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Building Scheduling

Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 4:05 pm
by pbseager
We are looking at using the new Calendar to schedule buildings, rooms etc for our stake. Has anyone used this feature or is there a better way? We plan to call someone to keep this updated. Currently an old program is being used that someone developed years ago. It would be nice to have the scheduling information available to all members in our stake so that they can refer to it at anytime online. Just want to find the best way to do this before we proceed.

Thanks!!

Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 4:18 pm
by aebrown
pbseager wrote:We are looking at using the new Calendar to schedule buildings, rooms etc for our stake. Has anyone used this feature or is there a better way? We plan to call someone to keep this updated.
...
Just want to find the best way to do this before we proceed.

Yes, many people are using the new calendar. Our stake uses it extensively.

I'd recommend that you read the Introduction to the Calendar and the other relevant pages in the Calendar help system. That will give you a good start. Then you can feel free to ask specific questions here in the Calendar forum. You can also browse or search this forum to see if your questions have already been asked and answered.

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2011 10:30 pm
by pbseager
Thank you for the information. I have actually lookedthrough this information already and we are using the new calendar. Thecalendar is just Google Calendar. I guess my concern is having chaos if toomany people have access to schedule events. Do you give all auxiliaries bothstake and ward access to schedule, or how wide do you open it up? I can seethat once you begin something, it will be difficult to pull access later. Whatwould be helpful is to get some detailed information about what rights youallow and to whom, and what issues you have had. I have looked and lookedthrough the forums and I am not finding this type of detail. Any feedback that can be provided, by thoseusing the calendar, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for your help!

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2011 11:29 pm
by russellhltn
pbseager wrote:I guess my concern is having chaos if toomany people have access to schedule events.
We ourselves have not yet switched, but I would anticipate given each auxiliary leaders the ability to edit their respective calendar. How would that create chaos? They may need to be reminded, that just because they can put it on the calendar, they still need to get any required approvals for the event.

Any individuals that need to schedule an event (say a birthday party) needs to talk to the appropriate person to schedule/approve it.

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2011 12:24 am
by jdlessley
pbseager wrote:I guess my concern is having chaos if toomany people have access to schedule events. Do you give all auxiliaries bothstake and ward access to schedule, or how wide do you open it up?
I suggest reading the calendar Help. You will find a lot of questions answered there and a good explanation of all aspects of the calendar adequately presented. You will see that only those members of a ward who have been added to a calendar's editor list can schedule events for that ward, plus of course the default approvers. There are other threads that discuss the types and number of calendars that wards create. It really depends on the ward leadership and how they see management of events and schedules for the ward, auxiliaries, and organizations.

Since this thread is about building scheduling we should limit the discussion to that aspect of the new calendar. The reservation system programmed into the calendar is far superior from the classic event calendar classic resource calendar. See the calendar Help Introduction to the Calendar for more information.
pbseager wrote:I can seethat once you begin something, it will be difficult to pull access later.
Actually it is quite easy. Each calendar has a list of editors that have editor rights to add and edit events for just that calendar. With the capability to add editors by calling makes management of who has edit rights easy. When a person is added in MLS for a calling they will automatically be given editor rights to calendars that have that calling position listed as an editor. Similarly when a person is released they will no longer have those rights. See the calendar help section Rights and Roles for more information.

The calendar includes location and resource reservation for events. See the calendar help Scheduling Events / Reserve a Resource for more information.
pbseager wrote:Whatwould be helpful is to get some detailed information about what rights youallow and to whom, and what issues you have had.
I suggest reading thecalendar Help. Pay particular attention to the Rights and Roles section. As I mentioned earlier there are other threads where the these types of concerns are discussed. There is one called Calendar Best Practices, for example.

Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2011 9:40 am
by pbseager
Thank you for all the comments and information. After reading your comments and doing some research I think that I understand things a little better. If any of you run into anything that might be helpful to the rest of us, please pass it on. I will do the same. Thanks again!

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 8:34 pm
by davesudweeks
This may be an unrelated question regarding building scheduling and if so, my apologies. We have 3 units in the building. Each Unit has been assigned specific days each month that are pre-reserved for that unit (for example, the 2nd Saturday would be for one unit and the 3rd Saturday would be for another, etc). In theory, anyone in the unit could use the building on "their unit's day" but had to check with the other unit's building Scheduler if they wanted it on the other Unit's day.

