Calendar Best Practices

I am curious to know how people are handling combined YM/YW activities in the new calendar. I have created calendars for YM, YW, and YM & YW, but I'm not sure this is the ideal situation. Would it be better to duplicate the activity on the YM and YW calendars?

HPaulsen wrote:I am curious to know how people are handling combined YM/YW activities in the new calendar. I have created calendars for YM, YW, and YM & YW, but I'm not sure this is the ideal situation. Would it be better to duplicate the activity on the YM and YW calendars?

We have created a calendar for YW and another for YM. If the activity is a combined activity, then the event's posted on both calendars, otherwise events are only placed on the appropriate calendar.

techgy wrote:We have created a calendar for YW and another for YM. If the activity is a combined activity, then the event's posted on both calendars, otherwise events are only placed on the appropriate calendar.

I assume that this causes a duplication on the calendar if one is subscribed to both. Is this an irritation?

Here are the calendars we have created for the youth in our ward. There may be some reduction but each quorum or class maintains their own set of activities so it seems foolish to put them all on one calendar. If you are a Teacher/Varsity scout, why would you want to keep seeing all of the events for the Deacons/Scouts or Priests/Ventures?

Young Men General would be combined YM activities such as some campouts, merit badge colleges, Duty to God firesides, etc.

Leadership calendars are for the adults to use for YM or YW presidency meetings, etc. so they really aren't for use by the youth.


YM-Deacon/Boy Scout
YM-Teacher/Varsity
YM-Priest/Venture
YM-Young Men General
YM-Leadership
YM/YW-Joint Activities
YW-Beehive
YW-Mia Maid
YW-Laurel
YW-Young Women General
YW-Leadership

HPaulsen wrote:I assume that this causes a duplication on the calendar if one is subscribed to both. Is this an irritation?

I haven't heard any complaints. However, since the calendars are more experimental there's less expectation. For the calendar year 2011 we have been urged to stay with the LUWS calendar which is what the ward is still depending upon.

I added this scenario to the calendar documentation.

Problem: You have a separate YM and YW calendar, but every fifth Wednesday of the month you have a combined YM/YW activity that needs to appear on both the YM and YW calendars.

Solution: There's no way to post the same event on both calendars, so you either have to duplicate the event manually on both calendars, or create a new calendar that shows YM/YW combined activities, and then set this new calendar to repeat every fifth Wednesday of the month.

techgy wrote:For the calendar year 2011 we have been urged to stay with the LUWS calendar which is what the ward is still depending upon.

Ah, techgy, that was so "last week!"

The "urging" to stay with the "old" has now been re-worded to give us the "option" to use the "new," as long as you know it's still developing:

When should our stake begin using the new tools?
Stakes and wards can encourage members to use the new directory right away, but the use of the calendar during 2011 is optional. Since the calendar is in development, it will continue to evolve and improve over time, with the expectation of reaching maturity for the 2012 calendar year rather than the 2011 calendar year. Wards and stakes are welcome to use the calendar for testing or actual usage now, but they should be aware that the interface will change, bugs may still be present, missing features are still being added, and so forth. However, data you enter will not be lost. .

This kinder, gentler re-wording comes with the recent improvements, which seems to beg the question:
Why not use the new one for real, and for 2011? I'm suggesting to my bishop- "Let's go Live" on January 1, in part because the things it can do are labor saving NOW.

For example:
1) import from LUWS calendar - don't "import all!"
2) Print a decent hard copy - try export in PDF if you want to email them- very good!
3) Resource scheduling -My stake is getting on board for their calendar and the resource scheduling. Let's figure it out now.
4) Email reminders - think of bishopric meetings on a new "leadership meeting calendar" that we will subscribe ward council and PEC members to- will save me work!
5) We can now move away from Google, which I really think is important

By the way, when you use the import wizard, it gives you the option to set up all your organizational calendars for you, with permissions already set, saving much work in doing this yourself.

tomjohnson1492 wrote:I added this scenario to the calendar documentation.

Problem: You have a separate YM and YW calendar, but every fifth Wednesday of the month you have a combined YM/YW activity that needs to appear on both the YM and YW calendars.

Solution: There's no way to post the same event on both calendars, so you either have to duplicate the event manually on both calendars, or create a new calendar that shows YM/YW combined activities, and then set this new calendar to repeat every fifth Wednesday of the month.

Two issues here. I don't think the combined calendar is the answer as more calendars = more confusion. Double entry isn't the answer, because that opens up the chance for mistakes and perhaps resource scheduling issues.

Issue one: Members may see two events for the same combined activity on that date because they subscribe to both the YM and YW calendars, and it needs to show on both. Can't be fixed now, but no big deal.

Issue two: Making events show/post or enable copying to more than one calendar is a big deal, and needs to be resolved by programmers. The combined YM/YW activity is a good example. There are many more times that events should show on several calendars: Priesthood Preview is a Primary, Young men item. Many stake events really should be duplicated onto ward calendars, like stake conference and stake leadership. Service assignments might involved HP, Elders and Young men.

What to do to avoid double entry and quadrupling your calendars by making combined calendars? In google, they have an option: "copy to calendar" and you can copy any event to many other calendars. This would fix the issue. Not sure how this would affect resource scheduling...

kisaac wrote:Why not use the new one for real, and for 2011?

If anyone wants to discuss that particular question, please don't do it in this thread; instead do it in the new thread: Why not use the new calendar for 2011. Thanks.

We want to set up a missionary dinner calendar using the new calendar system. How do we go about creating a calendar where anyone in the ward can enter an event?

macsense wrote:We want to set up a missionary dinner calendar using the new calendar system. How do we go about creating a calendar where anyone in the ward can enter an event?

This was discussed several months ago on the thread Beta calendar event submission. At that time, there was no ability to do this, but it appears that it can now be done. Just create a calendar called "Missionary Dinners" and then members can submit event requests using that calendar. They will choose the "Create Event" button, then select that calendar and fill in the rest of the event details.

