Building scheduler limitations with v2

[russellhltn]

But, unless I misunderstand, the ward scheduling person cannot include the correct location, since that ward meets in another building.

That can be fixed by assigning the other wards to that building in addition to their normal building.

[dusey]

I think that the answer is to use the reservation system instead of creating events. You can schedule a reservation and allow only a certain ward to use the building during that time. This way the time is blocked out, everyone in the stake can see it, and you don't have to put it on a specific calendar, just assign it to a specific ward (much easier than going through that list that had 10 different "Elders Quorum"s on it and not knowing from which ward each one was.) I wish the title was more prominent, and for some reason it only shows up in week view on the calendar, not month view, but I believe that using the reservation system is the intended way to do it from here on out. Though it needs a few tweaks, I much prefer this to to the mess of calendars from before.

[dusey]

My building schedulers were confused by this change, however, so I made this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGGaTXpScaY

[michellesmith17]

I agree wholeheartedly that this is a step backwards. I am a building scheduler and get calls all the time from wards within the building I schedule. I can no longer help them and schedule the building on one of their wards calendar. There are many people who are not computer savvy (believe it or not in this day) that don't understand how to get on and schedule the building. If we rely 100% on ward auxiliaries to schedule the building on their own, I fear we will have more conflicts because they just won't/can't do it or don't understand how to schedule using the online calendar. While we are in the training stage of this new scheduling paradigm, I believe the building schedulers should have the ability to schedule events on the wards calendars that reside in the building they are over. I fear without this capability that wards in my building will stop using this online calendar all together.

I really hope I am not misunderstanding the functionality of the calendar. I have been using version 1 since it was released and we have made it work very well. I think this is an amazing tool but if we make it difficult schedule for or help those who don't understand how to use it, it won't get used.

[dshep2020]

I think that the answer is to use the reservation system instead of creating events. You can schedule a reservation and allow only a certain ward to use the building during that time. This way the time is blocked out, everyone in the stake can see it, and you don't have to put it on a specific calendar, just assign it to a specific ward (much easier than going through that list that had 10 different "Elders Quorum"s on it and not knowing from which ward each one was.) I wish the title was more prominent, and for some reason it only shows up in week view on the calendar, not month view, but I believe that using the reservation system is the intended way to do it from here on out. Though it needs a few tweaks, I much prefer this to to the mess of calendars from before.

We just had each ward modify each calendar with a ward prefix. This identified which ward it belonged to and grouped them all together. But....that was v1. Doesn't matter now. For all the little issues it did have, I miss the features that made my calling much more easier. I'm sure v2 will get better, just seemed rushed.

[aebrown]

If we rely 100% on ward auxiliaries to schedule the building on their own, I fear we will have more conflicts because they just won't/can't do it or don't understand how to schedule using the online calendar.

There is a middle ground that works quite well. All you need is at least one person in the ward who is the main calendar coordinator. Each ward really needs such a person to help decide what calendars are appropriate. So if a ward has challenges with finding auxiliary leaders who are capable of scheduling events, they can still have someone in the ward who schedules events. Such a person can add events to any ward calendars. There is no need for the building scheduler (who might well be in another ward and thus not have good access to the ward's calendars) to be involved in 90+% of the scheduling.

[michellesmith17]

Thank you for this youtube video! This helps tremendously. I think as building schedulers we are so used to creating "events" that it looked like at first run through that was taken away from us and there was no way to help ward members "schedule" the building. Creating reservations reserves the building for wards but they have the responsibility to put the actual even on the calendar. It also allows to just block time for weddings and personal use without creating a separate calendar for those events. This was very helpful so thank you for sharing.

[aebrown]

My building schedulers were confused by this change, however, so I made this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGGaTXpScaY

I'd be wary of using reservations as broadly as you recommend in that video. I suppose it could work if you only have one building scheduler, but if you have more than one building scheduler, remember that any building scheduler can override a reservation by scheduling an event -- and they won't even see that they are doing that. So your reservation may not be as secure as you hope.

An event always trumps a reservation. Reservations also have no notifications, and cannot be synced to a third party calendar because they don't appear on any actual calendar. That may be what you want for non-Church events such as a wedding reception, but for any Church-related event I would strongly recommend that someone schedules actual events that truly appear on a calendar. That's the only reliable way to make sure you have booked the resource.

[robartsd]

I'd be wary of using reservations as broadly as you recommend in that video. I suppose it could work if you only have one building scheduler, but if you have more than one building scheduler, remember that any building scheduler can override a reservation by scheduling an event -- and they won't even see that they are doing that. So your reservation may not be as secure as you hope.

An event always trumps a reservation. Reservations also have no notifications, and cannot be synced to a third party calendar because they don't appear on any actual calendar. That may be what you want for non-Church events such as a wedding reception, but for any Church-related event I would strongly recommend that someone schedules actual events that truly appear on a calendar. That's the only reliable way to make sure you have booked the resource.

The problem is this is the only way a building scheduler can schedule the building for events in another ward. The other ward must still put the event on their own calendar.

An idea I had to prevent people from creating "Entire Location" events is simply create a dummy room and block that room. Someone creating an event would still be able to reserve every room (except the dummy) but they'd have to check each box, so they'd probably only check the rooms that they actually expect to use.

[aebrown]

The problem is this is the only way a building scheduler can schedule the building for events in another ward. The other ward must still put the event on their own calendar.

Understood. But I think that building schedulers are requested to schedule events far too often. I know that sentence may seem strange to people who are used to the old way of doing things, but I stand by it. Scheduling events is fundamentally a ward or stake function, not a building function. So each ward should have at least one person who is an event scheduler. This responsibility can be distributed among as many editors as the ward would like, but there should be at least one. Those people can put events on the appropriate ward calendars and reserve the building(s) as necessary.

If wards are functioning effectively this way, why would the building scheduler need to add events to a ward's calendar? Only in very rare situations where it might be necessary to work out scheduling conflicts. It should not be the normal course of events with the new calendar. So the problem becomes so rare that it is hardly a problem at all.