Calendar Notifications

[debird]

Do members have to "opt in" to receive notifications or are they automatically sent? Our Stake Clerk has changed some dates for important meetings (Stake Council, Ward Conferences, etc) but did not click the "sent notification" because he didn't want to flood the entire Stake. I thought members had to opt-in to receive notifications, so the emails would only go to those who requested them. Is that correct? His comment that I have to "check often" is not acceptable. Suggestions?

[russellhltn]

It's both. The editor must send and the members must select to receive (but I think that's on by default.)

If you set up sync, your personal device will update automatically withn a day or so.

[debird]

Sync: I was under the impression that the iCal sync was one way. Which means that, say for example - all of the dates for Ward conferences are on my iCal calendar - and they change - then I end up with Ward conference X on two different dates. Not very helpful.

As for the notifications - it would be useful to know if members receive notifications automatically, or if they have to opt in.

[aebrown]

Sync: I was under the impression that the iCal sync was one way. Which means that, say for example - all of the dates for Ward conferences are on my iCal calendar - and they change - then I end up with Ward conference X on two different dates. Not very helpful.

It's true that the sync is only one way. That means that the sync goes from the Church servers to your other calendar, perhaps on a mobile device, and nothing you do on your device will go back to the Church servers. But "one way" does NOT mean that deletions of events will not be synced to your device; they certainly should be synced (and in my experience they are synced). So if an event is scheduled, then synced, then removed or changed on the server, then that deletion or change will sync to your mobile device.

[debird]

Thank you. I'll give it a try.

[russellhltn]

Our Stake Clerk has changed some dates for important meetings (Stake Council, Ward Conferences, etc) but did not click the "sent notification" because he didn't want to flood the entire Stake.

That's assuming that much of the stake are subscribed to the calendar where those events take place. If those events are comingled with events that are of interest to the general membership, that's a good assumption. In that case, I'd suggest a new calendar be created so the general membership unsubscribe from the leadership calendar without missing general events.

As for flooding the stake, well, perhaps the general membership shouldn't be subscribing to that calendar. I rarely get notifications, but the last one I found does contain a footer that explains how to adjust the subscription settings.