LockedLDS Building Scheduling Software

I'm wondering if there is much interest in a program to assist the wards and stakes schedule their buildings. A program that will prevent double booking, a quick and easy entry process and print outs that can be put in the buildings to prevent turf wars while using our buildings.

I have used the existing resource scheduling functionality of the local units website to handle this. However, it is not very user friendly or convenient. We had three units meeting in the stake center. The three bishops coordinated and the agent bishop called an individual to be the building scheduler. This individual was added as a Stake Website administrator with limited the user rights to only approve events submitted for stake resources.

We listed a single resource labeled as the "Stake Center" as one of the resources available from the Stake's website. We then developed a set of codes to use to represent the various parts of the buillding that could be scheduled (e.g., KIT = Kitchen; CH = Cultural Hall; MP = Multi-purpose room; HC = High Council room; etc.). Then we informed members of the wards that they could access the resource calendar from the stake page to submit an event request. Requestors could either use the codes or type out the name of the rooms that needed to be used in their request.

The building scheduler would review the requests that were submitted and approve or disapprove them. If an event was approved, the codes were used in the title of the event so that others reading the calendar could see what parts of the building were already in use on a particular date.

As you can see this is not the most convenient way; however, it was a work-around that enabled us to reduce some of the "turf wars" you mention.

jonjasperson, your idea, although not the simplest, is not a bad idea. I wonder if as a community, we could develop a more formalized document that describes what you mention here. This allows wards and stakes to continue to use the unit web site for scheduling resources with a more formalized process. Those who choose to follow this process could publish the document in their units for others follow.

Tom

To start the discussion on this, here's my two cents worth.

I can see already a very simple solution to some of this, would require the following:

1. A map layout of the building in question that the scheduler was over. This would be very basic, just a line map of where the rooms are and each resource labeled. Not some of the detailed ones I've seen that almost resemble blueprints such as those that show the pews in the chapel or the kitchen appliences there.

2. A series of pages for each day of the month showing each room and time of day, not sure how best that could be implemented, but it could be done with style sheets. As days passed, the older pages would 'drop off' the site after a day or two or however long it was decided they should stay up.

An advanced version could include some java or other code that would allow you to see the building as scheduled at any given hour, using the building map mentioned earlier. Maybe there's a more suitable language for building such an advanced app, but it might be very useful.

Schedulers would need a way to delete an event and so forth in case conditions warrented, such as the event could not be held because of something happening that resulted in it being rescheduled, that would need to happen in real time so that the room could be rescheduled in the software as soon as the other entry was dropped from the schedule.

As for the back-end database table you could have a simple table of:
ID
WARD_ID
BUILDING_ID
ROOM_ID <- This would correspond to a predefined list of the rooms that are generic to all buildings
TIME_START (Time/Date Format)
TIME_END

As for integration into the picture we can have the rooms separated and tagged to a javascript which just will insert into the database the corresponding information.

That simple model is very good, a MySQL table would almost do the trick. When the user input the room and date/time and organization/person scheduling the room, calls to the various fields for each room and date would fill the spaces in the visible form showing everything.

You would then only have to arrange where each field would show up where and when, and when the info would expire (like a certain time after the end time of the event in that resource) so that the system would not get overloaded with old data. The system would self-clean itself of old data.

The image of the meetinghouse would be another table, and using probably simple Java would 'fill in' on the building schematic map the room with an indicator with linkbacks to the visible data showing when that day or any desired day that room was scheduled.

Probably not all that hard to program, using agile development technique I can see something like this being ready fairly quickly for just one building. But since meetinghouses come in all shapes and sizes and even configurations, then the big problem is going to be how to create the graphical image of the building for each particular meetinghouse.

Or is that even desirable?

As far as building layout, most buildings developed in the last couple decades have been based on standard blueprints that I'm sure the Church could make available for an officially-approved project should this idea get implemented in the future.

From what I can tell, most of the church buildings are based on a set style, (based on if it is a meeting house or a Stake Center and what area of the world) the only problem would be getting a layout of each church. If there was a place to submit the design of the building by a member that would be great too. It would go faster then having SLC making all the maps at least.

