mtwerner wrote:It's a great example of why we're not yet using the new calendar. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago I spoke with a support person who said his group recommends that units NOT use the new calendar yet. (He didn't know why someone seems to be so actively promoting it.)
Well, the support folks need to communicate with the rest of the known universe. And I will stop there, other than to say that they ought to use some of their precious time and get to know the system so that they can help us effectively move to it.
Because we have been encouraged to use the new calendar through official channels, we are trying our best. But is has been nothing but struggle and frustration for the most part.
Our biggest problem is that we have folks who are barely learning how to manage a login and password a la LDSAccount who are now trying to understand a complicated, multi-layered calendaring system that does not choose to reveal information to the folks who are trying to run it and use it in a way that will assist them in their callings.
Nevertheless, we have also been told that the old calendar will go away at the end of the year. Now, by my calculations, that is in about six months, which worries me, because we have been struggling with the new calendar for more than six months and still cannot make it work well unless we are retired and have that as our sole calling in the Church, neither of which is the case for me.
So, we will continue to struggle and contribute to those tens of thousands of help requests as we go. And in the meantime, we have almost made the decision to publish a paper stake calendar for the remainder of this year, because the on-line calendar is not yet sufficiently operational to support our activities.
As for a followup to the specific situation that caused this thread, we now attribute the problem to users who do not understand that the new calendar has a tendency to hide things, and who were not aware that they needed to go fishing for information just in case it was there.
Unfortunately, these are our front line priesthood leaders who are technically savvy and would have found what they needed if it had been presented in a way that would have allowed them to know it was there.
So we also attribute the instant problem to the calendaring system itself, over which we have no control, and over which my browser seems to have precious little control, either.
I would have made the same mistake these two priesthood leaders made if I had not known that the event was supposed to be in the calendar. There was absolutely no indication on my computer monitor screen that more information was available below the radar for that particular date.
Hence, the pending paper push to fill in the gap for now. Sad, but the meeting was a critical one and we only hold it twice a year. But more than 50 priesthood holders missed it because of this little problem.
As a stake, we will not let that ever happen again, no matter how widely we are pushed to support new technology.
So our feedback is probably number 46,898 in the queue.
That's why I am trying to get some ideas here to help our members use the new calendar more effectively in the meantime. Have I already listed all of the reasons someone would not find a calendar item? Training begins next Saturday. I would like for it to be thorough and complete.