Update: But it looks like I spoke too soon. If you are not a calendar editor, you can go through all the above steps, but then when you try to check for conflicts so that you can save the event, you are told that you are not an editor for that calendar, and so your only option is to cancel. That doesn't seem too friendly, but I imagine it will be smoothed out as development proceeds. What I don't know is if the Create Event button will be disabled, or if members will be able to submit requests.

We have a member of the Church who schedules a few music concerts/recitals a year. They are performed in the Cultural Hall, and there is no charge for the concert. In order to schedule the resource I was thinking of setting up a seperate Meetinghouse calendar, rather then posting to the Stake Activities calendar.

Does anyone else have a suggestion to post this?

Thanks!

Jared

jsnauvoo wrote:We have a member of the Church who schedules a few music concerts/recitals a year. They are performed in the Cultural Hall, and there is no charge for the concert. In order to schedule the resource I was thinking of setting up a seperate Meetinghouse calendar, rather then posting to the Stake Activities calendar.

You need to schedule the resource, but a resource can only be scheduled in conjunction with an event. It appears that you don't want this event to appear on the stake activities calendar, so it must be on some other calendar.

It seems that it could be useful to have a calendar devoted to events that use a resource but don't create an event you want to publicize. This could then be used for all sorts of things in addition to the specific case you mentioned:

• Use by another unit (that doesn't meet in your building) of all or part of your building
• Use by a family or other organization (e.g., mission reunion) of all or part of your building
• Use of a projector for an off-site purpose
• etc.

You'd probably want one such calendar per location. No one would need to subscribe to it, except for the building scheduler and maybe a couple other interested people.

kisaac wrote:Two issues here. I don't think the combined calendar is the answer as more calendars = more confusion. Double entry isn't the answer, because that opens up the chance for mistakes and perhaps resource scheduling issues.

Issue one: Members may see two events for the same combined activity on that date because they subscribe to both the YM and YW calendars, and it needs to show on both. Can't be fixed now, but no big deal.

Issue two: Making events show/post or enable copying to more than one calendar is a big deal, and needs to be resolved by programmers. The combined YM/YW activity is a good example. There are many more times that events should show on several calendars: Priesthood Preview is a Primary, Young men item. Many stake events really should be duplicated onto ward calendars, like stake conference and stake leadership. Service assignments might involved HP, Elders and Young men.

I would really like to see the ability to have more than one calendar subscribe to an event. Is this going to be possible with the Feb 2011 release?

I'm not sure. A lot of people have asked for this.

You actually bring up a point I hadn't considered before. If people duplicate the same event on two calendars, and the event has a resource or location selected, you actually can't duplicate the event on a second calendar because the calendar will think that you're double-booking a location/resource, which isn't allowed. So you won't be able to save the event. The only way to do this (in a way that has a location/resource selected for both events) is with a third calendar.

Also, if you input the same event on multiple calendars, since members are auto-subscribed to all calendars, they'll see duplicate instances of the same event in their calendar view (unless their either untoggle the irrelevant calendar or unsubscribe from it).

tomjohnson1492 wrote:You actually bring up a point I hadn't considered before. If people duplicate the same event on two calendars, and the event has a resource or location selected, you actually can't duplicate the event on a second calendar because the calendar will think that you're double-booking a location/resource, which isn't allowed. So you won't be able to save the event. The only way to do this (in a way that has a location/resource selected for both events) is with a third calendar.

However, the second event doesn't have to reserve the resource, so you can save it by simply specifying "Other Location". You still have the field where you can describe the location, so people will know where the event is being held. That's easy enough to do.

tomjohnson1492 wrote:Also, if you input the same event on multiple calendars, since members are auto-subscribed to all calendars, they'll see duplicate instances of the same event in their calendar view (unless their either untoggle the irrelevant calendar or unsubscribe from it).

That's the big problem with double scheduling an event. In most cases, neither calendar is irrelevant, so they can't hide it or unsubscribe. There just happens to be the same event on both calendars.

But creating a third calendar isn't really much of a solution, either. If you were to have one calendar for each youth class, you would also need a YM calendar, a YW calendar, a combined Youth calendar, a Priests/Laurels calendar, a Teachers/Mia Maids calendar, and a Deacons/Beehives calendar. Oh, and sometimes we need a Priests/Teachers calendar, and a calendar for the four classes age 14+ -- it gets pretty ridiculous.

The only practical solution to avoid all these problems is to make the software more complex and allow selection of multiple calendars for a single event. But that raises issues regarding editing rights, and it complicates the user interface. Is it worth the cost in development and complexity? I don't know.

There's no doubt that the functionality to publish the same event on multiple calendars is coming soon. I don't know how tricky it would be to implement it from a programming perspective -- it may be simple or difficult, but it is planned. Right now I'm just looking for workarounds to recommend in the help.

Managing calendar subscriptions in the new calendar puts more burden on the user to define what events he or she sees. I don't have a problem with a ward having 100 different calendars, but I can see how this might get complicated. Suppose an activity is relevant to the Beehives and Mia Maids, but not the Laurels. Another activity is relevant to the Laurels and Priests, but not the Beehives, Mia Maids, Teachers, or Deacons. Another activity is relevant to all groups. Another activity is relevant only to Deacons. Another to Teachers and Priests, but not Deacons. Another to Deacons and Beehives, but to none other.

Obviously one couldn't create a calendar to accommodate all of these possible combinations. What solution would you recommend? Maybe it would be better to just create standard calendars for each group, and when events apply to other groups, then put them on a combined youth calendar, or something. Or maybe just have a Youth calendar where all activities are posted. Then youth can look at the activity and description and see what applies to them.

All of you who are planning your calendars for the year, how are you handling this scenario?

tomjohnson1492 wrote:What solution would you recommend? Maybe it would be better to just create standard calendars for each group, and when events apply to other groups, then put them on a combined youth calendar, or something. Or maybe just have a Youth calendar where all activities are posted. Then youth can look at the activity and description and see what applies to them.

For our stake calendar, we have decided just to have one youth calendar, and I think that will work fine, even though some of the events are for youth 14+, a couple are for Priests and Laurels, and there are two stake YW camps. There are a large number of scouting-related events, and so we might split out those events onto a separate calendar. But the number of events is small enough that I think it is easy enough for people to ignore the events they don't want.