I implemented a system for the local boy scout council to allow people to reserve facilities at the Scout Camp. The most useful features are the image map as described in this forum. Also, giving the user the ability to select the resource(room, chapel, gym, pinewood derby track, vcr tv combo, overhead projector) and see all dates for the next year in a grid format. Top X Axis is the Dates 1-31 and the Y Axis are the months. and in the cells are the check boxes that the user can select the dates that they would like to reserve. For this system, they reserve a resource for all day so times are not an issue.

Another nice feature gives the user the ability to select the timeframe they need the resource (2 days starting on 1/30/2007) and then it gives them a list of all resources and their availability during these dates.

Or, like I said, they can choose from a camp map the facility that they want to reserve.

Some advanced features would be to have a re-curring reservation.

Matt

That's the best way is to have any known printed diagrams of the building and create a PDF initially of that.

New buildings could have their info loaded into the system, and older ones could be added later, etc.

That way, any leader needing a resource could see at a glance where each resource was, and its relative size, even though they know the building from using it every Sunday there is often underestimation or overestimation of the space needed for a particular activity in some cases. That's why at least a PDF of the buidling layout tied to that ward's schedule even if just for reference would be and prove extremely useful, and to have it as part of the scheduling API that might be developed would be a definite plus.

For those interested now there is a program at LDSbuildingscheduler.com designed a writtn over a period of four years that is available and in use for no charge.
The program and the instructions for installtion and operation can be downloaded from that site.

Some of its salient points are:
Can handle up to four buildings and one recreation property. It shows events scheduled at all four buildings for a given day at one time. So if one facility is being used he can quickly see if another is available.

The program won't let the scheduler double book a room.

It provides for what is called the generic schedule for the wards in a given buidling, YM/YM, Relief Socity, Cubs etc in a way that you can populate a years calendar in less than a minute. You don't have to enter each by hand.

It has wizards to help through many of the process.

It prints schedules that can be put in the buildings each week.

It has some failings.
It is written in Paradox.
It does not have the ability to handle the building layout as discussed in this forum.

At one time there was talk about the ICS setting up a process where programmers throughout the church could lend their assistance in writting programs like this as free ware. I don't know what happened to that initiative but this would be a great project for that type of effort.

If some one knows what happened to that initiative or who is managing it would you let me know.

Personally I'd like to see this as part of the ward website, but it needs to tie in to the main calendar. Otherwise there's too great a risk that an event will be scheduled and forgets to book resources or resources kept booked when the event is canceled. Syncing is something the computer needs to do, not humans.

This is why at least there could be an API so this 3rd party site could be able to interact with the ward's site to sync. (Example the Ward Webmaster decides to use this 3rd party booking system and gives the site access by letting it use his private-key connection (former suggestion). The booking site then can grab info from the ward calendar and also post to the calendar when people book the room.

While adding the blueprints/maps to the scheduling software
is really nifty; Until all of that is worked out, here's an
open source project I discovered the other day that
can help you schedule the building right now.

MRBS - Meeting Room Booking System
http://mrbs.sourceforge.net/

It is a PHP / MySQL App, so the interface is a standard web browser.

If you want to run it locally, I highly recommend the XAMPP project
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

which will install Apache, MySQL, and PHP for you - everything you
need to run this program.

One of the nice things about MRBS is that you can create event-types
(albeit in a configuration file) that will highlight the calendar entry in a
different color. By setting these types to the different wards that will be
using the building, you can have it color-coded by ward.

Since it is sql-based, you could use the .csv file for a ward-website resource
calendar to build a sql script to populate the calendar. To be more clear, you
could take all the information from the resource calendar and fill it into this
program. Using sed and grep to generate the sql script from the .csv would be
a bit of work, initially - but once done, simple whenever you need to update it.

It looks like it might be a little work to setup, but should be a breeze to use
once it gets going.

Also, if we were to create an open-source Building Scheduling Software with
the map-support as discussed earlier in this thread, it might be useful to fork
this project and save ourselves a lot of time.