My ward's Building Coordinator is new and just asked me how we can designate those days on the calendar and prevent other units from scheduling on any days other than those preassigned to them. It seems the new Calendar is designed to allow individual groups schedule their own activities and the main purpose of the Building Coordinator is to coordinate when there are conflicts, or am I missing the picture? Before I communicate back that we need to forget the process used on the old calendar and embrace the new method, I would like some advice from those more experienced than I am. I must admit that our other Building Coordinator (currently in the hospital for health reasons) was a bit offended when I mentioned in a meeting that I had granted each Presidency rights to schedule their own organization's activities on the Calendar.

For those with multiple units in a building, how do you deal with "fairness" for the popular days (Fridays and Saturdays) in sharing the resources?

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 9:13 pm
by aebrown
davesudweeks wrote:This may be an unrelated question regarding building scheduling and if so, my apologies. We have 3 units in the building. Each Unit has been assigned specific days each month that are pre-reserved for that unit (for example, the 2nd Saturday would be for one unit and the 3rd Saturday would be for another, etc). In theory, anyone in the unit could use the building on "their unit's day" but had to check with the other unit's building Scheduler if they wanted it on the other Unit's day.

My ward's Building Coordinator is new and just asked me how we can designate those days on the calendar and prevent other units from scheduling on any days other than those preassigned to them. It seems the new Calendar is designed to allow individual groups schedule their own activities and the main purpose of the Building Coordinator is to coordinate when there are conflicts, or am I missing the picture?
You've got the basic picture. You can review Reserving Locations and Resources in the calendar help system for more details. The building scheduler definitely has a role in helping resolve conflicts, but another important role is setting up the reservations that allow only one ward to schedule certain resources on designated days. It sounds like your units already have worked out the schedule, so the building scheduler simply implements that schedule in the calendar system.
davesudweeks wrote: Before I communicate back that we need to forget the process used on the old calendar and embrace the new method, I would like some advice from those more experienced than I am. I must admit that our other Building Coordinator (currently in the hospital for health reasons) was a bit offended when I mentioned in a meeting that I had granted each Presidency rights to schedule their own organization's activities on the Calendar.
The new calendar definitely requires a new way of thinking. There's a section in the help system dealing with that titled A Cultural Shift in Scheduling. It takes a while to adjust, but our building schedulers have come to realize that giving up some control makes their life easier and really does have a lot of benefits.
davesudweeks wrote:For those with multiple units in a building, how do you deal with "fairness" for the popular days (Fridays and Saturdays) in sharing the resources?
That really hasn't been a problem, except at Christmas time. But even then, the wards just work out ahead of time who will take what days, and it has worked out pretty well. You can choose to have it on a first-come, first-served basis to start with. That might well work just fine. But if that becomes a problem, then you can change to giving one ward the first Saturday, another the second, another the third, and the fourth is open to the first ward to schedule it. There are a lot of possibilities.

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 9:19 pm
by davesudweeks
Thank you very much for the advice!

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 1:36 pm
by kisaac
davesudweeks wrote: We have 3 units in the building. Each Unit has been assigned specific days each month that are pre-reserved for that unit (for example, the 2nd Saturday would be for one unit and the 3rd Saturday would be for another, etc). In theory, anyone in the unit could use the building on "their unit's day" but had to check with the other unit's building Scheduler if they wanted it on the other Unit's day....

....For those with multiple units in a building, how do you deal with "fairness" for the popular days (Fridays and Saturdays) in sharing the resources?
I think the "rotation theory" is one thing I'll be happy to see go away, as it "locks up" your resources when they actually will go unused most of the time.

We have three wards, like you, and each ward "claims" their rotating weekend night. But honestly, the building is not used for most of these week-end nights. Yet, we are limited to choosing future activities based on the rotation, even though nothing is scheduled. It just complicates things. Why not free them up, make the paradigm shift, and say "if it's not scheduled for somebody, its free for anybody?"

After all, who would be saying it is unfair? Would one ward really want to use it many more nights than the others? Is it "private users" your ward is worrying about... like a family basketball game making repeating reservations each Friday night for a Year? This is where the building scheduler steps in and says no...

If it is just a few "busy" times you worry about, like Christmas, these can be "prescheduled" by each ward.