new.lds.org Calendar Issues

The feedback link isn't working for me. I've noticed a couple of issues when exploring the new calendar yesterday. If they are duplicates, I sincerely apologize.

• Manage Location & Resources -> Building -> Edit Resources: If I attempt to add a custom resource, "Save Changes" fails (doesn't save changes & gives a never-ending wait symbol).
• Whenever I attempt to edit an existing event, the procedure appears normal but the changes are not saved.

I tried to get to the calendar (https://new.lds.org/church-calendar/) yesterday evening, and again this morning, but the page keeps auto-refreshing every two seconds in Firefox 3.6.11. In Chrome, it doesn't refresh, just doesn't show the calendar. Tried on three different computers.

Anyone experiencing the same thing?

njcant1 wrote:I tried to get to the calendar (https://new.lds.org/church-calendar/) yesterday evening, and again this morning, but the page keeps auto-refreshing every two seconds in Firefox 3.6.11. In Chrome, it doesn't refresh, just doesn't show the calendar. Tried on three different computers.

Anyone experiencing the same thing?

It's working fine for me this morning on FF 3.6.12

njcant1 wrote:I tried to get to the calendar (https://new.lds.org/church-calendar/) yesterday evening, and again this morning, but the page keeps auto-refreshing every two seconds in Firefox 3.6.11. In Chrome, it doesn't refresh, just doesn't show the calendar. Tried on three different computers.

Anyone experiencing the same thing?

I'm using Chrome and haven't had problems accessing the calendar this weekend.

njcant1 wrote:I tried to get to the calendar (https://new.lds.org/church-calendar/) yesterday evening, and again this morning, but the page keeps auto-refreshing every two seconds in Firefox 3.6.11. In Chrome, it doesn't refresh, just doesn't show the calendar. Tried on three different computers.

Anyone experiencing the same thing?

I saw the same thing yesterday and it's still happening today. That's when I'm using FF 3.6.12.

If I run IE 8, it works OK but it brings up a Initial Setup Wizard. I'm guessing that FF is having some problem redirecting to the setup wizard. If I have time I'll see if Firebug gives any clues about what's going on.

eblood66 wrote:I saw the same thing yesterday and it's still happening today. That's when I'm using FF 3.6.12.

Since other's are reporting the calendar functioning fine uner FF 3.6.12, then it would be helpful to inlcude additional paramaters of the usage. For example, what operating system is in use (e.g. Windows XP, Windows 7, Mac OS 10.6.5, Linux, etc.), what plug-ins/add-ons are installed (e.g. Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, etc.), what security software is in use (e.g. Sophos, Norton/Symantec, Microsoft Security Essentials, etc.), or if there is a firewall that could be interferring.

jbh001 wrote:Since other's are reporting the calendar functioning fine uner FF 3.6.12, then it would be helpful to inlcude additional paramaters of the usage. For example, what operating system is in use (e.g. Windows XP, Windows 7, Mac OS 10.6.5, Linux, etc.), what plug-ins/add-ons are installed (e.g. Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, etc.), what security software is in use (e.g. Sophos, Norton/Symantec, Microsoft Security Essentials, etc.), or if there is a firewall that could be interferring.

I've been checking some. I think it is related to the new Initial Setup Wizard. I would be interested to know if it works for anyone who is:

1. A default admin (state presidency, bishopric, stake or ward clerk, exec sec or website admin)
2. In a ward (or stake if a stake admin) where no one has yet run the initial setup wizard for the ward (or stake).
3. Is running FF 3.6.

Using Firebug to do some investigation it looks like some sort of timing issue where it starts to redirect to the setup wizard and then gets aborted and reloads the main calendar page instead. I can set a breakpoint at the javascript line that redirects to the setup wizard and suddenly it starts working. The additional pause before the redirect happens (caused by the breakpoint) seems to avoid the problem and allows it to redirect to the setup wizard.

I haven't yet determined what is causing the redirect to abort.

eblood66 wrote:I've been checking some. I think it is related to the new Initial Setup Wizard.

In fact, last night I clicked the "Don't Show This Message Again" link on the new Initial Setup Wizard, and the continual refreshing began. I was pretty sure I had clicked this before, since I've been using the calendar for some time. So why this popped up again I know not.

I just tried accessing the calendar at new.lds.org using Firefox 3.6.12 on Mac OS 10.6.5. I got a pop-up about the transition, clicked the link to not show the pop up again, and had no problems with the calendar. I signed out and then accessed the calendar again after signing in, and (as expected) wasn't presented the pop-up. The calendar appear to function normally.

