Calendar - Building / Room Reservation Help Request

Discussions about the Calendar Tool at lds.org. Questions about the calendar on the classic site should be posted in the LUWS forum.
craigbc
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Calendar - Building / Room Reservation Help Request

#1

Post by craigbc »

Hello,

I have read the wiki and the many comments on this forum on scheduling (reserving) buildings/rooms. I am hoping that someone can help me.

As a stake we are struggling with the calendars and building scheduling in our stake. I, and others, have read and re-read the calendar wiki and these boards hoping for insight. Reserving buildings and rooms is creating a mess for us. The last thought we have had is to block out the buildings but this doesn't seem right.

Before the new calendar we had custom building scheduling forms that were filled out by individuals and turned into the building scheduler. The building scheduler then reserved the building or rooms. If there were conflicts, they would contact the individuals and leaders and resolve them. A large calendar was located in the foyer of the buildings so all could see. This system worked very well.

Along came the new calendar and now we have all kinds of people reserving buildings/rooms electronically. For example, one group of men scheduled basketball games and reserved the cultural hall on weekday evenings for the year locking out the Relief Society and other organizations. Others are doing similar things. The calendar is "first in" with no review of the activity. It has become unmanageable and is creating problems between members, organizations, and wards.

What is the proper way to set up and administer building/room reservations?
Gary_Miller
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Re: Calendar - Building / Room Reservation Help Request

#2

Post by Gary_Miller »

I suggest you read the help section in the calendar. Pay close attention to administrator roles, editor roles and the difference between reservations and events. There are also some video training clips as well. All this should give you the information and understanding of how the calendar works and how to set up restrictions (reservations) in order to avoid the problems you have mentioned.
jdlessley
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Re: Calendar - Building / Room Reservation Help Request

#3

Post by jdlessley »

craigbc wrote:What is the proper way to set up and administer building/room reservations?
Those with rights and roles in the Calendar system should understand the Calendar system as well as their rights & roles. The information, as has been pointed out by Gary-Miller, in the Calendar Help is quite detailed about the system. Included in the help documentation is information about rights and roles for administrators, editors, and building schedulers.
craigbc wrote:Along came the new calendar and now we have all kinds of people reserving buildings/rooms electronically.
Only those with editor rights can schedule events. If there are people with edit rights who shouldn't, then those with administrator rights have not put serious thought into who should be editors and have given, or allowed to be given by other editors, the wrong people those rights. Designate an administrator (website administrator perhaps?) to review those given editor rights regularly.

There will be situations where a group, such as the Elders Quorum, schedules basketball before other organizations can schedule their ecclesiastical events. That is where a building scheduler, or even an administrator for some situations, can step in to ensure the priorities established in Handbook 2, 21.2, are followed, or ask for accommodation from those with recurring events, such as the basketball scenario, as necessary.
craigbc wrote:The calendar is "first in" with no review of the activity.
Carefully selecting those who can be editors as well as ensuring they are trained and understand local scheduling policies can reduce the problems with this. When possible and practical, organizations should plan annual activities before the year begins. This is required for budget planning (see Handbook 1). This is also where the ward council should be involved. Reviewing monthly, quarterly, semi annual, and annual activities plans can help, at least at the ward level, reduce or minimize unnecessary scheduling conflicts.

Conflicts can be reduced through the judicious use of reservations (more appropriately called restrictions). Note the term reservations as used in the Calendar system does not have the same definition commonly used when making reservations at a hotel or other commercial enterprise. A more appropriate term is restriction. See the Calendar Help for more information about reservations.

Another difference between the traditional single point of scheduling prviously used by many units in the past and the online Calendar distributed scheduling model is the function of the building schduler position. Instead of actually scheduling events, a building scheduler creates and manages restrictions (currently called reservations) and acts as a mediator for conflicts or other scheduling issues between units.
JD Lessley
Have you tried finding your answer on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org Help Center or Tech Wiki?
russellhltn
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Re: Calendar - Building / Room Reservation Help Request

#4

Post by russellhltn »

craigbc wrote:For example, one group of men scheduled basketball games and reserved the cultural hall on weekday evenings for the year locking out the Relief Society and other organizations.
"A group of men"? As the others have pointed out, who is the editor and why do they have rights? EQ, yes, I can understand. But "a group of men"? Why do they have a calendar and editor rights?

