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building reservations

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 3:31 pm
by hickend
I've heard that there are issues using the new building reservations portion of the calendar on lds.org. Is this true? If so, what are the issues? Our stake does not currently have the building resources in the system - nor do i believe they know how to do so - but I'd like to know if it is worth their hassle to set it up before I bring it up with them.

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:57 pm
by aebrown
hickend wrote:I've heard that there are issues using the new building reservations portion of the calendar on lds.org. Is this true? If so, what are the issues? Our stake does not currently have the building resources in the system - nor do i believe they know how to do so - but I'd like to know if it is worth their hassle to set it up before I bring it up with them.
There were some bugs with the reservations portion of the calendar, but they have all been fixed, as far as I know. We've certainly not heard any reports of such bugs in the last couple of months. So I think that part of the system is reliable now.

There are still people who don't understand reservations properly. I'd recommend that anyone who wants to use reservations should first review the Calendar documentation, focusing particularly on rights and roles, scheduling events, and reservations.

We've been using the new calendar for over a year now in our stake. There were certainly some challenges as we made the transition, but most people understand how it works now, and we have very few problems. I certainly think it's worth the effort required to set it up, but you do need to get everyone on board, including particularly the stake administrators. There can only be one system of record that everyone trusts to store the official schedule for each building.

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 9:00 pm
by kisaac
The issues you've "heard" about may be philosophical and not technical. There is a paradigm shift in the new calendar system from the old (classic) calendar.

The classic had a submission and approval system for events and resources, patterned after the traditional model of building scheduling in place for many years.

The new LDS.org system, (quoted below from the EXCELLENT calendar help, as suggested previously by aebrown) initially appears very much different:
allows multiple members to act as editors for the calendar, adding and managing
events.
...When (an editor) schedule(s) an event, you can select a location, such as a meetinghouse, and any rooms or equipment within the location.
Before ANY online calendar, if an organization needed a room, they contacted a building scheduler. However, I won't call this an "approval process," as he/she NEVER approved events, but only checked them against other events, and guidelines set by stake and ward leaders, then recorded the room requested.

An event is deemed appropriate for membership by it's leadership, then, without online calendaring, and now, with online calendaring. Once this is done, a date, time and room (resource) must be selected. The new calendar may streamline this process as it no longer requires the building scheduler to tell you available dates and check for conflicts. I would suggest stake leaders fully understand the shift to the new "distributed scheduling" model in this light, understanding that approvals for events still happen in ward councils, and presidency meetings. See "Activities: Chapter 13" in Handbook 2.

A search through this forum will bring up many threads about this and other such "philosophical" issues with the calendar so the discussion can continue.

Knowing "how to do so" is simply a matter of going to the help link above for video and reference guides.