Atticus Ewig

hansensd wrote:At one time there was talk about the ICS setting up a process where programmers throughout the church could lend their assistance in writting programs like this as free ware. I don't know what happened to that initiative but this would be a great project for that type of effort.

If some one knows what happened to that initiative or who is managing it would you let me know.

From the Church's perspective, we have to get our hands around how to properly guide and maintain this type of effort. There is certainly a lot of willing people to help. We are working on figuring out how to effectively, securely, and efficiently manage such an undertaking. Meanwhile, we encourage you to share your ideas and projects you are working on and let others help you build those apps.

Tom

jonjasperson wrote:
We listed a single resource labeled as the "Stake Center" as one of the resources available from the Stake's website. We then developed a set of codes to use to represent the various parts of the buillding that could be scheduled (e.g., KIT = Kitchen; CH = Cultural Hall; MP = Multi-purpose room; HC = High Council room; etc.). Then we informed members of the wards that they could access the resource calendar from the stake page to submit an event request. Requestors could either use the codes or type out the name of the rooms that needed to be used in their request.

We just recently did something similar. There is a feature (in the stake admin area) that you can check the boxes of all of the wards in the stake that you want to link their wards scheduling calendar with the stake scheduling calendar so that members can go to their own ward webpage, click on RESOURCES, and it automatically opens up the stake building scheduling page to schedule the stake center. It is a shorter way to do it than telling everyone to go to the stake page. For those wards who their ward is the only ward that meets in their building, they just use the ward resources feature.

Tom
I've read about the church's plans to improve the ward web sites. Does that include better building scheduling? Where exactly do they want to go with this?

ihenpecked wrote:Tom
I've read about the church's plans to improve the ward web sites. Does that include better building scheduling? Where exactly do they want to go with this?

I don't have a road map of what that team plans to implement. In fact, there is still a lot of discussion around the feature set from what I understand. As I learn more and have permission to post, I'll do so.

Tom

We have come up with some good ideas for a solution. I have found in the past that although I can see a need for this(my wife scheduled buildings for four years) the view is not shared in the trenches. Our stake did not consider other solutions until the problems with scheduling in the stake good pretty bad. And then they did not know what direction to take. I have had my program in use in a number of locations only to find that later it is abandoned. Most of the time interest dies because the assignment is given to someone who is not computer literate. This is when scheduling is handled at the ward level. I have found that when the scheduling task is made a stake calling it is most successful. The stakes get a one stop shopping experience and more uniformity at enforcing buidling use policy. Where multiple buildings are being handled the Stake leaders also called individuals with computer experience who do a great job with the calling( people who do great jobs in whatever they are called to). A former stake presidency member was called in one stake. Does anyone know of a way we can get some additional stakes involved in working on a solution? Perhaps you are close enough to members of stake presidencies that you can discuss the possibility with them. Then we can getting additional input as to what the program needs.

I'm a new administrator for our branch website that shares a building (not the stake center) with another ward. I can't find a way for our resources (i.e. - building scheduling) to synch with the other ward in the building. Is there a way to schedule the building so that branch members and ward members will be able to see that the building is scheduled by the other unit? If not, this would be a very useful feature.

rexwatkins wrote:I'm a new administrator for our branch website that shares a building (not the stake center) with another ward. I can't find a way for our resources (i.e. - building scheduling) to synch with the other ward in the building. Is there a way to schedule the building so that branch members and ward members will be able to see that the building is scheduled by the other unit? If not, this would be a very useful feature.

You didn't say whether or not this other ward is in your same stake. If so, then they'd have access to the "Resources" area of your LUWS (local unit web site), which is used for scheduling of facilities. As all wards in the same stake have access to the Resources area of your web site, this function could be used for scheduling.

To expand on Techgy's response, have the stake LUWS admin create a new resource, assign it to the wards in your building, and assign some administrator(s) to schedule it. That way the resource shows up in each of the ward's webpage. Anything placed on one is seen on the other.

RussellHltn wrote:To expand on Techgy's response, have the stake LUWS admin create a new resource, assign it to the wards in your building, and assign some administrator(s) to schedule it. That way the resource shows up in each of the ward's webpage. Anything placed on one is seen on the other.

