Notifications Controled by settings & editors

[1968leocomeeatabite]

• Email notifications are sent to everyone who subscribes to the calendar (and has turned on their email notification settings). Each person has to choose their subscriptions and their notification settings themselves; no administrator can control that in any way. By aebrown

I am preparing for a training of all our Ward Presidencies in a few weeks. I have been in this calling (ward executive secretary) for a couple 2-3 years now and apparently have been working under a wrong concept. "I have been telling all the presidencies (maybe I was trained with this idea by the previous ward executive secretary) that the calendars in which they work has this neat little feature to send an e-mail notice to there organization members or group. I had assumed that if the member of that organization had an e-mail listed in his personal data that the organization calendar was designed to go out to only the individuals in that organization ie. Primary, deacons, YSA, Elders, Relief Society etc. I had this idea when we were migrating from the classic calendar to the present. I guess I had assumed that it had all been programed in to the ready Calendars of which we could choose from to activate. In reading the posts in the forums the notice goes out to anyone that is subscribed to e-mail notices regardless of the organization he or she is a member of.

• 1. Can you confirm what I have said is true? (anyone that is subscribe & e-mail notice)
  2. Can you explain how I have formed this idea?
  3. Is this a possibility to have the notices go to only the members of that organization? What would be wrong about that approach?
  4. Do you have any advise for me in my preparation for this training?

Thank You for all that you guys are doing.
Thayne Larsen

[failproof]

1- yes, anyone subscribed to that calendar, has turned on email notifications for that calendar, AND, the person who entered the event in the calendar chose the option at the bottom to send email notification either now or later for that event.
2- not sure how you got to your idea, but it is a nice thought. No work on my part, no work on your part, you'll automatically get a notice. Wouldn't we all like it to be that easy
3- The calendars are not tied to an organization by any mechanism or means. As long as they are created so that anyone in the unit can view them then anyone can view them and anyone that wants to get notified can turn that on or off for themselves.
4- I've done a few of these. They take more time than you think, so don't plan for 20 minutes, it's going to take 40 or more if you really want to show them how it works. Use the system live during the training if possible so they can see how it works, rather than presentation slides. Even better if they can log in at the same time with you on a laptop, tablet, phone, etc. and try it out for themselves. People just naturally learn better when they can see AND do rather than just see. Point people to the help (where there are some videos that show them how to do several things) and teach them not to be afraid of the help pages. They really can be helpful if you are willing to take a few minutes and use them.

[aebrown]

2. Can you explain how I have formed this idea?

Wards that have used the calendar's "Initial Setup" tool create default calendars will have calendars that are named after many organizations (e.g., Primary or Young Women) and that have default editors specified by callings associated with the respective organizations.

My guess is that somehow that connection between calendars and organizations (which is only the initial setting for those calendars created during the setup phase, and can be changed later) led you to believe that there was a tighter connection between organizations and calendars than there actually is.

3. Is this a possibility to have the notices go to only the members of that organization? What would be wrong about that approach?

It seems to me that that approach would send to both too many and too few people. Too many, because some members of the organization might prefer not to receive notifications; too few, because there are people such as parents of Primary children or wives of elders who would want to receive notifications for an organization's calendar, but are not actually members of that organization.

[1968leocomeeatabite]

Thank You so very much! I appreciate your speedy reply! I guess I can go on now and feel better about my much improved knowledge.