Seeing the other ward(s) calendars as the BUILDING SCHEDULER

They're busy after the webinar and probably just as frustrated by my repeatedly asking the same question different ways with other thoughts. Here's the deal. I'm the building scheduler by calling (as well as PFR) for both wards. That is I kept the callings when the agent ward swapped -- though technically my calling was in the PC Ward (I'm a member of CC Ward). The expectation is for me to take the lead on the use of Calendar 2.0 -- to answer questions, help members of both wards use it, supplement whatever they get by viewing the slide shows... this was the answer from chat advise, to point EVERYONE with a question to the webinar slides, EVERYONE to take an hour of their day for a simple question that supposedly is under my purview... that isn't going to fly in the real world... and I have no intention tonight or tomorrow after the PC Ward watched all this to answer questions and drive to their homes to be on their computers helping them with their calendars. I have two other callings and a life!

The alternative is having them give me their log-in info... completely inappropriate...

Bottom line, the building scheduler for a building needs to see ALL calendars in their building. Yeah, the view of scheduled events/reserved event helps me reserve stuff; but, it doesn't help me train the 50+ people who will want help and answers already emailing me questions today and tonight...

This apparently was not taken into consideration when creating this block/parameter. happily I will help people... but on the phone with them looking at their computers and me at home looking at the same things... helping them check boxes, pick colors, plan/enter events... etc

Thank goodness I have administrator rights in my own ward.

bgtaylor4 wrote:Bottom line, the building scheduler for a building needs to see ALL calendars in their building. Yeah, the view of scheduled events/reserved event helps me reserve stuff; but, it doesn't help me train the 50+ people who will want help and answers already emailing me questions today and tonight...

As was explained in this post, you seem to be frustrated with the system because the new system was designed for distributed scheduling, and you're still trying to centralize too much of the work. I can certainly see how that would feel like a huge job. The wonderful benefit of the new system is that each ward can handle almost all of their own scheduling needs. And even within the ward, the responsibility can be pushed down to many people so that no single person in the ward has to feel the weight of all that scheduling.

As building scheduler, you should only have to step in for the rare occasions when there are conflicts between the wards. You can also serve a useful function in training administrators in the individual wards, if they need help getting up to speed.

In our stake we have requested that each ward designate a calendar coordinator. This is someone who has ward calendar administrator privileges. Almost everything you're talking about having to do as a building scheduler is instead done at the ward level. And that person has the benefit of having access to all the ward calendars. If those people function properly, then it's not a problem that you don't have the ability to see or modify all calendars in the building. For the rare cases where the building scheduler needs to work out problems, he can indeed see all the events in his building.

In a nutshell you're saying I'm to be the calendar coordinator for my ward. And any requests from the other ward, I just wish them luck and hopefully they'll call someone else. Doesn't sound particularly Christian. But I'll pass on this advice to their bishop.

I completely get the idea of distributed scheduling btw... it was I advising both wards to get on board and assign people to watch today's webinars. But someone needs to help them; maybe they had someone from their ward who is an expert who can take this on. I know the guy. He's already managed to RESERVE dates around me... I'm going to recommend to my bishop that he just take over this frustrating task for both wards.

bgtaylor4 wrote:In a nutshell you're saying I'm to be the calendar coordinator for my ward. And any requests from the other ward, I just wish them luck and hopefully they'll call someone else. Doesn't sound particularly Christian. But I'll pass on this advice to their bishop.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I was not suggesting you wouldn't help people -- by all means, help them as much as you would like to. What I was suggesting is that the calendar system works better when the people administering the calendars are closer to the people using them. That means that ward calendar administrators can be more responsive to ward members who need to schedule events.

I'm not just speaking hypothetically; this is the model our stake is using very successfully. It is very rare that a ward needs to contact the building scheduler or any person at the stake level to get help with scheduling a ward event. The wards have all the permissions they need for almost all functions.

Hey... the this post link is awesome! Well stated and crystal clear. I forwarded that to both bishops and the stake clerk in charge. Obviously locally leaders can do as they are inspired; but, your presentation is a good model.

Sorry to be venting earlier. Truth was, this sort of did get dumped in my singular lap. Delegation in this case is wise; and less frustrating. I am sure that for my own ward I'll be this coordinator.

Sorry... thanks for your patience.