One additional clarification: When the stake creates a resource that is shared among a set of wards, members of those wards will see the resource on their ward's home page. There a stake resource looks just like a ward resource, which is a good thing -- it makes it easier for ward members to know how to see the resource schedule and to make requests.

However, if the stake administrator assigns a member of one of those wards to be an administrator for that resource, that administrator will need to go to the stake page and then select Administrator Options in order to have access to the administration tools for that resource.

In our stake we had a bit of confusion at first where administrators of stake resources in the wards didn't know how to access the administrator functions. Since they could see the resource on their ward page, they expected to be able to access the administration from the ward page. But once they learned how to do the administration, it is working well.

Whatever came of this effort?

How do we go about making simple requests to the existing Resource Scheduling / Calendar System that would DRAMATICALLY improve its usefulness today and not have to wait until we have an enhanced system developed?

All I would like to see should be capable of being accomplished in a matter of minutes and then hours of testing (I've done it on numerous pages in the past) is to alter the edit and add pages for the calendars and resrouce pages to allow all parameters that can be entered to be able to have them passed in through URL parameters.

The simplicity here is that if you provide links to end users (through 3rd party pages) that simply have the URLs to add calendar and resource events into existing calendard in the stake sites, the end users still need to log in (having LUWS logins) before the redirect takes them to the add and edit pages.

So far the resource pages already allow you to pass in

date - Assumes the begin and end date are the same (format: Mmm DD YYYY ... Jan 02 2009)
monthindex - Must be passed and should be the same month index as the date (format: # ... 1)
ParentSiteId - Must be the stake # in which the resrouce is being scheduled (format: ###### ... 506389)
start_time - Start time for the event (format HH:MM AM/PM ... 10:00 AM)
end_time - End time for the event (format HH:MM AM/PM ... 12:00 PM)

All we need added are 2 parameters!!!

title ... The first line of the event
and
desc ... the details underneath

Get these two added and a secondary page I've developed is done and I am good for a while!!!

Thoughts?

Alan_Brown wrote:
However, if the stake administrator assigns a member of one of those wards to be an administrator for that resource, that administrator will need to go to the stake page and then select Administrator Options in order to have access to the administration tools for that resource.

So, does that mean that the person assigned as an administrator for the "multiple ward website" created by the stake must also be a stake administrator, and have access to all the stake administration tools, or can a ward administrator be assigned to this multiple site?

Wow. Does that question even make sense?

TinMan wrote:So, does that mean that the person assigned as an administrator for the "multiple ward website" created by the stake must also be a stake administrator, and have access to all the stake administration tools, or can a ward administrator be assigned to this multiple site?

Wow. Does that question even make sense?

Yes, the question makes sense.

A person assigned as the administrator of a stake resource does not have to be an administrator of the stake site overall. A resource administrator will be able to access the stake administration page, but they will see very few options -- only those necessary for administering the resource. They will not have access to the full set of stake administration options (unless, of course, they have also been designated as a stake site administrator).

Thanks for being so kind .

So how do I make someone a resource administrator, and not a stake site administrator?

I have played around a little and created a "XYZ Ward Building" resource for the other building (not the stake center) in our stake. When I look at the administrators, all the Stake ones appear there.

I assume, which is dangerous, I add a new administrator while I am in the "XYZ Ward Building" area and that new administrator from that building, He/she will only have access to that resource. Is that right?

Will any new Stake administrators I add while in the "Stake" area automatically have access to the "XYZ Ward Building" site as well, or do I need to go add them ?

Am I on the right track?

Thinking some more, If someone in the "XYZ Ward Building," requests a calendar date for a ward party and simply puts "Ward Party, 7:00 pm." then it will appear on all the ward websites and cause confusion. I would have to train people to put "X Ward Activity" so when someone from "Y Ward" sees it, he will know to ignore it. I suppose the resource administrator could monitor the requests and clean them up before approving them. But I can see some problems, especially in December when all 3 wards have a "Ward Christmas Party." Now, each ward does have assigned dates every month, and they try to keep on those assigned dates. My thinking is that this new resource would only be for those activities scheduled on a night other than your assigned night, and activities scheduled on your regularly assigned night would be submitted through your "ward calendar" section.

