Tech Forum

Hello everyone. Is there a way to restrict calendar users from scheduling buildings outside of their own assigned building? I'm not talking about using the restriction functionality for certain periods of time but an overall general restriction for all times/days. In the "locations and rooms page" once you make any building able to be scheduled (I have three) then any calendar editor from any ward in my stake has access to these three buildings in the dropdown menu when they add events. Any advice?

I don't know of anyway to limit the buildings that calendar editors have access to.

However, in our stake, we have embraced the capability for editors to schedule other buildings. It is used rarely, but it is very helpful. For example, only the stake center has a baptismal font or a hardwood basketball court. Another building has pavilions and a ball field that the stake center doesn't have. Those resources will occasionally be needed by wards that don't meet there. When those wards want to schedule an event that uses those particular resources, we want them to be able to schedule the event directly, putting the event on their ward calendar where it belongs.

I know that it might seem at first that we should be concerned about other wards scheduling a building that is not "theirs," but that has not been a problem at all. Where we want a particular ward to have priority (e.g., the cultural hall for Mutual night), we have set up a very small set of restrictions, but other than that we have the philosophy that any ward can schedule any building. As a practical matter, wards almost always schedule events in the building they are used to, except for events that need those unique resources.

Not that I know of. But note that calendar editors are typically leaders in their ward. One would hope that leaders can follow directions.

Secondly, simply because it's on the calendar doesn't "make it so". They have to get access to the building. Which means they'll have to contact someone with keys. So frequent misuse should quickly come to light.

Thank you both for your responses. They both make sense and contain good points. We have documented our procedures (and rules if you will) and regularly update them and distribute them to the bishoprics and leaders to help give everyone guidance. This certainly helps to set the expectations and I agree that most wards stick to their building for activities with the occasional need for the pavilion or baptismal font. The most obvious case we have encountered to date is the use of our Stake Center for Ward Christmas parties. The need (or shall I say expressed need) is that two of our building have small gyms that can't accommodate a large ward party without splitting between rooms etc. So the 6 wards from those two buildings along with the 3 wards from the Stake Center vie a bit between the three weekends before Christmas. It can get a bit messy with who scheduled first vs. this is our building. For now we have blocked off those weekends and implemented verbal/written policies but it would sure make our overseeing work a bit easier if we could just restrict calendar editors per building (hence my question). Then if a situation occurred where another building or resource is needed, it would be handled case by case. A bit of a different philosophy that you mention above.

I was thinking that perhaps if on the "locations and rooms" page, there could be a list of the 9 wards (in my case) with check boxes under each building I click on. Then I could restrict per ward and building or as you advocate I could leave all 9 wards per each building. At least I would have a choice of doing either. Thoughts?

Something that should have been fixed in this last release is allowing you to place multiple restrictions on a building. For example, you could restrict Building A to Ward 1 and put another overlapping restriction for the same building for Ward 2.

In the past, that meant that no one (except a building scheduler) could schedule the building. But now it should work such that either Ward 1 or Ward 2 can schedule - but no one else (except of course, the building scheduler).

sidwesterman wrote:For now we have blocked off those weekends and implemented verbal/written policies but it would sure make our overseeing work a bit easier if we could just restrict calendar editors per building (hence my question). Then if a situation occurred where another building or resource is needed, it would be handled case by case. A bit of a different philosophy that you mention above.

You didn't provide any details about how often your stake center is used by other wards for purposes that you have no problem with -- you only mentioned the problematic Christmas party issue. It could be that if you were to have the capability you are requesting, and you restricted all other wards from scheduling the stake center, you might create a bigger problem than the one you are trying to solve. Every request by any ward that meets anywhere other than your stake center would require manual action by you or some other authorized person to allow an event to be scheduled for the stake center.

As it is, it sounds like you've taken a proactive action by blocking out the December weekends, which solves the problem of other wards snatching those precious dates. It seems plausible that this is actually the best solution, even if you could block other wards from using the stake center, if it allows those other wards to schedule many other events that are not causing any problems.