Best Practices for Building Reservations

As I am now just setting up the calendar for our building which is used by 2 wards, as suggested, i am adding reservations (--Ward A mutual has the cultural hall on the 1st and 3rd Wed, Ward B on 2nd and 4th, for example). I am wondering what the best practices are for setting this up the right way before I turn it over to the organizations of the various wards to begin scheduling.

Is it suggested that the sunday blocks be reserved for each individual ward or should we simply assume that ward A uses most of the building from 9-12 and ward b uses it from 12:30 to 3:30?


Also is it suggested that mondays be blocked from anyone's use?

Are there any other suggestions for the best way to manage reservations?

Is it recommended that the building scheduler create a private event calendar so that families or other can use the building? Should that private calendar be created at the ward level and should it be viewable by the entire ward or only by the scheduler so that he can track the use of the building to avoid conflicts? If it is to be viewable by others can it be set up so that ward A and B can see it or does it go to one ward or the other or should it be set up by the stake so that everyone can see it?

Thanks you for your assistance.

dbshapiro wrote:Also is it suggested that mondays be blocked from anyone's use?

Unless your stake has a policy otherwise, I believe that the Single Members may use the building on Mondays. Otherwise, it doesn't sound like a bad idea.

dbshapiro wrote:Is it recommended that the building scheduler create a private event calendar so that families or other can use the building? Should that private calendar be created at the ward level and should it be viewable by the entire ward or only by the scheduler so that he can track the use of the building to avoid conflicts? If it is to be viewable by others can it be set up so that ward A and B can see it or does it go to one ward or the other or should it be set up by the stake so that everyone can see it?

Yes, I recommend setting up a "Private Event" calendar. Simply relying on reservations isn't good enough. I'd suggest making the calendar at the stake level so that a new stake Building Scheduler can take it over.

It's your call as is to if you leave it public or private. If private, I'd make sure to have enough editors so that control is not lost if something happens to the Building Scheduler.

dbshapiro wrote:Also is it suggested that mondays be blocked from anyone's use?

That would only be Monday evenings (not all day), and RussellHltn noted an exception for single members that we have allowed in our stake buildings.

dbshapiro wrote:AIs it suggested that the sunday blocks be reserved for each individual ward or should we simply assume that ward A uses most of the building from 9-12 and ward b uses it from 12:30 to 3:30?

Although reservations are a wonderful tool, I'd be careful about adding too many reservations, particularly on Sundays. In my experience, it is certainly not safe to assume that during a meeting block only the ward that meets during that block will use that building. For example, Ward A might have its choir practice in the RS room at 12:30, while Ward B is having its sacrament meeting. There are plenty of other examples.

Aside from the specific Mutual night reservations, I'd recommend that you take a slow approach to reservations. Every reservation you create reduces flexibility and thus increases the number of potential exceptions -- which will require manual labor to override. You can always add reservations later, and in my experience many of the scheduling conflicts people imagined would happen never materialized.

Thanks. The block would only be on Monday evenings and we are short on single members who would use it anyway. --Thanks also for the advice about Sunday use. For now I wont reserve the blocks for the specific wards. I dont think Ward A choir has ever bothered to schedule the building for choir practice and there probably is no good reason why they would need to. I like the idea of keeping the calendar less cluttered.

Can I ask about the private calendar option? I am a stake admin, the building scheduler and a ward admin. I was given stake admin rights because the stake president wanted me to try to figure out the calendar and then perhaps teach others in the stake how to use it.

If I set up the Private calendar at the stake level, should one be set up for each building in the stake and identified as building x private calendar? Should the calendar be viewable by the admins of each ward?

Thanks

dbshapiro wrote:TCan I ask about the private calendar option? I am a stake admin, the building scheduler and a ward admin. I was given stake admin rights because the stake president wanted me to try to figure out the calendar and then perhaps teach others in the stake how to use it.

If I set up the Private calendar at the stake level, should one be set up for each building in the stake and identified as building x private calendar? Should the calendar be viewable by the admins of each ward?