Perhaps I am thinking too hard about this.

TinMan wrote:So how do I make someone a resource administrator, and not a stake site administrator?

I have played around a little and created a "XYZ Ward Building" resource for the other building (not the stake center) in our stake. When I look at the administrators, all the Stake ones appear there.

I assume, which is dangerous, I add a new administrator while I am in the "XYZ Ward Building" area and that new administrator from that building, he/she will only have access to that resource. Is that right?

Yes, the above is correct. You add resource administrators at the time you add the resource, or after the fact you can add or delete resource administrators using the "Add or Change Administrators" link (or the "Change or Delete" link under Resources) on the stake administration page.

TinMan wrote:Will any new Stake administrators I add while in the "Stake" area automatically have access to the "XYZ Ward Building" site as well, or do I need to go add them ?

Stake site administrators are automatically administrators of all stake-level resources. You don't have to add them manually.

It is possible to remove stake site administrators as resource administrators, but you are asked if you are sure and if you are really, really sure before you do this, so I get the impression that is not recommended.

TinMan wrote:Thinking some more, It someone in the "XYZ Ward Building," requests a calendar date for a ward party and simply puts "Ward Party, 7:00 pm." That it will appear on all the ward websites and cause confusion. I would have to train people to put "X Ward Activity" so when someone from "Y Ward" sees it, he will know to ignore it. I suppose the resource administrator could monitor the requests and clean them up. But I can see some problems, especially in December when all 3 wards have a "Ward Christmas Party."

You are indeed correct that events added to a multi-ward resource should generally have some indication of what ward has scheduled the event. Individual members cannot actually schedule events -- they can only submit requests. So a resource administrator has to approve the events before they are actually added to the calendar. The administrator should be able to easily clean up an omission of the ward name, or any other problems with the submitted event, as part of the approval process. So although it would be nice if members would submit events that include the ward name, you really only need to train the resource administrators to make sure the ward name is included.

TinMan wrote:Now, each ward does have assigned dates every month, and they try to keep on those assigned dates. My thinking is that this new resource would only be for those activities scheduled on a night other than your assigned night, and activities scheduled on your regularly assigned night would be submitted through your "ward calendar" section.

The wards involved can decide if they want to include regular events such as Mutual Activity nights. Personally, I think it would be good to inlcude such events. It's pretty easy to use a recurring event to schedule every Tuesday night for Ward 1 and every Wednesday night for Ward 2. The benefit of doing this is that anyone trying to schedule the building for some new event would see the full schedule and not have to somehow know of these hidden blocked out times. Otherwise, if I am in Ward 2, how would I know that Tuesday night is not available?

Also, be careful not to confuse the resource calendar with the regular calendar. Submitting an event through the ward calendar would not have any effect on the stake-level shared resource calendar for the building.

Also, be careful not to confuse the resource calendar with the regular calendar. Submitting an event through the ward calendar would not have any effect on the stake-level shared resource calendar for the building.

Yes, I understand that. But a ward event would still appear on the ward calendar if submitted through the regular calendar, just not on the other 2 ward's calendars.

TinMan wrote:Yes, I understand that. But a ward event would still appear on the ward calendar if submitted through the regular calendar, just not on the other 2 ward's calendars.

True enough, but we were talking about shared stake resource calendars. Nothing that anyone does with the regular calendars will show up on the shared resource calendar.

For example, suppose the RS President submits a request to the ward calendar for an enrichment group activity to be held in the RS room on Thursday night. The ward site administrator approves the request, and now it appears on the ward's regular calendar.

This is all well and good, but the above actions don't do anything with the building resource calendar. That would require a separate request submitted as a resource event request. Such a request would be approved by a resource administrator (who may or may not be a ward site administrator).

