Do LDS Tools Calendars Function as a Facilities Scheduling Resource?
Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2015 11:04 am
I found myself in the middle of a facilities scheduling snafu last night. At the heart of the issue was what appeared to be a calendar conflict between LDS Tools and our calendar on lds.org. After a little bit of research, however, I'm not convinced there is any discrepancy between the two. But I've come here to find out if my conclusion is correct. Let me describe the situation.
The woman in my ward who has been assigned to plan our ward Christmas party scheduled our Cultural Hall and Relief Society Room last night (12/2/15) from 7-8 pm. We were going to use these rooms to rehearse our musical program that would be presented during the Christmas party. I arrived a few minutes early and began setting up chairs and microphones for the rehearsal. At 7pm the young men from the ward we share our building with arrived and insisted that they had claim to use of the cultural hall for their weekly YM activity.
I hadn't bothered to check the calendar prior to arriving at the church last night, instead relying on the good word of the sister in charge of the party. But at this point I logged onto lds.org via my Android phone and brought up the calendar. Sure enough, it showed that our ward had scheduled the Cultural Hall and Relief Society room from 7-8 pm on 12/2/15.
I approached the other ward's Young Men's president and informed him that the calendar clearly indicated that we were within our rights to remain in the Cultural Hall, as we had properly scheduled it for our use that night, as indicated on our calendar on lds.org. But he insisted that I was in error, as no such record appeared anywhere on his calendar in LDS Tools, and there was no possible way that he was incorrect because he had synched his LDS Tools account only minutes prior to this conversation.
I have never made use of the calendaring feature in the LDS Tools app. Due to my inexperience in this area (as well as some spurious logic regarding tradition and the importance of basketball to young men on the part of the young men's president- not something I want to get into right now) I decided to drop the issue and let the other ward use the cultural hall. But I've since researched the calendaring feature in the app and I've come to the conclusion that this young men's president was incorrect to use the calendar in the app to refute our ward's claim to the cultural hall.
Initially I assumed that there must be a glitch that prevents the calendar at lds.org from communicating effectively with the calendar(s) on the app, otherwise, why wouldn't our scheduled use of the cultural hall show up on the young men's president's phone? But I've since discovered that anyone using the app will only see events scheduled on the calendars that they are subscribed to, and (I suspect) most users won't even have the option of subscribing to calendars that are created by members outside of their ward. So the fact that our scheduling of the cultural hall didn't appear on this young men's president's calendar in the app is not an indication of a software glitch, but simply the result of his LDS Tools account not being subscribed to the same calendar that my party planner used to schedule the cultural hall.
Assuming all this is correct, it leads to my final assumption, indicated in the subject line for this post: The calendar feature in LDS Tools is not meant to be used as, and will not function adequately as a facilities scheduling tool. Therefore, it follows that in an apparent scheduling "conflict" the calendar on lds.org would take precedence over the apparent absence of any scheduled activity in any particular LDS Tools calendar. Am I correct in this assumption? (Feel free to look at the attached screenshots of my our calendar on lds.org.)
The woman in my ward who has been assigned to plan our ward Christmas party scheduled our Cultural Hall and Relief Society Room last night (12/2/15) from 7-8 pm. We were going to use these rooms to rehearse our musical program that would be presented during the Christmas party. I arrived a few minutes early and began setting up chairs and microphones for the rehearsal. At 7pm the young men from the ward we share our building with arrived and insisted that they had claim to use of the cultural hall for their weekly YM activity.
I hadn't bothered to check the calendar prior to arriving at the church last night, instead relying on the good word of the sister in charge of the party. But at this point I logged onto lds.org via my Android phone and brought up the calendar. Sure enough, it showed that our ward had scheduled the Cultural Hall and Relief Society room from 7-8 pm on 12/2/15.
I approached the other ward's Young Men's president and informed him that the calendar clearly indicated that we were within our rights to remain in the Cultural Hall, as we had properly scheduled it for our use that night, as indicated on our calendar on lds.org. But he insisted that I was in error, as no such record appeared anywhere on his calendar in LDS Tools, and there was no possible way that he was incorrect because he had synched his LDS Tools account only minutes prior to this conversation.
I have never made use of the calendaring feature in the LDS Tools app. Due to my inexperience in this area (as well as some spurious logic regarding tradition and the importance of basketball to young men on the part of the young men's president- not something I want to get into right now) I decided to drop the issue and let the other ward use the cultural hall. But I've since researched the calendaring feature in the app and I've come to the conclusion that this young men's president was incorrect to use the calendar in the app to refute our ward's claim to the cultural hall.
Initially I assumed that there must be a glitch that prevents the calendar at lds.org from communicating effectively with the calendar(s) on the app, otherwise, why wouldn't our scheduled use of the cultural hall show up on the young men's president's phone? But I've since discovered that anyone using the app will only see events scheduled on the calendars that they are subscribed to, and (I suspect) most users won't even have the option of subscribing to calendars that are created by members outside of their ward. So the fact that our scheduling of the cultural hall didn't appear on this young men's president's calendar in the app is not an indication of a software glitch, but simply the result of his LDS Tools account not being subscribed to the same calendar that my party planner used to schedule the cultural hall.
Assuming all this is correct, it leads to my final assumption, indicated in the subject line for this post: The calendar feature in LDS Tools is not meant to be used as, and will not function adequately as a facilities scheduling tool. Therefore, it follows that in an apparent scheduling "conflict" the calendar on lds.org would take precedence over the apparent absence of any scheduled activity in any particular LDS Tools calendar. Am I correct in this assumption? (Feel free to look at the attached screenshots of my our calendar on lds.org.)