued use, or may we continue to move forward since we've actually gained some traction in using the calendar compared to what we had before? (I think I know that the answer will be to go with what your priesthood leader directs... but where is the level for the decision based on this policy FAQ and the official statements of permissive use?)

Hmm... that might appear to be a loaded question. :rolleyes: Anyway, we'll do what is 'right' but we're hoping that right isn't to go back on what we've already done. If we hadn't already implemented the new calendar in our unit before this FAQ came out, it might be less of a question, but we have.

Really, I'm not trying to cause trouble, just trying to help our unit be more effective using things that work closer to what we've been hoping for for a long time.

dobrichelovek wrote:If a certain unit has already started using the new calendar within the unit, and we're willing to continue using it, knowing that it's still in development, does the policy FAQ imply that we should abandon this path-already-in-progress, do we need to look for the Stake to approve continued use, or may we continue to move forward since we've actually gained some traction in using the calendar compared to what we had before?

I don't think that Church HQ is trying to say you are forbidden from continued use until 2012. I think what they are saying that the only reliable, production-ready calendaring option for 2011 will be the old, still-active LUWS calendar. As for if you need local leadership approval to continue using the new calendaring system, I would say yes, it's certainly the discretion of your local leadership which technology will be used by the ward/stake. I'm sure many of us anticipating this new release have been readying our local leadership of the new solution, but I feel it is now our responsibilities to go back to them and tell them the sad news. It is then still their decision if they want to try using the new beta system or go back to the old, reliable calendaring system for another year. It really would be a gamble to bet on the new beta calendar being available all the time when a member of the ward would need it most.

I've lost the ability to create or edit repeating events in the old calendar. For this reason, I can only conclude that the old calendar is junk. I really hope the development of the new calendar will be fast-tracked and be completely ready before 2012. I'm sorry I'm not more polite about this. The old calendar is a clunker.

GregAnderson wrote:I've lost the ability to create or edit repeating events in the old calendar. For this reason, I can only conclude that the old calendar is junk. I really hope the development of the new calendar will be fast-tracked and be completely ready before 2012. I'm sorry I'm not more polite about this. The old calendar is a clunker.

There has been no change in the current LUWS calendar that I can see. Although I prefer the new calendar, I don't think it's correct to conclude from your challenge with repeating events that it is junk.

One thing that you might want to check is your popup blockers. The current calendar uses popups for repeating events, and so you need to make sure that all popup blockers (system-level, Norton/McAfee/etc., browser, and toolbar) allow popups from lds.org. In my experience, a popup blocker is always the reason people are unable to create or edit repeating events.

Alan_Brown wrote:In my experience, a popup blocker is always the reason people are unable to create or edit repeating events.

I've allowed pop-ups, but they often open behind my current window and I don't notice them, so I keep hitting the "repeating events" button, thinking it didn't work...

Perhaps there should be some text next to the "Make this a repeating event" link which could say, "Pop-up windows must be enabled."

I just found out that the new version of the new.lds.org calendar allows you to grant editor rights to calendars by calling.

It also has a notice when you first go to the site

Local units may begin using this new calendar immediately, but should be aware that it will continue to develop throughout 2011. It is currently available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian.

Of course the help pages still say wait until 2012. :rolleyes: Hopefully they aren't updated. They still say languages will be here sometime in 2011 and calendar import as well, but it is listed in the site notice

Ward and stake administrators (leaders) can copy events from other calendar systems, including the Stake and Ward Website calendar, into the new calendar using the Calendar Setup and Event Migration Wizard.

ryan jones wrote:I just found out that the new version of the new.lds.org calendar allows you to grant editor rights to calendars by calling.

Applause!

I just noticed too that the new calendar now has an importing feature. I have made one attempt at a test import of an iCal file and it failed. I will continue to try but this is good news since the Calendar FAQs says importing won't be available until 2011.

Let's hope it's sooner than that as our 2011 calendar is all done in Calendar Creator or something like that.

call me thick, but how do I copy an event across more than 1 calendar? If I want to add a meeting like ward council that is relevant to many auxillaries & quorums, how do I do that, without having to manually recreate the event on each calendar?

dannykos wrote:call me thick, but how do I copy an event across more than 1 calendar?

I don't think that's the way it was intended to be used. Rather, it should be placed on the most appropriate calendar with the expectation that everyone affected will subscribe to that calendar as well. Each member builds their own calendar by subscribing to all that apply to them, not by subscribing to just one that most closely fits.

RussellHltn wrote:it should be placed on the most appropriate calendar with the expectation that everyone affected will subscribe to that calendar as well. Each member builds their own calendar by subscribing to all that apply to them, not by subscribing to just one that most closely fits.

the only concern with that is hoping that the individual decides that the calendars they need to subscribe to, are actually the ones they need to subscribe to!