If this last step is omitted, then it's entirely possible that someone from another ward could schedule an emergency preparedness committee meeting for the RS room on Thursday night, get that approved, and the RS President would be out of luck when the enrichment group shows up on Thursday hoping to use the RS room, because she neglected to schedule the room on the shared resource calendar, even though she did schedule the activity on the ward calendar.

Alan_Brown wrote:If this last step is omitted, then it's entirely possible that someone from another ward could schedule an emergency preparedness committee meeting for the RS room on Thursday night, get that approved, and the RS President would be out of luck when the enrichment group shows up on Thursday hoping to use the RS room, because she neglected to schedule the room on the shared resource calendar, even though she did schedule the activity on the ward calendar.

Add to that the usual changes and moved meetings and it's easy for the two calendars to get out of sync and cause that same problem.

That's the biggest drawback to the resource calendar - it requires someone to routinely review both calendars to make sure there are no conflicts.

Yes, that is all true. But scheduling EVERY ward event/meeting on the resource calendar for all 3 wards could put so much information there it becomes useless.

Now, there is something for the "new ideas" thread:

A building calendar that automatically combines the ward calendars for all the wards meeting in a building into a separate "Building calendar" while keeping the ward calendars separate.

Put two buttons in the "Calendar" section: One for "Ward Calendar" and a second one for "Building Calendar" It could use different colors like is done now for Ward, Stake and Church activities. Ward X is Red, Ward Y is Blue and Ward Z is Black.

Someone has probably already suggested that...


I'm so late to the game sometimes...

I have read all the previous posts with great interest, as we have also had some of the issues raised here in our own ward. In fact, more than a few times during our PEC it has been mentioned about the (supposed) disparity between the ward calendar and the resource calendar, and I continually have to explain to them how it is meant to work.

In our ward, we are now successfully using the ward calendar and the resource calendar to handle scheduling among the three wards assigned to our building. The success of it has been down to the administration of the calendars by the various administrators involved (of which I am not one). I cannot help but think, however, that a few modifications to the Submit Event page could save some headaches that our administrators have had to go through, and at the same time make the very user-friendly Submit Events page a little more so.

Failing a more full-featured scheduling system, which has already been proposed in this thread, and which we might well be affecting with our discussion here (via Tom I imagine), here are the major issues for us in our ward.


1. The ward calendar and the building calendar are separate calendars.

Now, don't get me wrong, I perfectly understand that they must be separate calendars (for instance, you might have a ward activity scheduled at someone's home, or a non-ward scout activity scheduled at the building - they have to be separate to accommodate both), but the problem with this is that it is not intuitive enough for the end user. My RS President did not understand the concept of adding her activities to both of the calendars until (I think) the third explanation, and she's a smart lady! IMO what we need is a more intuitive interface when adding and editing events on the ward website.

My suggestion to accomplish this is that the Submit Ward Calendar Event screen should have the extra fields to allow adding that same event to both calendars. These extra fields should be there for the express purpose of making the process more intuitive for the end user. I recognize that the first piece of text under the Schedule Ward Calendar Event heading is:

• " Submitting an event does not automatically schedule a resource such as a building. If you want to schedule a resource for this event, click Resources (on the left side of this screen)."

...but it appears that this text is not actually being read and understood intuitively by our members.

Consider perhaps the following changes:

• A checkbox to indicate that you wish to also add this event to the resource calendar (called "Schedule building for this event?")
• A drop down for the desired building resource (if you can default it to the building that the user attends, then great, though it appears that type of relationship is not there)
• Start and stop times for the resource schedule event that default to the ones chosen for the ward calendar event, with perhaps "Include time for set up" to the right of the Start Time control, and "Include time for clean up" next to the Stop Time control. Perhaps even "Be sure to include time for set up". This would hopefully remind them to make the times for the resource calendar a wider range to allow for the appropriate set up and clean up. Again, this small addition should make it more intuitive for the end user.
• The regular Make this a repeating event link. You could either include this link again for the new resource event, or simply use the same repeating rules specified for the resource calendar event, being sure to use the times specified on the new resource event time input fields.
• The regular Do not show on Home Page checkbox.
• The regular Details field that would normally appear when scheduling a resource. This allows the user to enter all current codes or regulations in place set by the local Stake and Ward Administrators, such as entering rooms required, ward name, contact name and number, etc.
• Perhaps a drop down list to select the Scheduling Ward. This specifies which ward the event is for. If you could default it to the ward the user is in, that would be good. This is in relation to issue 2 below. Naturally this would supercede the necessity of training our members to include the ward name in the comments field, and make the table more relational in the process. I recognize that this is a much larger change than the others however, as it requires adding a field to the events tables and a relationship to the unit that does not currently exist.