No matter how you break down the calendars, you will have situations where an event doesn't apply to every subscriber. That's okay. I don't complain when my wall calendar has Veteran's Day listed but I don't get the day off work.

However, where a ward has many more youth events, I can see a single youth calendar as being problematic. I have ideas how to handle that, but I'll yield to those at the ward level.

Your method seems to make the most sense. I updated the help with this discussion here: Publish Events to Multiple Calendars at Once.

The calendar setup wizard creates a YM and YW calendar by default, so users are automatically thrown into the question of what to do with combined activities. Perhaps if we had just made one calendar, "Youth," the question would not be so common. But as the calendars become more general, it also shifts back to the old model.

Just thinking out loud....

I like the idea of standard calendars. That would allow most subscription choices to transfer when a family moves to a new unit. It could also simplify the rights management - leaders of a given organization would automatically have rights to edit their organization's calendar.

An event would be created by someone with calender rights and that calendar would become the "event owner". Then the event could then be added to other calendars. Since it's just one event, it should be easy to insure that everyone only sees the event once no matter how many calendars they are set to view.

The whole topic of what organizations can add events to others could be a bit of a headache, but I think it's do-able. And since only leaders should have access in the first place, the odds of abuse seem somewhat small.

If there's an event that needs to be on multiple calendars, when it syncs to my Google calendar I'll see multiple entries for that event.
Is that an issue? Not sure.
If I have a Ward Party and list it on all of my auxiliaries calendars, I'll see 10+ entries in my Google calendar when it syncs. (I'll certainly get the point that there's a Ward party. )
From a technical perspective, I would want 1 entry showing on multiple calendars so that when it syncs, I only get one entry.
OR, I should have the ability to sync each calendar separately. Meaning, I want a custom URL for EACH of the calendar categories that are available.
I thinking of the Youth that sync their smart phones to the calendar. They may only want to see the stuff relevant to them. If they have to see everything in the calendar, they may not sync.
Really, the syncing is the most valuable piece of the calendar. I'm not interested in buzzing over to the official Ward calendar to see what's going on. I want it to come to me.
The more I think about it, the more I want a custom sync URL for EACH calendar category. This is probably the best solution.
Then, posting the same event on multiple calendars becomes a non issue. It's that you see what you want to see in the way you want to see it that's important. I don't want the stuff I don't want to see.

EarloftheWest wrote:I should have the ability to sync each calendar separately. Meaning, I want a custom URL for EACH of the calendar categories that are available.
I thinking of the Youth that sync their smart phones to the calendar. They may only want to see the stuff relevant to them. If they have to see everything in the calendar, they may not sync.

The system only syncs the calendars that you have subscribed to. If you're not interested in events on other calendars, make sure you unsubscribe from them (not just hide them by unchecking the box by the calendar in the main display). That way your smart phone (or other synced calendar) will only show the calendars you are interested in.

tomjohnson1492 wrote:Managing calendar subscriptions in the new calendar puts more burden on the user to define what events he or she sees. I don't have a problem with a ward having 100 different calendars, but I can see how this might get complicated. Suppose an activity is relevant to the Beehives and Mia Maids, but not the Laurels. Another activity is relevant to the Laurels and Priests, but not the Beehives, Mia Maids, Teachers, or Deacons. Another activity is relevant to all groups. Another activity is relevant only to Deacons. Another to Teachers and Priests, but not Deacons. Another to Deacons and Beehives, but to none other.

Obviously one couldn't create a calendar to accommodate all of these possible combinations. What solution would you recommend?

It seems like the most straightforward approach at this point would be the ability to put an event on multiple calendars, which has already been suggested.

The problem is that we've got a bunch of individuals in a ward or stake who have different categories of events that they're concerned with. I'm interested in general ward and stake events. I'm also interested in Relief Society events so that I know when my wife might be participating. I'd also like to see events applicable to the Mia Maids and Deacons. I've got a primary-age child, so I need Primary and Activity Days, but our days of Cub Scouts are over. I also need to pay attention to stake leadership meetings. My oldest turns sixteen early next year, so I'll want to keep track of events that apply to the Laurels at that point, but my second will still be a Mia Maid, so I'll need to add the Laurel events. This continues ad nauseum. I could suggest that I'd also like to see some events from another ward in our stake because I'm the assigned high council representative... never mind.

Having the ability to put a single event on multiple calendars would get close to this. There could be a whole bunch of calendars (easily 15 or more!) and an event would be attached to all calendars where it applies. Combined activities would be attached to all six of the youth calendars. YW combined activities would be attached to the three YW calendars. Priest/Laurel activities.... You get the picture.

That creates an issue with calendar management. Should a user have the ability to add an event to a calendar for which they aren't an editor? Probably not. That means that if the YW secretary handles the combined event calendar, she needs the ability to add events to the three YM calendars. She would need to be an editor on those three calendars.

Now to complicate things: Our stake has combined Priest/Laurel events with an adjacent stake a couple of times a year. I'll be interested in those early next year. Ideally, I'd like to be able to pick up those events when they apply to me. Does that mean that it would make sense to create corresponding calendars at the stake level and then I would subscribe to those? I would have 30+ calendars to choose from, but it would give me the most granularity for choosing the calendar view that applies to my situation.

It seems to me that a better approach might be to tag individual events with the member categories they apply to. It's been a long time since I used the LUWS calendar, but I seem to remember that is the way that system worked. An approach similar to that would be to create calendar categories and then give callings or individual members rights at the unit level to modify events in certain categories. For example:

• The primary secretary would have rights to manage events tagged as Primary, Cub Scouts, or Activity Days.
• The cubmaster might have the ability to manage events tagged Cub Scouts.
• The young men presidency would have the ability to manage the three Aaronic Priesthood categories.
• The young women presidency would have similar rights for the young women.
• There might be a few individuals who have rights on both YM and YW calendars to handle combined activities.

If the categories are standardized, the same approach could be used at the stake level. That means that the stake young women presidency could create an event that applies to all young women (a camp fireside, for example) and that event would display for anyone who subscribed to events for one of the three young women categories. In theory, the same approach could extend to the general church level. The priesthood session of conference would be tagged with the five priesthood categories. The general young women meeting would be tagged with the three young women categories.

