Double-booking Hazard if "Blocked" was used on "Resource Assignment" Screen

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jbb89777
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Double-booking Hazard if "Blocked" was used on "Resource Assignment" Screen

#1

Post by jbb89777 »

Is anyone else experiencing this? Do you have any work arounds?

I am the StakeWeb Admin. We are trying to use the reservation system on the new calendar pages but the "Resource Assignment" calendar that the building schedulers are using is not interfacing/talking with the regular calendar where the auxiliary leaders can reserve rooms. This is an intermittent problem. When a building scheduler sets a certain room as "Blocked" (for a funeral, wedding, etc) it should prevent anyone else from scheduling that room. However, it is not always preventing this. In my testing on Sunday, the system was allowing auxiliary leaders to book a room that was assigned to "blocked"...huge problem.

Because of the potential disasters with this double-booking glitch, we are unable to let our auxiliary leaders/calendar editors reserve rooms online. They have to go through the buildingschedulers still. This is very inconvenient and deters auxiliaries from even bothering to use the website for calendaring.

Possible work around: If private calendars are going to be able to reserve rooms soon (as recent pop-ups on the site suggest), then Iwould just have my building schedulers use a private calendar to reserve rooms for all of the events that would normally be entered on the "Resource Assignments" screen. (When testing, I also try to force conflicts on the main calendar page. The conflict box correctly appears with the correct conflict information as long as it is on the main calendar page -NOT the "Resource Assignments".)
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aebrown
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#2

Post by aebrown »

jbb89777 wrote:the "Resource Assignment" calendar that the building schedulers are using is not interfacing/talking with the regular calendar where the auxiliary leaders can reserve rooms. This is an intermittent problem. When a building scheduler sets a certain room as "Blocked" (for a funeral, wedding, etc) it should prevent anyone else from scheduling that room. However, it is not always preventing this. In my testing on Sunday, the system was allowing auxiliary leaders to book a room that was assigned to "blocked"...huge problem.

I have never seen this problem, and am unable to duplicate it in my testing. Some things to check (some of these may seem obvious, but every detail needs to be checked):
  1. Is the resource that is blocked on the Resource Assignments page the exact same resource that an auxiliary leader is attempting to schedule?
  2. Is the time the exact same (or overlapping) time?
  3. Does the person who is attempting to schedule have Building Scheduler permissions? (if so, they can indeed schedule an event with no conflict)
  4. What do you mean by "intermittent"? Does it affect some people, but not others? Or can a particular calendar editor try to schedule a blocked resource and be told there is a conflict, but try the exact same operation at a later time and be allowed to schedule it?
jbb89777 wrote:Possible work around: If private calendars are going to be able to reserve rooms soon (as recent pop-ups on the site suggest), then Iwould just have my building schedulers use a private calendar to reserve rooms for all of the events that would normally be entered on the "Resource Assignments" screen.
I suppose that might be possible, but if this really is a bug, I would certainly hope that it would be fixed no later than the ability is added to reserve resources on private calendars. That would make the work around unnecessary. And there really is no need for a private calendar (although it would be a little less obvious) -- if you want to do this workaround, you could do it right now with a public calendar that you create for just this purpose.
jbb89777 wrote:(When testing, I also try to force conflicts on the main calendar page. The conflict box correctly appears with the correct conflict information as long as it is on the main calendar page -NOT the "Resource Assignments".)
This parenthetical comment makes me wonder if we have all the facts. Why do you say that you "also try to force conflicts on the main calendar page"? That's the only place that really makes sense -- the building scheduler blocks out a time on the Resource Assignments page, and so that when calendar editors try to schedule events on the main calendar page, they are told there is a conflict. In the original scenario, you said that auxiliary leaders are sometimes able to schedule blocked resources with no conflicts. But auxiliary leaders should only have access to the main calendar page; if they have access to the Resource Assignments page, then that is clearly the source of the problem -- they have too many permissions to be blocked.
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russellhltn
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#3

Post by russellhltn »

I'm not sure of the problem, but I do see a terminology issue here.

In the calendar system, a "reservation" simply reserves a resource for a particular unit. It only blocks attempts to schedule it by other units. It does not "block" the resource from being scheduled by the unit it's reserved for, or from other building schedulers.

If you're trying to "block" the room by using the "reservation" function, that's the problem. In order to "block" a room, you will have to enter an event on a public calendar.


You can read more about how it's designed to work here.
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jdlessley
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#4

Post by jdlessley »

jbb89777 wrote: Possible work around: If private calendars are going to be able to reserve rooms soon (as recent pop-ups on the site suggest)...
Editors of private calendars should not be able to reserve resources. If they can this is a bug. This would not be a good idea since private calendars are just that - private. Not even approvers nor the building scheduler can view or edit private calendars unless they have been added by the calendar creator as an editor or viewer. If a building scheduler can not view or edit a private calendar and resources can be reserved from within a private calendar then the building scheduler will have their hands tied in resolving conflicts or even managing the location resources.
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russellhltn
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#5

Post by russellhltn »

jdlessley wrote:Editors of private calendars should not be able to reserve resources.

