The Beta Calendar is Up

[techgy]

the only concern with that is hoping that the individual decides that the calendars they need to subscribe to, are actually the ones they need to subscribe to!

I can just imagine people claiming to not being aware of activities / meetings - only to be told that they weren't subscribed to the correct calendar!?

Seems a bit awkward to me.

Keep in mind that the default action is to subscribe members to all new calendars. So, unless they've made changes they should see all of the calendars.

[greenwoodkl]

I may be wrong, but I thought at one point the word was that at some point admins could setup a default list and then the members could add additional after that point. It would seem that automatically adding all new calendars to everyone may be counter-intuitive unless private calendars are omitted and enough window is given for a calendar admin to add particular viewers before it is automatically added to everyone's subscription. I wouldn't for example want the RS Compassionate Service Committee custom calendar added to my subscription as an elder just because the system automatically added before the older RS sister setting it up didn't get specific viewers listed faster than the system could add everyone in the ward to the list.

[russellhltn]

the only concern with that is hoping that the individual decides that the calendars they need to subscribe to, are actually the ones they need to subscribe to!

I understand your point, but that's not what the creators had envisioned. If you place a event on multiple calendars, then I'd expect the event would appear each time someone was subscribed to a calendar that had the event. That's not good for people who used the calendar correctly.

[tomjohnson1492-p40]

Earlier in development, the calendar was blank unless a member decided to subscribe to a calendar. The feedback we received was that no one understood why their calendar was blank. So we switched the functionality to set all members to auto-subscribe to new calendars (as long as the calendars aren't private) by default. Members can unsubscribe from calendars they don't want to see, or turn off auto-subscribe. The idea is that it's better to be over-informed than under-informed, so if you're an EQP and you get a RS Compassionate Service calendar, it may be annoying, but at least you'll be aware that it exists.

Earlier in this thread there's mention of some scheduling bugs with times. I believe that has been fixed now.

Also, some people have asked whether they can use the calendar for production use now or if they have to wait. Initially the goal was to launch at the start of 2011, but there were too many bugs and issues (esp. with the web access management layer) to provide a stable release. So we backed that down, but perhaps worded it too strongly. Now many of the issues have been fixed, and you also have import capabilities. So the current policy is "try it if you want, but don't expect it to work perfectly until late 2011."

Also, in about three months, you'll see an interface redesign of the calendar. This will significantly improve the usability. Also, the only conflicts you'll see are hard conflicts with double-booked locations, not with times.

[kisaac]

I just found out that the new version of the new.lds.org calendar allows you to grant editor rights to calendars by calling.

Great! but could we go one step further? For example, suppose I make a "ward leaders" calendar with all the leadership meetings on it, and want only the ward leaders to have rights? Right now you must add each person individually. Try doing that with every ward leadership calling!

It would be really slick to have a feature to not just add them by calling, but by calling in organizational groups. Similar to the email function in the directory. How about add "all Elders quorum presidency members" as editors or viewers by selecting them as a group? or all the other groups: add all "ward council members," or "all bishopric members," or "all scout leaders..."

[jonesrk]

Great! but could we go one step further? For example, suppose I make a "ward leaders" calendar with all the leadership meetings on it, and want only the ward leaders to have rights? Right now you must add each person individually. Try doing that with every ward leadership calling!

It would be really slick to have a feature to not just add them by calling, but by calling in organizational groups. Similar to the email function in the directory. How about add "all Elders quorum presidency members" as editors or viewers by selecting them as a group? or all the other groups: add all "ward council members," or "all bishopric members," or "all scout leaders..."

I have added calendars for our standard meetings (Bishopric, PEC, Ward Council, BYC) and it's not too hard to add all the positions. And I will only have to do it once. That being said, I wouldn't mind a way to select multiple positions to add all at the same time.

[nutterb]

Great! but could we go one step further? For example, suppose I make a "ward leaders" calendar with all the leadership meetings on it, and want only the ward leaders to have rights? Right now you must add each person individually. Try doing that with every ward leadership calling!

It would be really slick to have a feature to not just add them by calling, but by calling in organizational groups. Similar to the email function in the directory. How about add "all Elders quorum presidency members" as editors or viewers by selecting them as a group? or all the other groups: add all "ward council members," or "all bishopric members," or "all scout leaders..."

Y'all are just never satisfied!

[alan.richardson]

Trying my hand at the new calendar. Pretty easy to do, but wondering why the repeating events can't start with the day/date of the original event, rather than always revert to January 1 or the 1st Monday, etc. Or maybe it does and I just haven't found that yet. Even my ancient non-WebOS Palm (meaning I can't sync) can do that.

[rexgj]

I played with the new calendar this morning. I tried to import our old calendar, the screen (form?) seemed great, but there was no "finish" or complete" or "save" button, so I was just left hanging. What is that about?