There would be a need for custom categories at the unit level. There would also be a need for private calendars. I've read here that there are wards where the bishop and executive secretary use a private calendar for managing interviews.

Unfortunately, what I'm suggesting here is a fundamental change to the design of the calendar, which may not be feasible at this point.

If it makes you feel any better, we use six individual Google calendars to schedule our family and Google struggles with some of these same issues.

tomjohnson1492 wrote: All of you who are planning your calendars for the year, how are you handling this scenario?

Our YM and YW leaders already decided they need separate calendars, and the way it is set-up now is to have 4 calendars for each Organization:

YM combined (to hold those items for all YM: Service assignments, Court of Honor, etc.)
YM - Deacons -scouts
YM - Teachers - Venture
YM - Priests - Varsity

with four more in a similar setup for the young women: combined, and beehive through laurels.

They wanted to try this because they already maintain calendars specific to each age, and they give these to parents monthly.

They are really excited about emailing the parents links to the calendar instead of handing out the paper calendars that never make it to the parents. Their calendars may contain sunday lessons with assigned instructors, weekday mutual topics, camps and service projects, presidency meeting times, BYC times, etc.

A combined YM YW activity would currently need to appear on two calendars to ensure that families with just YW or just YM would see it. To correct this, I suspect the now separate YM combined and the YW combined eventually will become one: Youth activities, and hold all those "youth" items that apply generally to families of youth- Temple baptisms, combined activities, Youth conference, etc.

Time will tell how this works.

We are unsure how to handle Cub Scouts and Activity days. Our Cubs are combined with three other wards in the stake, so this would mean a stake calendar, or entry into the stake primary calendar. The leaders don't want this, at present, due to "safety concerns" of having a whole stake membership know specifics of the whereabouts of a vulnerable age group. The Primary president in our ward also shares that concern with a ward "primary calendar" that shows when and where the girls will be meeting for activity days.

The Primary calendar may have generic "cub pack meeting" and "den meeting" and "Activity days" listed on the days they are held, without a specific place or time mentioned. I've encouraged the leaders to make a private calendar inviting only the parents of the boys or girls, but they weren't impressed. I can see that updating this continually as children "age in" and "age out" would be problematic. After all, the goal is to simplify, not complicate.

The Sunday School wanted their own calendar for lesson schedules and those "other classes" they will teach throughout the year, and their in-service.

The HP, Elders and RS have basic calendars set up, but have shown absolutely no interest, yet.

We are a fair sized ward, and so we have some of the concerns raised by the posts above. Each major organization/auxiliary has a ward calender, so the YM and YW each have a calendar, same with HP, RS, etc. Then there is two other calendars - the bishopric (for the bishop and his councilors only) and a ward events calendar. The stake added a calendar just a week and half ago. Since YSAs are encouraged to attend the YSA ward we don't have a calendar for that, yet we have created a calendar for the SAs.

The different presidencies have been made aware that they can create private calendars, and it has been suggested that they do so for those in their organization that have related callings, such as Elders Quorum Teach/Relief Society Instructor. As an assistant ward clerk I have the power to approve new calendars, so I would see if one is being created, yet no-one has taken the opportunity to do so yet. This could be a big help for the largest auxiliary we have - primary, yet with the leaders working so closely with the those under their calling the need for a leadership meeting outside of the ward council is rare.

As to the concerns about activities being posted for our youngest members I think a bigger problem is with it appearing in a church bulletin or on a bulletin board. Anyone can come in off the street, attend service and other meetings with us, and we will try to fellowship him/her. Because of this they can get a bulletin from the usher when they enter, see any special posters erected to announce the event, even see a map if it is taking place outside of town. Non-members can NOT access the ward or stake calendar, as you need a membership record number to register for an user account before you can access the LUWS (Local Unit Web Site), where the ward and stake calendars are located.

I can understand the concern about the calendars being made public by people trying to sync them with their Google Calendar, or something similar. That is a real concern, yet if we take the time to properly educate our member, the flock we are charged with protecting and teaching, then we can stand a better chance of utilizing the new tools to the fullest.

Mike

Alan_Brown wrote:However, the second event doesn't have to reserve the resource, so you can save it by simply specifying "Other Location".

Seems more like a workaround ("hack"?) than functionality.

Alan_Brown wrote: The only practical solution to avoid all these problems is to make the software more complex and allow selection of multiple calendars for a single event. But that raises issues regarding editing rights, and it complicates the user interface. Is it worth the cost in development and complexity? I don't know.

Creating an even in a calender you're an editor for is already in place. Adding it to other calendars should be the same process as creating a new event in those calendars: if you're an editor it goes right in (resource check), if not then its treated as an event submission to be approved by the editor of the other calendar.

For the user interface, I'd imagine the only added complexity would be a "Specify Additional Calendars" link that would open a section with checkboxes for other calendars (perhaps a box to "select all" as well, for Unit-wide events). This would ensure a parent calendar.

If the calendar database uses event ID's like the ICAL transfer standard I would think it wouldn't require much database or programming changes, just linking. If the event was deleted from the parent calendar, its new parent could be the first calendar to accept it, or it is fully deleted.

idk, just some thoughts

n.oliver wrote:

Alan_Brown wrote:However, the second event doesn't have to reserve the resource, so you can save it by simply specifying "Other Location".

Seems more like a workaround ("hack"?) than functionality.

Call it what you will. I was only trying to give a suggestion as to what could be done with the calendar the way it works now. It seems to me that such a discussion is useful. The conversation about this option was clearly labeled as a means for solving a real-world problem with the calendar as it exists at this point in time.

It's also useful to have a discussion about how the software might work, but that depends on the development team implementing a solution, which could take weeks, months, or years. Until such a fix is implemented, we can only choose to neglect such issues, or find a workaround. I choose the latter.

Awev wrote: Non-members can NOT access the ward or stake calendar, as you need a membership record number to register for an user account before you can access the LUWS (Local Unit Web Site), where the ward and stake calendars are located.