You know, there's almost enough room to include all of these fields in a second column, side by side on the Submit Ward Calendar Event page. The checkbox could go next to the Title input field, the various date and times fields would correspond with each other, and the new Details field could go to the right of the existing one also. That might be a possible solution, although it probably wouldn't work for the smaller screen resolutions...

The only thing this method does not allow is the ability to schedule multiple building resources for the same event from the same page, such as what happened with our Ward Christmas Party event, where we scheduled various rooms in the building as well as the Stake Laptop and Stake Projector resources that we wished to use as well. As an aside, having the Stake Laptop and Stake Projector as stake resources, each with their own calendar was quite intelligent on the part of our Stake Administrator I have to say, and seems to have worked splendidly so far. My point here was that the above suggestion does not allow you to easily schedule multiple resources from that first Submit Event page, but I would imagine that it is not necessary to actually code this extra complexity right now as it is not a common occurrence. Food for thought for later though...


2. Color coding

The current resource calendar is all in green, which helps greatly in distinguishing it from the ward calendar (a truly great idea by the way, that would likely have caused a lot of confusion had it been black, red or blue). Perhaps though we can use the other colors as well, or the old trick of distinguishing text by using different text styles like italic or bold, or by different background colors. Personally I think that the different colored text on the ward calendar works great and we only need to use more colors to distinguish requests from different wards rather than italics or background colors.

The idea is, allow an administrator to set a particular text color for a particular ward. Then, when a resource is scheduled for an event for that ward, use that specified color to display it on the building resource calendar. This would mean that we definitely need to add the Scheduling Ward drop down to the Submit Event screen (for instance, 4 list items "1st Ward", "2nd Ward", "3rd Ward", "External" - where External handles non ward activities like scout leadership trainings and wedding receptions, etc.). Then, the building calendar can show items for all three units in the building (and Tinman, I think that the events for three wards plus external events would not actually become unwieldy although it might present a lot of information - in fact I think it's better to have the improved data visibility and to show it all together), with the events from each ward appearing, for instance, in a green, purple and gold respectively, and external items in black or orange (kudos to Tinman - same idea). Clearly, the colors themselves are not important, but that it is possible to make the calendar display a little more intuitive with very little effort.



Again, these ideas are intended to constitute a "first-step" towards making the current process more intuitive. I welcome the idea of a building map to schedule different rooms, and possibly allowing the extra URL parameters to allow IT savvy administrators to create shortcut links for their ward members (interesting idea). My proposed ideas here are intended to make the current (excellent) system a little more intuitive so our members will actually use it to schedule events on both calendars.

I also recognize that what I am proposing will take some man days or weeks to code and then have to go through QA testing and so on, but I think that it is a minor enough modification that it can be done fairly quickly. The programmer will have to still handle the email notifications for both ward calendar event and buidling resource event, and so you'd probably get two different emails for the same event if it's scheduled on both, but that is probably what should happen anyway. At best you could get just the one email notification, but you would still need to see the information that the event was now on both calendars on that one email. The programmer would also have to handle the repeating event possibility, but I don't think that would be too much to handle.

I welcome any improved or different ideas gladly. Thanks!

I was just called to be the building scheduler for our Stake center.

I immediately came here to read up on what solutions exist to facilitate scheduling.

Seeing the various complaints with the lds.org system (and the fact that I couldn't even get into our ward's site), I ended up just creating my own site where people can fill out a form to request a reservation that I'll have to approve.

The form provides them with a map of the building, our stake policies in regards to building usage, and a read-only calendar of what's already scheduled (thanks google maps!).

