nbllds wrote:I've seen some other posts discuss this somewhat, but just for my own clarity - if you have a Resource Only calendar (which I think is my favorite approach I've seen so far), it cannot be a private calendar if you want to schedule resources with it, correct?
That's correct. As it says in the calendar help under
Make Your Calendar Private, "If you have a private calendar, you cannot reserve a location or resources for events on the calendar."
nbllds wrote: That being the case, if it is not a private calendar, then the Resource Only calendar will be subscribed by default to all users. Is there any way around this?
Not really. Each member can
Unsubscribe from a Calendar after they have been auto subscribed, but many members won't do that. They can also
Opt Out of Auto-Subscriptions. But since the auto subscriptions are turned on by default, and most members don't change that setting (most don't even know about it).
So the visibility of a resource-only calendar is certainly a bit of a drawback. The good news is that it's very easy to help someone who complains about it to unsubscribe and never be bothered by it again.
nbllds wrote: It would be nice to make it a transparent calendar that people don't get automatically subscribed to (I'm thinking specifically about the setup / take-down times here - nice not to automatically show those on everyone's calendar). Or am I missing something with this approach that would allow for this?
I don't think you're missing anything. I think it would be nice for a calendar administrator to be able to create a calendar and at creation time indicate that users should not be auto-subscribed. Such a feature would create a bit of tension between the setting where users say they do want to be auto-subscribed to all new calendars, but I think that this case alone justifies the addition of such a setting. This tension is really no different from the analogous situation where people request to be notified of new events or updates, but the calendar editor can choose not to send out notifications when an event is added or updated.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.