It's not a "member" -"non-member" issue, as the news reports will verify...

kisaac wrote:

Awev wrote:Non-members can NOT access the ward or stake calendar, as you need a membership record number to register for an user account before you can access the LUWS (Local Unit Web Site), where the ward and stake calendars are located.

It's not a "member" -"non-member" issue, as the news reports will verify...

For the classic calendar Awev is correct -- in part. Access to both the new calendar and classic calendar is through the same credentialing. LDS Account is used to log on to both the classic calendar on the LUWS and to lds.org where the new calendar currently resides. Non-members can obtain an LDS Account. However the credentials of a non-member will not permit them currently to access either the classic LUWS calendar or the new calendar. Limited access to the newFamilySearch is the only access that I know of using non-member LDS Account credentials.

Those of us not on the inside to know the roadmap for the future of lds.org or the new LUWS do not know what is in store for non-member access. Since some non-members can obtain an LDS Account there is potential to give access to any portion of any Church website with those credentials. I doubt that access will be other than to limited general use calendars should any access be granted. My speculation is the timeline for that is years down the road since they have not yet met the needs of membership for the new calendar sufficiently to even to begin thinking about non-members.

Access for non-member spouses is a priority and will be implemented in an upcoming release (not sure exactly when). Think of all the non-member parents who want to know the details of their member children and member spouse events -- it's an important piece of functionality, as you point out. The project team is aware of the gap.

Remember, this thread is about best practices.

kisaac wrote:It's not a "member" -"non-member" issue, as the news reports will verify...

Based on what you are saying then there should be no activities. If an activity is scheduled, publicized or not, then someone who is not invited might stop by - say a bishop or branch president. Love, common sense, parental involvement, and proper communication should be exercised in all things.

Someone else mentioned non-member spouse. Unless the parents are separated and/or divorced this is less an issue, as the non-member could use the same computer and browser as the member, and won't have to register.

In all cases, the best practice is to communicate the needed information to the proper people involved, in as few words as possible, in the best manner. Anyone can write a five hundred word essay, and might find it easier to write a five thousand word business proposal, yet who can write a three word slogan? The 500 word essay you have to think a fair amount, while the proposal you are flushing, and fluffing, things out, to give it volume. Think of two of the most remembered slogans, Nike's "Just do it" and Mountain Dew's "Do the Dew". The ads where targeted to a select audience, and made it easy to remember. The slogan "Coke ads life" is easier to remember than "Have a Coke and a smile". The lesson here is to keep things short, to the point, and get it to the attended recipient.

Not every tool is going to be right for every job in every case. Just because it is not the correct tool for one job does not mean it is not the correct tool for another job, and should be tossed out. Know the tools available, know how to use them, or know a person that can use them for you, and know when to use them, or not to. An example would be a hammer and a jack hammer. A hammer can do a lot around the house, yet you would not use it to tear up a drive way or road, and you might not know how to use the jack hammer to do so. Just because you don't know how to use a jack hammer, and you don't need it to hang a picture, doesn't mean it is not a valid tool that can't be considered for another project, such as road and utility repairs. An understanding of the problem and the tools available helps a lot.

Parental involvement, common sense, love, and communication are the best ways to help make thing safe for all. Love for your fellow human being helps a lot as well. Christ said love thy neighbor as yourself, and as I have loved you, and you shall be known by your love for one and another. Love, unity, common sense, parental involvement, and communication - those should be the guiding forces here. Don't rule out the ward or stake calendar out of ignorance or because you are paranoid.

Awev wrote:Remember, this thread is about best practices.....

Don't rule out the ward or stake calendar out of ignorance or because you are paranoid.

Unsure what to say here, but....Ouch!

Every ward is unique, with many ideas to explore as we all march ahead with these cool, new tools. The best practices we state here are really only ideas to attack the different challenges we face...lets not attack the ideas!

Alan_Brown wrote:The conversation about this option was clearly labeled as a means for solving a real-world problem with the calendar as it exists at this point in time.

Ah. Well, then, hm.
I guess I missed that and took this to be another of the many feedback/brainstorming threads. Sorry

It would be nice if there was a roll called "Ward Member" or something similar like that. That way units that want to allow anyone to submit to a calendar could do so.

As we get notified when there are submissions, we would prefer to be more open on who can submit events. Listing all the roles assigned to the primary for the primary calendar is painful for example.

Is there anyone working towards this?

Since we're moving away from just one, general calendar I don't yet see the need to create very many new calendars. For example, I created just one calendar for Youth Events and one for Youth Leadership events (presidency meetings and Bishop's Youth Council). If an event has a good name like "Deacons Quorum Service Project" then the Young Women can breeze past it without being annoyed that it's sharing space on their calendar.

Based on how they were using (or neglecting to use) the full potential of the old calendar, I think it will be a long, long time before the Deacons will really need their own calendar anyway.

So, in my case, there are separate "event" calendars for Youth, Relief Society, Melchizedek Priesthood and Primary. Then there are separate "leadership event" calendars for presidencies and group leaders of those organizations. Apart from that, I have a calendar for members of the Ward Council, for the Bishopric, for General Ward Events and for "Civic Events" like the first day of school or legal holidays. That's 12 calendars and that really feels like the right thing for our ward at this time. There's nothing that needs to appear on more than one calendar and, again, I can't see where the scouts would be offended to see "Girls Camp" appearing on the Youth Events calendar.

I am anxiously awaiting an all-new design of the Ward Web Site so that we can put the lesson schedules and "news and announcements" in a logical place rather than having them all appear on different calendars. Those things are fairly well placed now on the "classic" ward web site but it annoys me that I have to sign in again to see that site. So, any word on when I can expect a new Ward web site properly integrated into the new LDS.org?

TimRiker wrote:It would be nice if there was a roll called "Ward Member" or something similar like that. That way units that want to allow anyone to submit to a calendar could do so.

As we get notified when there are submissions, we would prefer to be more open on who can submit events. Listing all the roles assigned to the primary for the primary calendar is painful for example.

Is there anyone working towards this?

On the Known Limitations page, it says:

The calendar does not offer a "Submit Event" button because in the new model, everyone can potentially be a calendar editor with publish rights. However, this feature will eventually be added.