I now direct people to http://CypressStakeSchedule.com/ and webmaster@CypressStakeSchedule.com

The website/email address/google calendars are configured on independent accounts such that when I am released my replacement can easily take them over.

mfarley wrote:(and the fact that I couldn't even get into our ward's site)

Why is that? Is your stake not participating in LUWS?

mfarley wrote:I now direct people to http://CypressStakeSchedule.com/

Nice site. Are you are aware of the Authorized Church Web Sites policy?

I should also add that in LUWS we've been asked "not show details about Young Men or Young Women activities on the home page" as the home page is publicly accessible. I assume the reason is to keep predators away from our youth.

LUWS is in the process of being changed. So in time we'll have better tools.

RussellHltn wrote:Why is that? Is your stake not participating in LUWS?

When I attempt to retrieve my login by entering my membership id and birthday, it says it cannot locate me in the system. I can only assume there's a typo (handwritten) of my membership id on my temple recommend.

RussellHltn wrote: Nice site. Are you are aware of the Authorized Church Web Sites policy?

I should also add that in LUWS we've been asked "not show details about Young Men or Young Women activities on the home page" as the home page is publicly accessible. I assume the reason is to keep predators away from our youth.

Aware of the policy -- yes.. But also aware of sites like returnandreport.org who may not comply with the "letter" of the policy, but are recognized by the Church as valuable tools (hence the spin-off HT/VT community project).

I hope that a simple web form to request a building reservation would be viewed in a similar light.

If our Stake Presidency has any concerns we can always scale down the details to just free/busy on the calendar.

I truly hope that future iterations of LUWS are more user friendly and on par with contemporary "web 2.0" applications.

mfarley wrote:When I attempt to retrieve my login by entering my membership id and birthday, it says it cannot locate me in the system. I can only assume there's a typo (handwritten) of my membership id on my temple recommend.

I'd suggest going to your ward clerk and asking for a IOS (Individual Ordinance Summary). That will help you verify your ID # and the birth date the church has on file for you.

RussellHltn wrote:I'd suggest going to your ward clerk and asking for a IOS (Individual Ordinance Summary). That will help you verify your ID # and the birth date the church has on file for you.

Great, thanks Russel!

Another factor with respect to the letter and intent of church policy on such external sites is that mfarley's resource calendar is being published to the whole world, not just to the authenticated members of the stake as in the LUWS resource calendar.

Aurhoritative interpretation of church policy here should come from the stake president. The key question is whether he has approved this.

boomerbubba wrote:Another factor with respect to the letter and intent of church policy on such external sites is that mfarley's resource calendar is being published to the whole world, not just to the authenticated members of the stake as in the LUWS resource calendar.

Aurhoritative interpretation of church policy here should come from the stake president. The key question is whether he has approved this.

Good point.. The Stake President is going to have his first look this weekend. I'll see if he has any feedback as to the privacy of the content.

As it stands now it's bare minimum -- just a time and room #, no personal information (no names, phone #'s, etc).

Even without publishing the calendar, the request form is a great tool in itself for receiving scheduling requests.

mfarley wrote:Seeing the various complaints with the lds.org system (and the fact that I couldn't even get into our ward's site), I ended up just creating my own site where people can fill out a form to request a reservation that I'll have to approve.

There are many stakes successfully using the capabilities of the ward and stake websites on lds.org. While there are certainly improvements that could be helpful, I wouldn't read too much into the complaints you read here. When things work well, there's not much motivation to come here and post, so just reviewing posts here will obviously give an impression that is skewed towards the negative.

Our stake is using the building scheduling quite successfully for two of the buildings, and I hope to encourage those in charge of the remaining building to follow suit. The system works reasonably well, and has the great virtue of following Church policy.

I echo Alan's post. We have been using the features of the LUWS quite successfully to schedule the stake center. When taking the issue of the website you created to the stake president for approval I would make sure he is aware of the December 14, 2004, Authorized Church Web Sites policy letter. My stake president was vaguely aware of it when we had an issue that needed discussion around a related subject matter.

Fixing the problem with access to the LUWS seems to be a better approach.