Can ward Calendar Scheduler see other bldgs. calendar within the stake?
This is helpful when scheduling wedding receptions, Funerals, RS Super Saturdays
Sometimes 1 bldg. is busy and we need to schedule another within our Stk. Or can an email go to all Bdg. Calendar schedulers every time the bldg. is reserved? We are having problems with double booking. We have 3 wards in each bldg.

I liked the classic view calendar when we could see all wards within our stake calendar

lmherdz wrote:Can ward Calendar Scheduler see other bldgs. calendar within the stake?
This is helpful when scheduling wedding receptions, Funerals, RS Super Saturdays
Sometimes 1 bldg. is busy and we need to schedule another within our Stk.

Any member of the stake (not just building schedulers or ward administrators) can see the events scheduled at any building that his or her ward is assigned to (in Week view, check the box by the building under "Available Locations"). Note that "assigned to" in this context is not restricted to the building a ward meets in, but rather an assignment made in the Calendar system by a stake administrator. By default, wards that meet in a building are assigned to that building, but any other unit may be assigned to that building.

Some stakes choose to assign all the units to all the buildings for precisely the reasons you mentioned. It enables more flexibility in scheduling events. That practice can create some tension if wards who meet in another building overuse this privilege -- then the wards that meet in a building can feel that other wards are using "their building" too much. But used prudently, this can be a good arrangement.

lmherdz wrote:Or can an email go to all Bdg. Calendar schedulers every time the bldg. is reserved?

It's not possible currently, but others have suggested that as an enhancement. I personally don't think it's a good idea. The calendar system will take care of making sure there are no conflicts, so a building scheduler shouldn't have to know about every new reservation. That would mean hundreds of emails each year for at least our stake center, which could be rather annoying.

lmherdz wrote:We are having problems with double booking.

That should never happen if the system is being used properly. If you would like to provide details as to what leads you to think that is happening, I'm sure some people on the forum would be happy to help you track down what is going on.

I don't know if this is the best way, but the way that we handle this in our building (I am the building scheduler for a building that has wards from two stakes) is that we have a building calendar (stake level) that I keep. For calendar 2.0 I have assigned the rotating agreed to schedule (CR Relief Society 2nd Tuesday, etc.) But I keep the Building calendar that I put all wedding receptions, funerals, play practice, sports practice etc. on for all to see. This way if anyone is trying to schedule on one of the non-blocked out times they can see what is going on in the building.

I also put the name and email address (or phone number) of the person who has requested the reservation so that if there is a problem people can see who made the reservation. That way they can contact the person directly and not have to go through me to resolve issues.

sharicarnahan wrote:I don't know if this is the best way, but the way that we handle this in our building (I am the building scheduler for a building that has wards from two stakes) is that we have a building calendar (stake level) that I keep. For calendar 2.0 I have assigned the rotating agreed to schedule (CR Relief Society 2nd Tuesday, etc.) But I keep the Building calendar that I put all wedding receptions, funerals, play practice, sports practice etc. on for all to see. This way if anyone is trying to schedule on one of the non-blocked out times they can see what is going on in the building.

I also put the name and email address (or phone number) of the person who has requested the reservation so that if there is a problem people can see who made the reservation. That way they can contact the person directly and not have to go through me to resolve issues.

I am the stake building scheduler/coordinator and this is what we do in our stake. It seems to work very well. Non-ward related items on a stake "resource" calendar. Prior to v2, I would take a lot of calls and place events on ward calendars too. Now with the changes in v2, I can't do that and refer them to their ward leadership to schedule ward activities. It is a change that will take some adjustment from the members, but puts more control and visibility to what is going on at the ward level, which is ultimately a good thing.

aebrown wrote:Any member of the stake (not just building schedulers or ward administrators) can see the events scheduled at any building that his or her ward is assigned to (in Week view, check the box by the building under "Available Locations"). Note that "assigned to" in this context is not restricted to the building a ward meets in, but rather an assignment made in the Calendar system by a stake administrator. By default, wards that meet in a building are assigned to that building, but any other unit may be assigned to that building.

Some stakes choose to assign all the units to all the buildings for precisely the reasons you mentioned. It enables more flexibility in scheduling events. That practice can create some tension if wards who meet in another building overuse this privilege -- then the wards that meet in a building can feel that other wards are using "their building" too much. But used prudently, this can be a good arrangement.



It's not possible currently, but others have suggested that as an enhancement. I personally don't think it's a good idea. The calendar system will take care of making sure there are no conflicts, so a building scheduler shouldn't have to know about every new reservation. That would mean hundreds of emails each year for at least our stake center, which could be rather annoying.