So it's a known limitation that will "eventually" be fixed, but there is no specific plan mentioned.

GregAnderson wrote:So, in my case, there are separate "event" calendars for Youth, Relief Society, Melchizedek Priesthood and Primary. Then there are separate "leadership event" calendars for presidencies and group leaders of those organizations.

GregAnderson wrote: There's nothing that needs to appear on more than one calendar and, again, I can't see where the scouts would be offended to see "Girls Camp" appearing on the Youth Events calendar.

If that works for you then great. It does keep it simpler.

My main question is how does it handle times when there are two events at the same time? Like Girls Camp the same week as Scout camp? I'm not arguing against it, just trying to understand if it will handle some cases.

ryan jones wrote:If that works for you then great. It does keep it simpler.

My main question is how does it handle times when there are two events at the same time? Like Girls Camp the same week as Scout camp? I'm not arguing against it, just trying to understand if it will handle some cases.

Our stake is doing a similar thing -- we just have a single youth events calendar.

The calendar handles multiple events at the same time just fine, whether they are on the same calendar or not. The only reason there would be a conflict is if two events try to schedule the same resource for the same time, but that's a problem whether the conflicting events are on the same or different calendars.

GregAnderson wrote:Since we're moving away from just one, general calendar I don't yet see the need to create very many new calendars. For example, I created just one calendar for Youth Events and one for Youth Leadership events (presidency meetings and Bishop's Youth Council).

Yes, we began that way as well. But, as those organizations that were already keeping calendars in some other way for their events recognized the new system as a way to keep their calendars AND distribute them to parents, provide email reminders, etc, they wanted to move them to the new system.

I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong in their decisions on how many calendars, I just see the issues in our ward that are, as yet, un-resolved, because this is all new to us and we each are "guessing" as to the "best practices" here.

My thought was also for one youth calendar. However, each young men's organization wanted one, because they wanted to replace their current calendar tracking all their detailed stuff. The deacons/scouts track who is giving Sunday lessons, the topics for weekly mutual, the Sunday sacrament and set-up assignments, presidency meetings, BYC, Basketball practices and games, etc.

The Teacher and Priests each have their own things to track, and generally do not duplicate the deacons/scouts. How could one YOUTH calendar hold all this and still be understandable, including the YW?

Another example: I created one Primary calendar:
However, our webelos den keeps a separate calendar detailing each weekly meeting and the topic, and so do the bears and wolves. That's three calendars...So do the activity days girls. 11 year old scouts? yes. That's five. While I may want ONE primary calendar, each of these calendars are already maintained someplace, because they get sent home with my children- yet I really want to "lump" them under the "primary" umbrella.

The leaders may want it differently. Do I constrict them to only using the primary calendar? In other words, do I tell them we have a really cool new calendar system, with unlimited calendars, but they must all use the main primary calendar, or continue using whatever third party calendar system they are using now?

I really haven't decided what is the "best practices" here, and am throwing this out for discussion....Until we the ability for an event to show on several calendars, the way it is now, BYC must show on at least three of our calendars for all to see it who need to see it....the same would be said for Cub Pack meeting, and Court of Honor's, etc.

kisaac wrote:I really haven't decided what is the "best practices" here, and am throwing this out for discussion....

I think the best way is to sit down with the leaders and explain the pros and cons of the different methods and see what works best for your ward.

kisaac wrote:Until we the ability for an event to show on several calendars, the way it is now, BYC must show on at least three of our calendars for all to see it who need to see it....the same would be said for Cub Pack meeting, and Court of Honor's, etc.

That's one way to do it. The other is to have a combined calendar AND a separate calendar. The combined events go on the combined calendar and the individual events goes on the individual calendars. It's up to the users to subscribe to both - just like it's their responsibility to subscribe to all the other calendars that affect them.

I think the key to figuring out the best way is to make a list of all the things you/they want placed on the calendar. If there's hardly any individual stuff, then a single calendar that covered several groups is best. If there's hardly any combined stuff, then there probably isn't a need for a separate combined calendar.

RussellHltn wrote:That's one way to do it. The other is to have a combined calendar AND a separate calendar. The combined events go on the combined calendar and the individual events goes on the individual calendars. .

We have a combined calendar and many separate calendars.

Not to "look a gift horse in the mouth," but I can see now that if we continue this, I'd favor an Organization => sub-organization system of calendars (parent-child.) In that way, the parent calendar (ward) could enter BYC and it could "flow-down" to the sub-calendars below it (Youth?) and then Deacon, Laurels, etc. leaving the ability to have any number of sub-calendars and the ability to view or unsubscribe to any calendar separately.

At the very least I'd like the ability for me personally to make groups of calendars for my own display convenience. I do this a little with colors, but its a very manual process- all the youth (and sub-youth) are green, etc.

kisaac wrote:I'd favor an Organization => sub-organization system of calendars (parent-child.) In that way, the parent calendar (ward) could enter BYC and it could "flow-down" to the sub-calendars below it (Youth?) and then Deacon, Laurels, etc. leaving the ability to have any number of sub-calendars and the ability to view or unsubscribe to any calendar separately.

I like this idea.

When a calendar is created there could be an option to place the calendar as a child of another calendar. At any time the calendar creator or administrators (now called approvers) could move a calendar to be anywhere in the heirarchy of parent child relationships. Then a member would subscribe to the parent calendar and select for viewing only those child calendars they want to include in their personal calendar view.

There would have to be a limit to the levels of parent children levels permitted as I could see this getting out of hand and quite complicated.

This could create an issue with the implementation of broadcast emails. But I guess the same method of selecting the children calendars to be included in the message address list could be implemented. But this would require members to subscribe to each calendar rather than just the parent.

kisaac wrote:The deacons/scouts track who is giving Sunday lessons, the topics for weekly mutual, the Sunday sacrament and set-up assignments...

These things, to me, would make for a very cluttered calendar if they appeared in the "month view" and possibly even in the "week view." I would prefer to see them in a list view, which is not available. The "classic" ward web site allows one calendar-like list view: the list of Gospel Doctrine lessons. It would be nice to create similar lists of calendar items which work better in a list view anyway.