I got it worked out. In the midst of the 2 second refreshes, I was able to click on the Options dropdown and select Calendar Setup Wizard. This seemed to reset whatever was causing this issue.

Thanks for the input.

I had the same problem with Firefox 3.6.12.
Internet Explorer 8.8 works well.

silveira wrote:I had the same problem with Firefox 3.6.12.
Internet Explorer 8.8 works well.

I tracked down the cause of my problem and submitted feedback so the developers can hopefully fix it soon.

If your problem is the same problem you should be able to FF again once you use IE8 to get through the Initial Setup Wizard.

I realize that the new calendar is still in beta stages; however, my question is this, will we have to create a new resource calendar or because of the layering capability, would that just be redundant?

n.augusta.wardtech wrote:I realize that the new calendar is still in beta stages; however, my question is this, will we have to create a new resource calendar or because of the layering capability, would that just be redundant?

Given the design of the new calendar, a separate resource calendar seems problematic. The philosophy seems to be that you set up resources as part of the building location. For example, our stake center not only has the main location of "Stake Center", but it also has a chapel, Primary room, Cultural Hall, etc. It also has a data projector that I added as a custom resource.

When you schedule an event, it may be on any one of several calendars -- it might be on the Youth calendar, or the general stake events calendar, or the Primary calendar. But any of those events could use the data projector. The event appears on the appropriate calendar, but checks for resource conflicts across all calendars.

The weakness I see in regards to resources is that there is no longer a way to see the resource scheduling across the whole calendar. The one little feature in this regard is that you can highlight which events use which location. But that only shows the main locations. There is no way to see which resources are scheduled for what days. Under LUWS, I have a separate resource calendar for the data projector, and at a glance per month I can see every usage of that data projector and thus see days that are open. The current design of the new calendar seems to check for conflicts just fine, but doesn't give you much help in looking for open days on a resource basis. That would be a nice feature to add.

Alan_Brown wrote:The current design of the new calendar seems to check for conflicts just fine,

But does it check for conflicts in "setup"? For example, if the projector is used by Stake Presidency in room A that ends at 7PM, and the Relief Society schedules a meeting that uses it in room B starting a 7PM - it doesn't see a problem, right?

I'm sure the teacher would really like to set up at 6:45PM and the Stake Presidency could easily run long.

RussellHltn wrote:But does it check for conflicts in "setup"? For example, if the projector is used by Stake Presidency in room A that ends at 7PM, and the Relief Society schedules a meeting that uses it in room B starting a 7PM - it doesn't see a problem, right?

I'm sure the teacher would really like to set up at 6:45PM and the Stake Presidency could easily run long.

There is currently no way to separate the timing for a resource to be different from the timing of the event, so it can't check for conflicts in setup or takedown time outside the actual event time. But I certainly agree that it would be useful -- I mentioned this request over three months ago in Resource scheduling in the beta Calendar.

In the meantime, I suppose we could handle this issue by:

• Creating a separate calendar just for resources (but this would require double entry)
• Creating extra calendar entries for setup/takedown in those cases where it is necessary. They could be put on a separate calendar so that they don't clutter the calendar for the majority of users.

But those are fairly ugly workarounds.

Alan_Brown wrote:But those are fairly ugly workarounds.

Agreed. IIRC, the issue was how to handle resources programmatically. I'd suggest a couple of fields: Setup and take down. It would indicate how many hours to pad just the resource portion of the event.

However, we may need to do that by resource used. For example, a dance might need 24 hours for room setup, but only a half hour for the projector.

Either way, it would be nice to see the resource scheduling - even if it's read only.

I have also successfuly set up the sync link to Outlook and also Google Calendar. The outlook sync is very fast (I think you can manually set the refresh rate). The Google calendar's first sync was very fast too. However, if I update the LDS calendar it usually takes at least a couple hours to show up on the google calendar - while the outlook sync updates almost immediately.

My wife found this one yesterday. You cannot access the December Visiting Teaching message on the site unless you search for it in the magazine. Going into serving in the church, RS, Visiting Teaching message does not give it to you and it should.
Troy

A future enhancement to the calendar will allow you to add padding around an event for setup and takedown time. I know that enhancement is currently planned and being worked on.

Re seeing a list of scheduled resources apart from the locations, I'll pass on this feedback to the IxD.

tomjohnson1492 wrote:A future enhancement to the calendar will allow you to add padding around an event for setup and takedown time. I know that enhancement is currently planned and being worked on.

Cool! That made my day.