Keep in mind that as a admin, especially if you have building scheduler rights, you can edit any pre-existing events to make room for other users. Of course you should communicate those changes to the users, but you don't need their cooperation to make the changes.
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craigbc
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Re: Calendar - Building / Room Reservation Help Request

#5

Post by craigbc »

All,

Thank you for your input. We will re-read the all the help information again. The problem may be those who have editing rights. Ward leadership have been given editing rights. As such, it is easy to find someone with the rights to reserve a room for you. The key for us may be that all leaders should be able to schedule meetings but only a small group be given the rights to reserve a room or building. I don't know if this is how the system works but will find out.
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Re: Calendar - Building / Room Reservation Help Request

#6

Post by russellhltn »

craigbc wrote:Ward leadership have been given editing rights. As such, it is easy to find someone with the rights to reserve a room for you. The key for us may be that all leaders should be able to schedule meetings but only a small group be given the rights to reserve a room or building.
Were they all given the rights to a single ward calendar? Typically a EQ President would be given editing rights to a EQ calendar, an RS President would be given rights to a RS calendar, etc. That way if any scheduler anything, it shows on there calendar as a ward activity.

And BTW, the rights to schedule a meeting are inseparable from the rights to schedule a room - as it should be, because you don't want to have to go though someone everything a meeting is set up or changed to get a room.

I think bottom line, someone is going to have to break out the 12" wooden ruler and rap some knuckles. Set down the rules and expectations not let anyone do "whatever". If they still don't tow the line, then they should have their editing privileged revoked.
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Gary_Miller
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Re: Calendar - Building / Room Reservation Help Request

#7

Post by Gary_Miller »

russellhltn wrote:I think bottom line, someone is going to have to break out the 12" wooden ruler and rap some knuckles. Set down the rules and expectations not let anyone do "whatever". If they still don't tow the line, then they should have their editing privileged revoked.
Want really needs to happen in the organizations need to schedule their events on the calendar and not expect that they automatically have the building/room. No event on the calendar means that the building/room is available to anyone. I'm just waiting for the day when one of the wards walk in thinking they had the gym for an event, but did not book the building, and someone, who booked the building, is in the gym playing ball. That will be the happiest day of my life, because that will be the day that everyone wakes up and starts taking the calendar seriously.
russellhltn
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Re: Calendar - Building / Room Reservation Help Request

#8

Post by russellhltn »

Gary_Miller wrote:Want really needs to happen in the organizations need to schedule their events on the calendar and not expect that they automatically have the building/room. No event on the calendar means that the building/room is available to anyone.
While that's a problem, that seems to me to be the opposite problem from the OP. The organization wants to schedule the event, but finds that it's booked by someone playing ball. They need to appeal to an authority figure who can fix that.
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Gary_Miller
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Re: Calendar - Building / Room Reservation Help Request

#9

Post by Gary_Miller »

russellhltn wrote:While that's a problem, that seems to me to be the opposite problem from the OP. The organization wants to schedule the event, but finds that it's booked by someone playing ball. They need to appeal to an authority figure who can fix that.
Its called planning ahead every organization has the responsibility of planning their schedule ahead of time. No one organization is exempt form planning ahead. The OP biggest complaint was:
craigbc wrote:For example, one group of men scheduled basketball games and reserved the cultural hall on weekday evenings for the year locking out the Relief Society and other organizations. Others are doing similar things.
I find it hard to believe this is just a group of men who are getting together and just playing ball,although that does happen, I also find it hard to believe that its every night. Its more likely that it the stake/ward sports director setting up the practice/game schedules which they have a responsibility to do.

Organizations need to plan ahead and place their events on the calendar well in advance especially if its a recurring event. No longer can an organization expect to have a standard night of the month if they don't book the event in advance on the online calendar. For instance if the RS has a monthly meeting they need to book a recurring event on the calendar reserving the rooms they need so that others can place events around their recurring event.

The calendar has become a first in product with the activity review being at the organizational level and while some may not like the way things are scheduled because they think their event is more important than someone else s, its really all comes down to who planned ahead and who placed their event on the calendar first. At times there maybe conflicts do to the need of a special meeting that could not be planned ahead of time when that happens then the leadership of the ward should be able to solve the conflict. However, a failer to plan is not a conflict.
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johnshaw
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Re: Calendar - Building / Room Reservation Help Request

#10

Post by johnshaw »

Gary_Miller wrote:I find it hard to believe this is just a group of men who are getting together and just playing ball,although that does happen, I also find it hard to believe that its every night. Its more likely that it the stake/ward sports director setting up the practice/game schedules which they have a responsibility to do.
This is not very hard for me to understand, however, as other pointed out, it seems to me that the reservations calendar and the beginning of the year planning should've already accounted for this. If the RS should have the building scheduled every 3rd Thursday, they they should lock that out with a reservation, regardless of a planned activity, if a ward should have the entire building from 5pm to 9pm on Wednesday and a different ward on Tuesday that should all be pre-reserved through the entire year.

Then the 'group of men' who reserved the cultural center for basketball can schedule appropriately. And they should be able to.

In each and every case, an ecclesiastical purpose (ward/aux function) trumps anything like a group of men playing basketball.

Someone needs to cancel that basketball event, go through and get all the ward pieces put in the calendar and then let that 'group of men' back in and see where they can fit their games in.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense
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