In the classic ward web site, such lists could easily be included as a document attachment to a news item. The news items could be "Deacons lessons and instructors" with the list attached. But, again, the question is what is the best practice for your ward.

kisaac wrote:Unsure what to say here, but....Ouch!

Every ward is unique, with many ideas to explore as we all march ahead with these cool, new tools. The best practices we state here are really only ideas to attack the different challenges we face...lets not attack the ideas!

I am trying to acknowledge that not only is each stake and ward/branch different, yet each family and person is as well, and everyone has a different comfort level. While some parents may be overly protective that doesn't mean we have to regress to the stone age. The opposite is true as well, those that think technology can solve all of the problems in the world, and push the bleeding edge, might try to push the latest gadget, which might not be the best way to handle things. You can't please all of the people all of the time, yet you can make an educated decision, and proceed based on what is best for that auxiliary/group, ward/branch, or other unit.

kisaac wrote:We have a combined calendar and many separate calendars.

Not to "look a gift horse in the mouth," but I can see now that if we continue this, I'd favor an Organization => sub-organization system of calendars (parent-child.) In that way, the parent calendar (ward) could enter BYC and it could "flow-down" to the sub-calendars below it (Youth?) and then Deacon, Laurels, etc. leaving the ability to have any number of sub-calendars and the ability to view or unsubscribe to any calendar separately.

At the very least I'd like the ability for me personally to make groups of calendars for my own display convenience. I do this a little with colors, but its a very manual process- all the youth (and sub-youth) are green, etc.

That is a good idea. Maybe have a Young People parent category, and then the YM and YW could have there own calendar, that is a child of the Young People calendar/category. The child calendar inherits the events from the parent calendar, so if there is a joint activity, such as a fund raiser, it would appear on the Young People parent calendar, and would automatically populate the YM and YW calendars. This is based on the idea of OOP programming. Currently someone would have to enter the event three times, it is not automated, and the current hierarchy is rather flat.

As the calendar app improves I am sure the way we use it will change, and become refined.

As our ward recently started using the new calendar system, it quickly became apparent that this new calendaring (layering) system is still in its infancy.

I've looked at many of the forums and posts to read about the experiences and "work-arounds" that many people have used. I didn't seem to find a definitive statement about coming changes but it seems to me that this new system approached the calendaring from the "wrong" view.

The calendaring system takes the approach that we use different calendars to sort the various activities. It seems more appropriate (from my viewpoint) that we should look at that scheduling from the point of view of the event and not the calendar.

That is (and has been hinted at in many posts), as we schedule an event, we shouldn't post it to a particular calendar but rather post the event as an event as specify which groups (calendars) it should show up on. This means that we are not creating multiple calendars but rather creating multiple "filters". This would avoid creating the exponential number of calendars. For example, I work with the YM. If you just consider the three quorums (Priests, Teachers, and Deacons), you could have 7 different calendars -

1. All YM
2. Priests
3. Teachers
4. Deacons
5. Priests and Teachers
6. Priests and Deacons
7. Teachers and Deacons

Now add the YM and it grows to 50 (7 YM calendars X 7 YM calendars + 1 for combined)

Instead, drop all the variations and just create groups YM, Priests, Teachers, Deacons. There are only four groups. Adding the YW gives us 9 groups (instead of 50). That is because we add group instead of multiple for variation (4 YM + 4 YW + 1 for combined).

Now when scheduling, I create an event and select the appropriate group(s) that the event applies to. And as a parent, I can select the appropriate groups (filters) that I want to see.

No need to worry about duplication of events, resources, etc. It stored with the event and not the calendar.

Yes, this is the programming geek coming out of me.

jggarcia wrote:Now when scheduling, I create an event and select the appropriate group(s) that the event applies to. And as a parent, I can select the appropriate groups (filters) that I want to see.

This topic has been discussed before. See thread Events in Multiple Calendars and the thread linked from there.

Actually, if I go to that thread and follow the link, it brings me back to this thread. You've got me in an endless loop!

After all that has been said, these threads are just saying the same thing - either create multiple calendars or some similar sort of "work around" or they should really consider looking at the new system as single events that associate to various groups (calendars) rather than making multiple event on multiple calendars that associate to each other. It's not effecient and would be a poorly designed DB.

(I honestly don't know how the information is stored but based on the experience that we are seeing, the result is a complex system to start with and appears to only get more complex. Hopefully, when they address the events across multiple orgs situation, they will, at least, hide the complexity we are seeing.)

jggarcia wrote:Actually, if I go to that thread and follow the link, it brings me back to this thread. You've got me in an endless loop!

The link takes you to an earlier post in this thread. You posted a suggestion to a rather long thread that had already basically covered that suggestion. So by posting to the same thread, you essentially created the endless loop yourself! But that's not unusual for long threads -- few people have the patience to read every post.

jggarcia wrote:After all that has been said, these threads are just saying the same thing - either create multiple calendars or some similar sort of "work around" or they should really consider looking at the new system as single events that associate to various groups (calendars) rather than making multiple event on multiple calendars that associate to each other. It's not effecient and would be a poorly designed DB.

(I honestly don't know how the information is stored but based on the experience that we are seeing, the result is a complex system to start with and appears to only get more complex. Hopefully, when they address the events across multiple orgs situation, they will, at least, hide the complexity we are seeing.)

I don't know that it's fair for you to criticize the database as "poorly designed." The system as designed is actually simpler than what you propose. There will clearly be fewer elements in a database that only has events and calendars, as opposed to one that has events, calendars, and groups. What makes the system complex is when the real world of event scheduling meets the overly simplistic database schema. It's the attempts to work around the current limitations that make it complex.

But in any case, although it can be somewhat helpful to discuss how the system might work (that is, if this feedback is ever seen by the product managers and developers), it is more useful right now to help calendar users to see how they might use the system as it exists. After all, we have no idea when these new ideas will be implemented (but there are indications here that they are coming "soon"). The development process is incremental by design, so be grateful for what you have now and be patient as you wait for new features to arrive.

We just use a YOUTH calendar for combined YM and YW activities. We haven't found there are so many events that it gets confusing or overwhelming.