Personally, I prefer to have ward admins schedule personal events, rather than having the building scheduler involved. But arguments can be made both ways. If you have the ward admin schedule such events, then your question becomes irrelevant -- they can make the decisions about what calendar it goes on and who can see it.

If you do set up a private calendar at the stake level, I would think that you would want one per building, so that you could give edit rights to the appropriate building scheduler, and not distract other building schedulers with information they don't need to see for other buildings. If you also choose to let ward administrators see it, then you have to manage who can see it. That can be a hassle, particularly as people change callings or assignments in each ward. If that visibility is deemed to be important, then I would go back to my original recommendation, and let the ward admins just schedule personal events themselves.

Pardon my ignorance but if a ward A admin creates a pvt event calendar he can obviously add events to it but suppose admin from ward B wants to know if the builiding is avail for a pvt party. Would he have any way of knowing that the building was or wasnt available unless he tried to enter the event and see if it showed a conflict?

If there were a "pvt event building X calendar" created at the stake level couldnt it be designated as viewable by the building scheduler and/or by the ward admins from each ward which would let them see if the building was available when they tried to schedule something? Could the hassle of authorizing various viewers be lessened by authorizing them by calling?

As you can see, a lot of this is based on how your stake handles private events. There's more then one good way to do it. Just as long as the calendar setup matches how it's done, I don't see a problem.

In our case, the Building Scheduler for the stake center is the Stake Executive Secretary. As a result, we have a stake-level Private Events calendar for him.

One thing I would think about is how to place the calendar such that future Building Schedulers can have access to it. That makes a good case to have them all at the stake level so they can be assigned regardless of which ward the BldSch is in.

dbshapiro wrote:Pardon my ignorance but if a ward A admin creates a pvt event calendar he can obviously add events to it but suppose admin from ward B wants to know if the builiding is avail for a pvt party. Would he have any way of knowing that the building was or wasnt available unless he tried to enter the event and see if it showed a conflict?

Anyone (not just a ward admin) can go to Week view (this is not in Month view) and check the box under Available Locations by the building in question. Then you will see all events that use that location for the week. For a private event, you'll simply see "Private Event". That means that you can't really see the details as to which room. You'll be able to see time blocks that are totally free, but you won't know, for example, if the RS room is scheduled or the Primary room. If the events are not on a private calendar, you can indeed see all those details by clicking on the event.

dbshapiro wrote:If there were a "pvt event building X calendar" created at the stake level couldnt it be designated as viewable by the building scheduler and/or by the ward admins from each ward which would let them see if the building was available when they tried to schedule something? Could the hassle of authorizing various viewers be lessened by authorizing them by calling?

Yes, if the events in question are on a private calendar at the stake level for which each ward admin is an editor, then they all could see the event details. Of course, there can also be additional private calendars created for some other purpose that reserve the building, and they wouldn't be able to see any details for events on those calendars.

You can reduce the authorization hassle by setting editors by calling. But the problem with that in this scenario is that a stake calendar allows only stake callings to be selected (and similarly for ward calendars). So since your ward admins probably don't have stake-level callings, you can't use that technique for a stake calendar.

aebrown wrote:You can reduce the authorization hassle by setting editors by calling. But the problem with that in this scenario is that a stake calendar allows only stake callings to be selected (and similarly for ward calendars). So since your ward admins probably don't have stake-level callings, you can't use that technique for a stake calendar.

Shouldn't that be a stake calling if the building in question is used by more then one ward? Or is it a case where the Agent Bishop simply delegates that responsibility? But then how do you transfer to the other ward? Sure, there's a way to do it now, but as they say in the stock market "Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Results".

All in all, if I had to, I think I'd live with the "by name" limitation of a stake-level calendar.

If designation cant be by ward level callings, that would make it cumbersome. Maybe what we could do is go back to the idea of the agent bishop's ward ultimately being in charge of the events in the building for the year that they are the agent ward. That ward's person can be the building scheduler for the ward and he can be the one who keeps the private calendar with the rest of the ward's admins of course able to edit. At the end of the year, the stake could designate the other ward's building scheduler to take over the task.

