Tech Forum

Is there a calendar available or in development for the ward members to use to schedule dinners with the missionaries serving in their ward?

Not that we've been made aware of.

Note that the calendar system initially is blank. It's up to the units to create the calendars they need.

But there are two technical problems with using the existing calendar system - the first is that it's not very practical to set up all members of the ward as a calendar editor. So the members would have to work though someone to schedule it. The second is that the missionaries have no way to access the calendar directly. They'd have to work though a ward member.

In our Ward we called a "Missionary Dinner Calendar" specialist. This person is responsible, along with the missionaries, to pass around a calendar each week to all the various organizations for sign ups. The specialist then puts these names on a "missionary dinner calendar", created by the Ward, on LDS.org, which is available to all ward members for review. Sometimes conflicts come up. by having the calendar available to everyone, families can trade dates or make adjustments. At the end of each Sunday mtg block the FT Missionaries make a copy of the calendar so they can contact the family a day in advance to confirm their appointment.

RussellHltn wrote:there are two technical problems with using the existing calendar system - the first is that it's not very practical to set up all members of the ward as a calendar editor

It is impractical only because there is no "entire ward" option for the 'view and edit permissions' or is there another problem? Can a request be made to the techs to add the option?

mominfc wrote:It is impractical only because there is no "entire ward" option for the 'view and edit permissions' or is there another problem?

That's it. Currently the only way to do that is add every member in by name.

I think the request had been made previously for other things.

mominfc wrote:It is impractical only because there is no "entire ward" option for the 'view and edit permissions' or is there another problem?

That's the biggest impediment right now. Without an "entire ward" option, someone would have to add each ward member by name as an editor, and then keep it up to date as people move in or out.

However, I am concerned about potential problems. Making someone a calendar editor gives them a fair amount of power. They can then schedule any building in the stake at any time for any purpose. Clearly that would be contrary to the purpose of creating this calendar, and there would most likely be a stake policy prohibiting such an action, but nonetheless there would be no technical obstacle to stop them from doing something like putting a family reunion event on the missionary dinner calendar that reserves the whole building for three days. With a limited set of calendar editors, a ward can provide the needed training and direction. When you open up calendar scheduling to the whole ward, I think the amount of misuse (either accidental or intentional) could increase significantly.

mominfc wrote:Can a request be made to the techs to add the option?

Given my concerns, I wouldn't personally make such a request. But you're always welcome to use the Submit Feedback page to provide any suggestions.

aebrown wrote:However, I am concerned about potential problems. Making someone a calendar editor gives them a fair amount of power. They can then schedule any building in the stake at any time for any purpose.

I'd make a matching request to add a option for a calendar to be "location-less". That would solve that problem.

I like the way kirtkennedy's unit handles this issue. Our unit passes around a calendar, but we haven't created an on-line calendar yet. We may make that suggestion. It allows the ward membership to view the schedule, but maintains a certain degree of control on the calendar system.

Is there a way to "like" a comment without doing a reply?

jhowell2000 wrote:Is there a way to "like" a comment without doing a reply?

A thread can be rated but a post cannot. That is the closest there is. There is the ability to add reputation likes or dislikes for a poster. This will not bring any attention to any particular post however.

I know this thread is old, but thought I might contribute.

I developed a meal calendar that I host on my personal web server. In discussion with the Bishop and Ward Mission Leader, we chose to host it external to the lds.org site so that investigators would also be able to access the calendar. At the time we had three sets of missionaries, including two sets working at the Church History sites in Palmyra. And there were non-members signing up to feed all the missionaries at least once a week.

My mother's ward in Houston is currently using this site and I am working on developing a calendar for my ward in Connecticut.

You can see the live site at http://www.gabalot.org/Missionary/MealCalendarIndex.htm.

I wrote the HTML myself. I use EmailMeForm.com for the web forms and Gmail/Google Calendar for the actual calendar application.

Eventually I would like to pull everything onto my server, but I need more knowledge, skill and time for the web development (all of which are in short supply).

James