Calendar issues - Stake people,and Out of unit members need to see ward calendars,

It appears that the new calendar was designed with the idea that information from the stake can go to the wards, but the wards do not need to share information with the stake or other wards. This is a big problem for people with stake callings that would like to coordinate events with multiple wards that they have responsibilities for.

As examples:
1 - as the Stake Clerk, I do not have the ability to look at the ward calendars for scheduling conflicts other than with my home ward.
2-If any of our ward auxilary leaders want to coordinate a fireside or summer activity with the wards, they must call each ward for that information.
3-For some members serving in out-of-unit callings, they can only see the calendar for their home ward. This is a problem for Bishops and counselors in singles wards for example.
4- High council members can only see the calendar for their home ward, and not to other wards where they may have assignments.
5- It would be nice if the wards had the ability to coordinate activites with other wards in their building, or where they may want to combine organizational activities such as scouts.

rebbreinholt wrote:It appears that the new calendar was designed with the idea that information from the stake can go to the wards, but the wards do not need to share information with the stake or other wards. This is a big problem for people with stake callings that would like to coordinate events with multiple wards that they have responsibilities for.

That does seem to be the basic philosophy. As the assistant stake clerk responsible for calendaring, I often wish I had more ability to see what the wards are doing. I could be more helpful to them if I did.

rebbreinholt wrote:1 - as the Stake Clerk, I do not have the ability to look at the ward calendars for scheduling conflicts other than with my home ward.

It's true that you can't see all potential conflicts in other wards at the event level, but by checking the box by each location in the Subscribed Locations box, you can at least see all the potential conflicts for that location, regardless of what ward scheduled the event.

However, you certainly might want to see if a particular ward has an event scheduled at a particular time, and if an event not connected to a location is scheduled for that time, you won't be able to see it. That is indeed a shortcoming of the current system.

rebbreinholt wrote:2-If any of our ward auxilary leaders want to coordinate a fireside or summer activity with the wards, they must call each ward for that information.

True.

rebbreinholt wrote:3-For some members serving in out-of-unit callings, they can only see the calendar for their home ward. This is a problem for Bishops and counselors in singles wards for example.

I know that the calendar development team is aware of this and is working on a fix.

rebbreinholt wrote:4- High council members can only see the calendar for their home ward, and not to other wards where they may have assignments.

Also true.

rebbreinholt wrote:5- It would be nice if the wards had the ability to coordinate activites with other wards in their building, or where they may want to combine organizational activities such as scouts.

When two wards share an organization such as cub scouts or boy scouts, it may make sense for the stake to create a calendar that both wards can use. That has the downside that most stake members will be auto-subscribed to the new stake calendar, but it has the benefit that editors from both wards can be assigned to the calendar and members of both wards will be able to subscribe to that stake calendar. It's not optimal, but may help while we await a better solution.

For example #2 I actually meant to say 'Stake and Ward leaders'. For the Stake auxiliaries for example, it would be nice to be able to see when the wards are having activities such as New Beginnings, Primary Sacrament, and Ward Rough Camp so they can support these activities as needed.

It would seem that in light of the new handbook training, where it was suggested that the Stake Auxiliaries now only hold one leadership meeting annually, this website would become very important in sharing and correlating event information.

A suggestion may be for a ward or stake auxiliary to be able to request an activity be coordinated or scheduled on the corresponding stake or ward calendar - like an email meeting request.

rebbreinholt wrote:It would seem that in light of the new handbook training, where it was suggested that the Stake Auxiliaries now only hold one leadership meeting annually, this website would become very important in sharing and correlating event information.

In our stake, we calendar all stake events such as those leadership meetings by November 1 of the previous year. Then the wards are well aware of the stake events and work around them.

Thus there is no need for the stake to be aware of ward schedules to avoid conflicts in scheduling stake meetings, except for the rare change or additional meeting. But for those exceptions, and for some other reasons, it would be helpful for stake leaders to have some ability to see ward calendars.

In our stake, the stake calendar is also published before the start of the new year. The stake calendar is helpful to the wards as they plan their activities. Each ward however is responsible for scheduling their own activities such as New Beginnings, Primary Sacrament Meeting and Rough Camps on dates that they choose. Our stake auxiliary leaders find it very beneficial to visit the ward activities to support them. Again, the issue is how do the stake people know what is going on in the wards? Especially if the wards have taken the time to publish their activies on their ward calendar?

aebrown wrote: I know that the calendar development team is aware of this and is working on a fix.

I assume this is the root cause of behavior where branch presidency members, whose records are in their home ward, only have some rights and roles. For example the branch clerk shows up on the list of APPROVERS, but when he tries to add another APPROVER the list of candidates are only from his home ward. If he tries to create a new calendar, his only options are for his home ward and the stake. So apparently he isn't really an APPROVER at all?

I am the Asst Stake Clerk and have the Stake website Responsabilities also.
The problem I am now having after doing some website and calendar training is I cannot log on and help the individual wards doing the calendars when they run into a problem.
I can create or edit my ward or Stake Calendars but I cannot get into the individual ward calendars does any one know why?

dstorry wrote:I can create or edit my ward or Stake Calendars but I cannot get into the individual ward calendars does any one know why?

At this time, nobody can do that. Not even the Stake President.

There's a mid-year update planned. Maybe that will address it.

We just ran into this tonight. The Stake Presidency have decided to hold an impromptu activity in July which clashes with a ward activity that we have planned. There is currently (i belive) no way for Stake to check our calendar unless they happen to be members of our ward?

that doesn't seem right to me!?

dannykos wrote:We just ran into this tonight. The Stake Presidency have decided to hold an impromptu activity in July which clashes with a ward activity that we have planned. There is currently (i belive) no way for Stake to check our calendar unless they happen to be members of our ward?

that doesn't seem right to me!?

That is correct -- at present, no one (including stake leaders) can see a ward calendar other than their own.

However, the calendar's capabilities continue to improve. Regarding this particular issue, a Church employee posted this:

FullmerCB wrote:In the future, the new calendar will enable stake leaders to see calendars in wards other than their own.

There's no definition of what "in the future" means, but given the context of that post, I assume that will be sometime this year.

aebrown wrote:That is correct -- at present, no one (including stake leaders) can see a ward calendar other than their own.

However, the calendar's capabilities continue to improve. Regarding this particular issue, a Church employee posted this:

FullmerCB wrote:In the future, the new calendar will enable stake leaders to see calendars in wards other than their own

There's no definition of what "in the future" means, but given the context of that post, I assume that will be sometime this year.

Since the LUWS had this feature, not including it in the new version seems like such a major oversight to me. Why would the church take such a major step backward?

SingerGuy wrote:Since the LUWS had this feature, not including it in the new version seems like such a major oversight to me. Why would the church take such a major step backward?

The development process of the new calendar is incremental. I wouldn't call this an oversight, but rather a feature that wasn't judged to be essential in the initial release. By the end of 2011, it sounds like all the important LUWS features will be implemented in the new calendar, plus much, much more.

If you love all the features of the LUWS calendar, you are welcome to use it through 2011. So I don't think it's accurate to call this a step backwards, since using the new calendar is entirely optional at this point. If LUWS is put out of service before this feature is implemented, then I would agree with your characterization, but until then, we need to make our decisions based on the good that comes with the new calendar vs. those things that might be missing or create other problems.