So long as others can view the building availalbilty in the week view, there shouldn't be too much hassle for the non agent ward in seeing if the building were available for the private event but... wouldnt scheduling the building still require that the person who wants to use the building contact the building scheduler from the agent ward? I thought the idea of this calendar model was to try to minimize the centralized aspect of one contact person in charge of everything. I guess I am confused as to what the designers had in mind as they created this system and would like to set it up to work as well as possible for our people.

RussellHltn wrote:Shouldn't that be a stake calling if the building in question is used by more then one ward? Or is it a case where the Agent Bishop simply delegates that responsibility? But then how do you transfer to the other ward?

We're talking about ward calendar administrators. Those are all ward callings (bishopric, clerks, etc.). It look like you were thinking about the building scheduler, who would also be an editor of the private calendar in the scenario being discussed, but setting him or her up based on calling is not all that practical, either. In our stake, we don't make building schedulers a stake calling -- it's just an assignment the agent bishop makes and lets the stake know about. And you'd have to have a unique stake standard calling for each scheduler. There do seem to be 5 callings set up for this purpose, but they are rather lame: they just have a building number.

dbshapiro wrote:Maybe what we could do is go back to the idea of the agent bishop's ward ultimately being in charge of the events in the building for the year that they are the agent ward. That ward's person can be the building scheduler for the ward and he can be the one who keeps the private calendar with the rest of the ward's admins of course able to edit. At the end of the year, the stake could designate the other ward's building scheduler to take over the task.

But how would you hand off the calendar if it's a ward calendar?

dbshapiro wrote:but... wouldnt scheduling the building still require that the person who wants to use the building contact the building scheduler from the agent ward?

I don't think you'd want "distributed scheduling" in the case of private events. The general membership still has to contact someone.

Church events get placed on the calendar by the appropriate editor and the building is scheduled as part of the resources of the event. No need to involve the BldSch.

You are right. The hand off would have to be a year at a time with the new ward taking the reins when they become the agent ward by then creating their pvt calendar. I think i will go with making it a stake calendar and the agent ward admins will be editors with the editors changed as a new ward becomes the agent ward.

dbshapiro wrote:If designation cant be by ward level callings, that would make it cumbersome. Maybe what we could do is go back to the idea of the agent bishop's ward ultimately being in charge of the events in the building for the year that they are the agent ward. That ward's person can be the building scheduler for the ward and he can be the one who keeps the private calendar with the rest of the ward's admins of course able to edit. At the end of the year, the stake could designate the other ward's building scheduler to take over the task.

But you avoid all those hassles if you just let ward administrators schedule personal events for the people in their ward who want such events. There's no need for handing off a stake-level private calendar when the building scheduler changes because with this approach a stable calendar remains in the ward, and that calendar can specify its editors by ward-level callings. People who want to schedule personal events work with someone they know in their ward. This is the model we use in our stake, and it's really quite simple.

dbshapiro wrote:So long as others can view the building availalbilty in the week view, there shouldn't be too much hassle for the non agent ward in seeing if the building were available for the private event but... wouldnt scheduling the building still require that the person who wants to use the building contact the building scheduler from the agent ward? I thought the idea of this calendar model was to try to minimize the centralized aspect of one contact person in charge of everything.

There's no requirement that the building scheduler be contacted as long as someone in the ward can schedule the building (which any ward administrator or calendar editor can do). Doing what I suggest embraces the distributed scheduling module inherent in the design of the calendar system.

dbshapiro wrote:I guess I am confused as to what the designers had in mind as they created this system and would like to set it up to work as well as possible for our people.

Although there are clearly some design principles that control the calendar, you don't really need to outguess the designers. There is enough flexibility for a variety of approaches. That's why RussellHltn can argue for making building schedulers editors of a private calendar and sending all personal events through them, and he can be right for his stake; I can argue for scheduling personal events through a ward administrator and be right for my stake. There are rarely "right" and "wrong" answers.