That should never happen if the system is being used properly. If you would like to provide details as to what leads you to think that is happening, I'm sure some people on the forum would be happy to help you track down what is going on.

*I am a building scheduler and this is our HUGE PROBLEM! We do NOT have checkboxes next to our "locations" in order for me or anyone else to view ANY of our locations. How do we fix this??????? I have been trying to get an answer to this for over a month from various sources so I hope you can be the one source that actually has an answer.

Thanks much!
Kimberley Oliver
Cedar Mill Oregon Stake- Rock Creek Building Coordinator

Olivertwist7 wrote: We do NOT have checkboxes next to our "locations" in order for me or anyone else to view ANY of our locations.

Change to week view. With v2 of the calendar, they removed the filtering events by location on the month view. It does appear in week view.

So I'd just like to chime in here. I am the Stake Clerk, Stake Technology Specialist, and Stake Center Building Scheduler (three wards). After the most recent changes, I am wondering if there is ever going to be a version of the calendar that really works. I think that version 2 has some great improvements (I really like the layered approach and the additions for setup/cleanup time), but the scheduling I feel took a giant step backwards in the user-friendly department. The biggest problem is that if a member of one ward schedules a building resource, noone else can see that event except members of their own ward - not even Stake personnel like myself. This is a nightmare, and we've had to tell our Bishoprics now NOT to schedule events in the building without going through me.

I would just like to be able to lobby for changes to the scheduler:

1) Personnel with a Stake calling (Stake Presidency, Stake Auxiliary Presidencies, High Counselors) should be able to see ANY calendar they choose. Even if the Stake Clerk would be able to assign viewing rights to ANY AND ALL calendars, it would work. I know our Stake Presidency/Stake Auxiliary Presidencies have to travel up to 2 hours - one way - to visit our wards/branches. Being able to coordinate that travel for special events such as Young Womens' Recognition, Priesthood Previews, and Scout Camps could be greatly facilitated.

2) Bring back event approval. Or at least make it so that there is a designated person such as a Building Scheduler or Stake Clerk who can make changes to ANY AND ALL calendar items - moving them to another calendar, making them appear on multiple calendars (such as Ward YM and a Building Scheduling calendar, for example).

If you're going to allow ANYONE to put in an event, it has to show up on the correct calendar(s). It used to be that you could click on a building calendar and see the events for that building, which was a kluge, but worked to some degree. With the elimination of the individual building schedules, events now get effectively orphaned when submitted by a ward member.

3) A real minor one: have the comments show up on the mouseover for events. This is typically where we put contact information for events in order to resolve scheduling conflicts, but there is no way to see this information currently.

Look, I'm a web application developer by day, so I appreciate the efforts that have been made, and I applaud the Church for putting together a solid, stable platform. I'm just trying to help move things along to make that last 10-15% gap in usefulness close up.

blarman wrote:The biggest problem is that if a member of one ward schedules a building resource, noone else can see that event except members of their own ward - not even Stake personnel like myself.

That's not correct. Any member of the stake who can see the building can see all the events scheduled for that building; they just need to go to Week view and check the box by the building down in the Locations section.

blarman wrote: This is a nightmare, and we've had to tell our Bishoprics now NOT to schedule events in the building without going through me.

I suppose you can do that, but that sounds like a nightmare for you. It puts all the responsibility for scheduling on one person, making all the benefits of distributed scheduling useless.

In our stake we're doing distributed scheduling, and it's working quite well. The biggest problem we've had is getting our building schedulers to understand that the system works best when they don't schedule events. Now that they understand that, it's a pretty slick system.

blarman wrote:1) Personnel with a Stake calling (Stake Presidency, Stake Auxiliary Presidencies, High Counselors) should be able to see ANY calendar they choose. Even if the Stake Clerk would be able to assign viewing rights to ANY AND ALL calendars, it would work. I know our Stake Presidency/Stake Auxiliary Presidencies have to travel up to 2 hours - one way - to visit our wards/branches. Being able to coordinate that travel for special events such as Young Womens' Recognition, Priesthood Previews, and Scout Camps could be greatly facilitated.

There could be some benefits to this, and it has been suggested by several others. But the technique I described above should let your stake leaders see events that are associated with the buildings (Scout Camp probably wouldn't be covered by that technique, since it wouldn't reserve a building).

blarman wrote:2) Bring back event approval. Or at least make it so that there is a designated person such as a Building Scheduler or Stake Clerk who can make changes to ANY AND ALL calendar items - moving them to another calendar, making them appear on multiple calendars (such as Ward YM and a Building Scheduling calendar, for example).