I can just imagine people claiming to not being aware of activities / meetings - only to be told that they weren't subscribed to the correct calendar!?

Seems a bit awkward to me.

dannykos wrote:the only concern with that is hoping that the individual decides that the calendars they need to subscribe to, are actually the ones they need to subscribe to!

I can just imagine people claiming to not being aware of activities / meetings - only to be told that they weren't subscribed to the correct calendar!?

Seems a bit awkward to me.

Keep in mind that the default action is to subscribe members to all new calendars. So, unless they've made changes they should see all of the calendars.

I may be wrong, but I thought at one point the word was that at some point admins could setup a default list and then the members could add additional after that point. It would seem that automatically adding all new calendars to everyone may be counter-intuitive unless private calendars are omitted and enough window is given for a calendar admin to add particular viewers before it is automatically added to everyone's subscription. I wouldn't for example want the RS Compassionate Service Committee custom calendar added to my subscription as an elder just because the system automatically added before the older RS sister setting it up didn't get specific viewers listed faster than the system could add everyone in the ward to the list.

dannykos wrote:the only concern with that is hoping that the individual decides that the calendars they need to subscribe to, are actually the ones they need to subscribe to!

I understand your point, but that's not what the creators had envisioned. If you place a event on multiple calendars, then I'd expect the event would appear each time someone was subscribed to a calendar that had the event. That's not good for people who used the calendar correctly.

Earlier in development, the calendar was blank unless a member decided to subscribe to a calendar. The feedback we received was that no one understood why their calendar was blank. So we switched the functionality to set all members to auto-subscribe to new calendars (as long as the calendars aren't private) by default. Members can unsubscribe from calendars they don't want to see, or turn off auto-subscribe. The idea is that it's better to be over-informed than under-informed, so if you're an EQP and you get a RS Compassionate Service calendar, it may be annoying, but at least you'll be aware that it exists.

Earlier in this thread there's mention of some scheduling bugs with times. I believe that has been fixed now.

Also, some people have asked whether they can use the calendar for production use now or if they have to wait. Initially the goal was to launch at the start of 2011, but there were too many bugs and issues (esp. with the web access management layer) to provide a stable release. So we backed that down, but perhaps worded it too strongly. Now many of the issues have been fixed, and you also have import capabilities. So the current policy is "try it if you want, but don't expect it to work perfectly until late 2011."

Also, in about three months, you'll see an interface redesign of the calendar. This will significantly improve the usability. Also, the only conflicts you'll see are hard conflicts with double-booked locations, not with times.

ryan jones wrote:I just found out that the new version of the new.lds.org calendar allows you to grant editor rights to calendars by calling.

Great! but could we go one step further? For example, suppose I make a "ward leaders" calendar with all the leadership meetings on it, and want only the ward leaders to have rights? Right now you must add each person individually. Try doing that with every ward leadership calling!

It would be really slick to have a feature to not just add them by calling, but by calling in organizational groups. Similar to the email function in the directory. How about add "all Elders quorum presidency members" as editors or viewers by selecting them as a group? or all the other groups: add all "ward council members," or "all bishopric members," or "all scout leaders..."

kisaac wrote:Great! but could we go one step further? For example, suppose I make a "ward leaders" calendar with all the leadership meetings on it, and want only the ward leaders to have rights? Right now you must add each person individually. Try doing that with every ward leadership calling!

It would be really slick to have a feature to not just add them by calling, but by calling in organizational groups. Similar to the email function in the directory. How about add "all Elders quorum presidency members" as editors or viewers by selecting them as a group? or all the other groups: add all "ward council members," or "all bishopric members," or "all scout leaders..."

I have added calendars for our standard meetings (Bishopric, PEC, Ward Council, BYC) and it's not too hard to add all the positions. And I will only have to do it once. That being said, I wouldn't mind a way to select multiple positions to add all at the same time.

kisaac wrote:Great! but could we go one step further? For example, suppose I make a "ward leaders" calendar with all the leadership meetings on it, and want only the ward leaders to have rights? Right now you must add each person individually. Try doing that with every ward leadership calling!

It would be really slick to have a feature to not just add them by calling, but by calling in organizational groups. Similar to the email function in the directory. How about add "all Elders quorum presidency members" as editors or viewers by selecting them as a group? or all the other groups: add all "ward council members," or "all bishopric members," or "all scout leaders..."

Y'all are just never satisfied!

Trying my hand at the new calendar. Pretty easy to do, but wondering why the repeating events can't start with the day/date of the original event, rather than always revert to January 1 or the 1st Monday, etc. Or maybe it does and I just haven't found that yet. Even my ancient non-WebOS Palm (meaning I can't sync) can do that.

I played with the new calendar this morning. I tried to import our old calendar, the screen (form?) seemed great, but there was no "finish" or complete" or "save" button, so I was just left hanging. What is that about?