Welllll, there does need to be a better way of handing private events. By default members are subscribed to all public calendars. But they don't need to see privately scheduled events such as weddings, family parties, etc.

What's needed is a semi-private calendar that's visible to leadership and building schedulers and can reserve resources.

Edit: It appears this can be done on the resource calendar itself.
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aebrown
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#6

Post by aebrown »

jdlessley wrote:Editors of private calendars should not be able to reserve resources. If they can this is a bug. This would not be a good idea since private calendars are just that - private. Not even approvers nor the building scheduler can view or edit private calendars unless they have been added by the calendar creator as an editor or viewer. If a building scheduler can not view or edit a private calendar and resources can be reserved from within a private calendar then the building scheduler will have their hands tied in resolving conflicts or even managing the location resources.
It's true that private calendars don't currently allow resources to be reserved. But it's also true that the popup displayed upon login to the calendar did say at one point that reserving resources on private calendars was a feature that would be coming at some point. It is certainly not inconceivable that a feature could be designed to allow resources to be tied to private calendar events, but still preserve privacy. Yes there would be challenges to working out conflicts while preserving privacy, but it's a significant problem to prohibit resource reservation for private calendars, too.

In any case, that is a side issue from the topic of this thread. I see no reason to even consider private calendars as a workaround for the issue that is the topic of this thread -- if the reported problem truly exists, let's narrow it down, get it reported, and hope it gets fixed soon. That's much better than discussing a hypothetical workaround.
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jdlessley
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#7

Post by jdlessley »

RussellHltn wrote:In the calendar system, a "reservation" simply reserves a resource for a particular unit.
I think you are referring to an assignment. There are three terms used in managing resources - reserve, assign, and block. Sometimes those terms are interchangeably used even at the calendar help site.

A reservation is made when a calendar event is made and resources are selected for a location. This assumes that the location and resources selected are not reserved through another event reservation, assignment to another unit, or blocked as described below.

An assignment is made when the building scheduler assigns a location or resource(s) to a unit for a specified time period. The editors of the unit for which the location or resources have been assigned are the ones who can then schedule events using that location or resources. All others will get a conflict notice when attempting to reserve that location or resources.

A building scheduler can block a location or resource for a specific location or resources for a specified time. This prevents anyone other than the building scheduler from scheduling that location or resource.

In helping the OP with the issue described I think we need to make sure the correct definitions are being used.
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aebrown
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#8

Post by aebrown »

RussellHltn wrote:If you're trying to "block" the room by using the "reservation" function, that's the problem. In order to "block" a room, you will have to enter an event on a public calendar.

That's not true. The Resource Assignments page does allow the building scheduler to assign a resource to a particular unit so that only that unit can schedule an event that uses that resource at that time. But it also has a status of "Blocked" that prevents any unit from scheduling an event that uses that resource at that time.

It is this feature that is being discussed. It allows blocking without scheduling an event on a public calendar. Only a building scheduler can schedule an event for the blocked resource during the specified time.
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russellhltn
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#9

Post by russellhltn »

Yup. Terminology problem - mine. I removed the erroneous post.
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jbb89777
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#10

Post by jbb89777 »

Thank you for the responses. Let me emphasize that I am in the testing phase and as the stake web admin I am charged with figuring out this new calendar - all the pros and cons - and teaching it to our stake. I have been testing the site by putting dummy 'Blocked" assignments on the building schedulers "Resource Assignments" screen. Then I go in to the main calendar and put an event in the same resource at the same date & time. In the past, the system has caught the potential double-booking and sent the conflict message saying I could not save the event because the resource I wanted was assigned to "blocked". I got this correct message as of last Friday.

On Sunday, I was testing it one last time before I presented the info to stake and ward leaders and the calendar was NOT sending a conflict message when I tried to double-book something. For teaching purposes during my presentation, I was going to create an event in the regular calendar that I knew would conflict with a resource that was already assigned to "blocked". That way everyone would see the message that is generated by the site when the building has been assigned for a funeral, wedding, etc. I tested this on several "blocked" assignments...meaning I tried to schedule events as a regular calendar editor would and every time I entered an event on a calendar that I knew would conflict with a "blocked" assignment, the system would let me schedule the event. If this happened in reality, I would have a disaster on my hands because a resource assigned to "blocked" would not prevent anyone from scheduling the same resource for the same date & time.

I just tried again to schedule an event on a regular auxiliary calendar that I know conflicts with a resource that is assigned to "blocked" on the "Resource Assignments" screen and it is letting me double-book the resource.

Can anyone else duplicate this?
Your help would be greatly appreciated!
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