A building scheduler can make changes to all calendar items that are at his assigned building.

The request to have items appear on multiple calendars is quite a different request. But your mention of a "Building Scheduling calendar" sounds like you're still trying to mix the old way of doing things with the new. Since there is already a feature for seeing all the events at a location, it seems to me that a "Building Scheduling calendar" would just add more complexity.

blarman wrote:If you're going to allow ANYONE to put in an event, it has to show up on the correct calendar(s). It used to be that you could click on a building calendar and see the events for that building, which was a kluge, but worked to some degree. With the elimination of the individual building schedules, events now get effectively orphaned when submitted by a ward member.

I don't see how events are orphaned. What do you mean by that? They are visible to ward members, building schedulers, and actually any member of the stake with access to the building.

blarman wrote:3) A real minor one: have the comments show up on the mouseover for events. This is typically where we put contact information for events in order to resolve scheduling conflicts, but there is no way to see this information currently.

Making that information visible on mouseover might be handy, but the information is indeed available. You just have to click on the event to see its event details; it's not quite as handy as mouseover, but you can get to the info.

blarman wrote:The biggest problem is that if a member of one ward schedules a building resource, noone else can see that event except members of their own ward - not even Stake personnel like myself.

Yes, they can see the events by going to week view and looking at events by location. But I'm not sure as they need to see that. The system won't let them schedule two events for the same time for the same room.

blarman wrote:This is a nightmare, and we've had to tell our Bishoprics now NOT to schedule events in the building without going through me.

The problem with that is that you're unable to place events on any calendar but the stake and your own ward. You can't place events on the calendars of the other two wards. Seems like this is a bigger problem then it's trying to solve.

For whatever reasons, foreseen or unforeseen by LDS tech and the designers of Calendar, as they may on occasion arise, someone at the stake level and one person in each building (IE the building scheduler) should have access to and the ability to add events and otherwise tweak calendars for respectively any calendar in any ward of the stake and for ALL wards in one's building as needed. Yes, we can move towards distributed responsibility for the calendar. But it is reasonable that these few individuals have broader "keys" to work with members, leaders and all who use the Calendar -- again, whenever the need arises. This just seems more professional.

And I'm really unclear on what the downside would be?

bgtaylor4 wrote:And I'm really unclear on what the downside would be?

There's one obvious downside: it would take significant development resources to make your proposed changes. Any use of the Church's limited development resources on these features will delay or perhaps eliminate work on other features, such as other important calendar features, as well as development on other areas of the ward and stake websites, including Directory, News & Information, Lesson Schedules, and other modules.

Everything you propose can be done now, but only by a distributed set of people, rather than a small centralized set of people. Adding those capabilities to that small set of people would certainly facilitate certain administrative tasks, but adds nothing to the overall capabilities of the system. Is that more important than the other planned features it would displace on the priority list? Personally, I don't think so. I'd rather have the developers work on other features.

I am not a software developer. So thank you for your insight. I had ignorantly assumed rather that resources had been expended to block access for some purpose.

There is a related inconvenience built into another portion of LDS.org -- Directory. As we all know who live in areas where the Church grows, wards and stakes split -- GOOD LUCK trying to stay in touch with or find people outside of your stake. The software is built to insulate wards and stakes from each other. And there is a downside to that.

You best understand and can evaluate those needs to which resources should be directed. I sustain you, or at least those who hired you and therefore you, in making those wise decisions. This is a feedback blog/board. My feedback is that we have chosen broad access in distributing a powerful tool into the hands of the untrained masses within a ward or stake over access by trained/called individuals. Certainly there, too, are many benefits. But a downside as well.

Meanwhile, feedback should be welcomed; perhaps less dismissive and condescending.

And there is a workaround by the way. Every ward has inactive members. Supplying someone, like a stake or ward calendar/building specialist, trained and called, with the membership number of inactive members in wards who would never use the site, provides the full access afforded to general membership of that ward. LET ME BE CLEAR that I've not sought such access. But it does raise what might be for developers a simple solution to changes proposed -- membership numbers in each ward specific to such tasks rather than to actual living people. These would be the same dummy numbers used for testing contribution software, training examples for clerks, training for classes about any feature of the website, and such. These either exist or maybe should.

bgtaylor4 wrote:Supplying someone, like a stake or ward calendar/building specialist, trained and called, with the membership number of inactive members in wards who would never use the site, provides the full access afforded to general membership of that ward.