If I understand your solution correctly, each ward has a pvt event calendar. When any of the admins is contacted, they try to schedule the building and if there is a conflict, an alert pops up. If someone from the other ward wants to do the same, they contact their ward person and ask to schedule the building. First come first served. If the building is being used, they get an alert. If the two wards each want the same time (maybe one for a party and the other for a ward event for example), only then does the building scheduler (who would I guess be changed yearly with the agent ward) have to make a call (after consulting with the agent bishop probably) as to who gets the time slot. -- I can see how that would make sense.

By the way, any idea why I am able to schedule two items on top of each other? I was testing out the calendar and reserved the building for a family's thanksgiving dinner and then tried to reserve the kitchen for the cub scouts at the same time and was able to do it without even an alert popping up. Is that because I have building scheduler permission that it will let me do that?

Thanks both of you RussellHltn and aebrown for your help with this question. It is helping me understand how this calendar works.

dbshapiro wrote:If I understand your solution correctly, each ward has a pvt event calendar. When any of the admins is contacted, they try to schedule the building and if there is a conflict, an alert pops up. If someone from the other ward wants to do the same, they contact their ward person and ask to schedule the building. First come first served. If the building is being used, they get an alert. If the two wards each want the same time (maybe one for a party and the other for a ward event for example), only then does the building scheduler (who would I guess be changed yearly with the agent ward) have to make a call (after consulting with the agent bishop probably) as to who gets the time slot. -- I can see how that would make sense.

Yes. What you described is essentially the process for scheduling any event. Basically, we take the approach that personal events are handled exactly like other events -- first come, first served. There's no need to create a separate process. There's the little detail of priority (church events are more important than personal events) but we run into that every once in a while with church events. A funeral may need to bump other events. A regional training meeting for which our building is selected will bump all sorts of things. You're right that the building scheduler steps in to help resolve conflicts when they happen, regardless of the type of event.

dbshapiro wrote:By the way, any idea why I am able to schedule two items on top of each other? I was testing out the calendar and reserved the building for a family's thanksgiving dinner and then tried to reserve the kitchen for the cub scouts at the same time and was able to do it without even an alert popping up. Is that because I have building scheduler permission that it will let me do that?

Pay careful attention to whether you are talking about Reservations or Events (you used the word "reserve" in a casual way when I think you meant "schedule event"). A building scheduler can schedule or move or change an event such that it "conflicts" with a Reservation -- that is one of the building scheduler's unique and powerful abilities. But no one can create two events that truly conflict in date/time and room booking.

Or it's possible that you got hit by the bug for which I have given a detailed description. But that only happens with a reservation and two events.

dbshapiro wrote:If designation cant be by ward level callings, that would make it cumbersome. Maybe what we could do is go back to the idea of the agent bishop's ward ultimately being in charge of the events in the building for the year that they are the agent ward. That ward's person can be the building scheduler for the ward and he can be the one who keeps the private calendar with the rest of the ward's admins of course able to edit. At the end of the year, the stake could designate the other ward's building scheduler to take over the task.

So long as others can view the building availalbilty in the week view, there shouldn't be too much hassle for the non agent ward in seeing if the building were available for the private event but... wouldnt scheduling the building still require that the person who wants to use the building contact the building scheduler from the agent ward? I thought the idea of this calendar model was to try to minimize the centralized aspect of one contact person in charge of everything. I guess I am confused as to what the designers had in mind as they created this system and would like to set it up to work as well as possible for our people.

That is how it is done -- by agent ward. However, in our two ward building, it was decided that I'd remain building PFR and Scheduler after 2010 (our ward) through 2011 (their ward) and again in 2012 (our ward)... and unless something drastically changes, we'll likely keep me doing both callings regardless of agent ward due to my living proximity to the building and what used to be (before this Calendar) two simple callings in addition to my other two regular callings.