Presotn

I created an extra calendar for leadership meetings, such as Relief Society Presidency, Ward Council, Bishopric, Young Mens Presidency etc.

This is to make it easy to avoid cross-scheduling in families where multiple leaders exist (we are a small ward) and because such meetings are not of general interest to people in those groups; that is, we don't want new sisters turning up to relief society presidency meeting because it began with the words "Relief Society".

So all leadership meetings are scheduled in the same calendar.

I'm not sure how this will work out in the long run.

samliddicott wrote:I created an extra calendar for leadership meetings, such as Relief Society Presidency, Ward Council, Bishopric, Young Mens Presidency etc..

I'd be interested in how well that works. Good idea.

We created a separate calendar for combine activities. i.e. "Ward YM/YW" or "Stake YM/YW"

I've got another issue now that I'm curious how others are handling: How do people set up stake-assigned ward assignments? It seems that this would be best on a ward calendar, but it is not currently possible to have stake editors on ward calendars. I set up a single stake calendar for "Stake Temple and Humanitarian Assignments", or something similar, but it immediately caused some confusion by someone who didn't look carefully enough at who the calendar was for. So, I'm thinking that the stake should create stake calendars for each ward on which they can list assignments. I'm concerned about calendar overload, but this seems the most reasonable solution to me at the moment. Any other ideas?

hpaulsen wrote:I've got another issue now that I'm curious how others are handling: How do people set up stake-assigned ward assignments? It seems that this would be best on a ward calendar, but it is not currently possible to have stake editors on ward calendars.

We have sent out old fashioned e-mails and asked the wards to put such events on their ward calendars.

Everytime we try to figure out how best to parse the new calendar system, the immediate solution is to create a separate calendar for every event. Obviously, this is counterproductive.

We have actually moved to a single stake calendar with everything on it and no resources assigned. We are using it as a calendar, not a resource planner, and the single calendar is the best way we have found to deal with the issues at hand for the present.

It has become just too time consuming to sit around discussing which calendar will receive the event, and continually coming to the conclusion that a new calendar is needed. So we stopped doing that.

Realizing that there will be members of our stake who could care less about a stake meeting, ward assignments, etc, we have created separate calendars as follows;

Stake Calendar: Holds all stake-level events such as Stk Conf, Recommend Interviews, etc. These are events that would be of interest to the majority of the stake membership.

Stake Meetings: Meetings at the stake level such as: Stake PEC, Bishoprics Meetings, Public Affairs,

Broadcasts: All satellite broadcasts.

Ward Assignments: All ward assignments such as Temple, DI, Cannery, Etc.

These are the only categories at the stake level and we have found that almost everything thus far will fit into one of them.

Here is what we have right now (CLF is our ward abbreviation)

• CLF _Ward Calendar
• CLF Elders Quorum
• CLF High Priests
• CLF Relief Society
• CLF Young Men
• CLF Young Women
• CLF Youth Activities

I'm thinking about adding two more: "CLF Primary" and "CLF Leadership Meetings", but I'm holding off until I get some feedback from the auxiliaries. (Not that many have started using it yet)

However, our Young Men have been moving everything off of their Google Calendar on to this one (either the Youth Activities or the Young Men calendar).

We also abbreviate everything: PQ/TQ/DQ/YM/Youth, etc, etc. That way someone looking at the calendar should hopefully know what the event is (which calendar it is on + the abbreviations hopefully gives enough info).

Thanks!

techgy wrote:Realizing that there will be members of our stake who could care less about a stake meeting, ward assignments, etc, we have created separate calendars as follows;

Stake Calendar: Holds all stake-level events such as Stk Conf, Recommend Interviews, etc. These are events that would be of interest to the majority of the stake membership.

Stake Meetings: Meetings at the stake level such as: Stake PEC, Bishoprics Meetings, Public Affairs,

Broadcasts: All satellite broadcasts.

Ward Assignments: All ward assignments such as Temple, DI, Cannery, Etc.

These are the only categories at the stake level and we have found that almost everything thus far will fit into one of them.

I like this idea... but I'm wondering if it would be valuable to add one more, such as Stake Youth Activities? Our stake has tons and tons and tons of things on the stake calendar and it is kind of overwhelming to subscribe to it.

Or perhaps we should go the route of just analyzing the stake calendar every month and then duplicating youth events to our ward calendar when it applies? (I'm at the ward level btw).

Hmmm, perhaps that is the best way for now... just have our youth leaders scan the stake calendar for upcoming events and duplicate them to our calendar.

I know that is not ideal, but I think that every group could make a request to the stake that a separate calendar be created: "Stake Youth Activities", "Stake YSA Activities", "Stake SA Activities", "Stake Cannery Assignments", "Stake Service Projects", etc etc.

If we just stick with a few calendars at the Stake Level and then let the ward leaders scan and duplicate events that pertain to their ward, we won't have to worry about tons and tons of calendars.

Thoughts?

nathangg wrote:Or perhaps we should go the route of just analyzing the stake calendar every month and then duplicating youth events to our ward calendar when it applies? (I'm at the ward level btw).

IIRC, all members are automatically subscribed to all non-private calendars by default, so that seems to be expecting all the members to unsubscribe from the stake calendar.

Also, I can see where this will cause problems. We had problems in the past with printed stake calendars where leaders were still using the January version in October and causing problems. I see this suggestion as a step back to the "bad old days".

nathangg wrote:I know that is not ideal, but I think that every group could make a request to the stake that a separate calendar be created: "Stake Youth Activities", "Stake YSA Activities", "Stake SA Activities", "Stake Cannery Assignments", "Stake Service Projects", etc etc.

Well, that's one way of doing things, each organization having their own calendar. Another way is to create one calendar for each "target group". So things like the "Stake Service Project" would go on the "Stake General Calendar" since presumably it would apply to all adults in the stake.

How are people handling sending out notifications that an event has been cancelled?

We had a missionary baptism scheduled that has since been cancelled. An email already went out saying the event is coming up but I'm not sure how I can send an email to the subscribers of the calendar to let them know the event has been cancelled.

I'm interested in hearing what other people are doing.

Thanks,