I hope that no one would ever do this, and strongly caution ward and stake leaders against it. Doing so would expose that inactive member's private information to the other user, not to mention giving that other user control to change the inactive member's information, or expose it to others. This would be a serious violation of privacy laws in nearly every country. Another member's membership number should always be treated as confidential information.

bgtaylor4 wrote:You best understand and can evaluate those needs to which resources should be directed. I sustain you, or at least those who hired you and therefore you, in making those wise decisions.

It sounds like you have a mistaken impression about the nature of these forums. Almost everyone on these forums is simply a user like yourself. On this calendar forum there are a couple of developers who have been participating fairly frequently but for the most part (and this includes aebrown) posters are just users expressing their own opinions and trying to help each other figure out ways to find solutions given the software as it stands.

bgtaylor4 wrote: This is a feedback blog/board. My feedback is that we have chosen broad access in distributing a powerful tool into the hands of the untrained masses within a ward or stake over access by trained/called individuals. Certainly there, too, are many benefits. But a downside as well.

Although there are a couple of calendar developers on this forum who may see your feedback, my understanding is that policy changes like you're suggesting are decided on at higher level than just the developers. Generally those decisions are made by the product managers and general authorities with responsibility for these areas. They are probably more likely to see your feedback if you submit it using the Feedback link on the main lds.org page.

bgtaylor4 wrote:Meanwhile, feedback should be welcomed; perhaps less dismissive and condescending.

I don't think you should consider any of the responses here as condescending. We're all at the same level as you and different people in different situations may have different opinions and should be able to express them here as well.

bgtaylor4 wrote:Supplying someone, like a stake or ward calendar/building specialist, trained and called, with the membership number of inactive members in wards who would never use the site, provides the full access afforded to general membership of that ward.

I believe that's called "ID Theft". The ends would not justify the means.

bgtaylor4 wrote:I am not a software developer. So thank you for your insight. I had ignorantly assumed rather that resources had been expended to block access for some purpose.

I happen to be a software developer, but I have never worked on the development of any of the tools on lds.org. So my perspective is as a user who happens to be a software developer, not as a developer on the actual projects we are discussing.

bgtaylor4 wrote:There is a related inconvenience built into another portion of LDS.org -- Directory. As we all know who live in areas where the Church grows, wards and stakes split -- GOOD LUCK trying to stay in touch with or find people outside of your stake. The software is built to insulate wards and stakes from each other. And there is a downside to that.

Yes, there is a downside to restricting information to people within a stake. But there are significant legal and ethical concerns connected with opening up that information too much.

bgtaylor4 wrote:You best understand and can evaluate those needs to which resources should be directed. I sustain you, or at least those who hired you and therefore you, in making those wise decisions.

As I explained above, I have nothing to do with the development of these tools. I, like you, sustain those who do direct those development efforts, and try to give my feedback where it might be helpful.

bgtaylor4 wrote:This is a feedback blog/board. My feedback is that we have chosen broad access in distributing a powerful tool into the hands of the untrained masses within a ward or stake over access by trained/called individuals. Certainly there, too, are many benefits. But a downside as well.

The distributed model used for scheduling is restricted to called individuals who have been selected by the ward/stake leadership by name or by calling to perform scheduling and other functions. It is certainly not open to "the untrained masses". For those members who have not been specifically designated as editors or administrators, all they can do is view calendars and synchronize their calendars with third-party calendars. They have no access to change anything on the calendar.

Stakes and wards would certainly be wise to distribute the ability to schedule events only as broadly as they have ability to train those calendar editors to perform their tasks properly. But the role of a calendar editor is rather limited, and doesn't require much training. We have dozens of people throughout our stake performing those functions with very few problems.

bgtaylor4 wrote:Meanwhile, feedback should be welcomed; perhaps less dismissive and condescending.

I am sorry if I gave that impression. Sometimes in my haste to share information and contrasting viewpoints I don't take the time to acknowledge the value of the posts to which I am responding. For that I sincerely apologize. I certainly appreciate your efforts to share your views and help improve these tools.

Like I said, in being CLEAR, never asked nor had anyone grant such. We know better because of the reasons you state. But in reality we trust ward clerks with the power to do everything you're mentioning here -- make changes, possibly expose information and so forth. I did say "trained and called."