Tech Forum

Remember, this thread is about best practices.

kisaac wrote:It's not a "member" -"non-member" issue, as the news reports will verify...

Based on what you are saying then there should be no activities. If an activity is scheduled, publicized or not, then someone who is not invited might stop by - say a bishop or branch president. Love, common sense, parental involvement, and proper communication should be exercised in all things.

Someone else mentioned non-member spouse. Unless the parents are separated and/or divorced this is less an issue, as the non-member could use the same computer and browser as the member, and won't have to register.

In all cases, the best practice is to communicate the needed information to the proper people involved, in as few words as possible, in the best manner. Anyone can write a five hundred word essay, and might find it easier to write a five thousand word business proposal, yet who can write a three word slogan? The 500 word essay you have to think a fair amount, while the proposal you are flushing, and fluffing, things out, to give it volume. Think of two of the most remembered slogans, Nike's "Just do it" and Mountain Dew's "Do the Dew". The ads where targeted to a select audience, and made it easy to remember. The slogan "Coke ads life" is easier to remember than "Have a Coke and a smile". The lesson here is to keep things short, to the point, and get it to the attended recipient.

Not every tool is going to be right for every job in every case. Just because it is not the correct tool for one job does not mean it is not the correct tool for another job, and should be tossed out. Know the tools available, know how to use them, or know a person that can use them for you, and know when to use them, or not to. An example would be a hammer and a jack hammer. A hammer can do a lot around the house, yet you would not use it to tear up a drive way or road, and you might not know how to use the jack hammer to do so. Just because you don't know how to use a jack hammer, and you don't need it to hang a picture, doesn't mean it is not a valid tool that can't be considered for another project, such as road and utility repairs. An understanding of the problem and the tools available helps a lot.

Parental involvement, common sense, love, and communication are the best ways to help make thing safe for all. Love for your fellow human being helps a lot as well. Christ said love thy neighbor as yourself, and as I have loved you, and you shall be known by your love for one and another. Love, unity, common sense, parental involvement, and communication - those should be the guiding forces here. Don't rule out the ward or stake calendar out of ignorance or because you are paranoid.

Awev wrote:Remember, this thread is about best practices.....

Don't rule out the ward or stake calendar out of ignorance or because you are paranoid.

Unsure what to say here, but....Ouch!

Every ward is unique, with many ideas to explore as we all march ahead with these cool, new tools. The best practices we state here are really only ideas to attack the different challenges we face...lets not attack the ideas!

Alan_Brown wrote:The conversation about this option was clearly labeled as a means for solving a real-world problem with the calendar as it exists at this point in time.

Ah. Well, then, hm.
I guess I missed that and took this to be another of the many feedback/brainstorming threads. Sorry

It would be nice if there was a roll called "Ward Member" or something similar like that. That way units that want to allow anyone to submit to a calendar could do so.

As we get notified when there are submissions, we would prefer to be more open on who can submit events. Listing all the roles assigned to the primary for the primary calendar is painful for example.

Is there anyone working towards this?

Since we're moving away from just one, general calendar I don't yet see the need to create very many new calendars. For example, I created just one calendar for Youth Events and one for Youth Leadership events (presidency meetings and Bishop's Youth Council). If an event has a good name like "Deacons Quorum Service Project" then the Young Women can breeze past it without being annoyed that it's sharing space on their calendar.

Based on how they were using (or neglecting to use) the full potential of the old calendar, I think it will be a long, long time before the Deacons will really need their own calendar anyway.

So, in my case, there are separate "event" calendars for Youth, Relief Society, Melchizedek Priesthood and Primary. Then there are separate "leadership event" calendars for presidencies and group leaders of those organizations. Apart from that, I have a calendar for members of the Ward Council, for the Bishopric, for General Ward Events and for "Civic Events" like the first day of school or legal holidays. That's 12 calendars and that really feels like the right thing for our ward at this time. There's nothing that needs to appear on more than one calendar and, again, I can't see where the scouts would be offended to see "Girls Camp" appearing on the Youth Events calendar.

I am anxiously awaiting an all-new design of the Ward Web Site so that we can put the lesson schedules and "news and announcements" in a logical place rather than having them all appear on different calendars. Those things are fairly well placed now on the "classic" ward web site but it annoys me that I have to sign in again to see that site. So, any word on when I can expect a new Ward web site properly integrated into the new LDS.org?

TimRiker wrote:It would be nice if there was a roll called "Ward Member" or something similar like that. That way units that want to allow anyone to submit to a calendar could do so.

As we get notified when there are submissions, we would prefer to be more open on who can submit events. Listing all the roles assigned to the primary for the primary calendar is painful for example.

Is there anyone working towards this?

On the Known Limitations page, it says:

The calendar does not offer a "Submit Event" button because in the new model, everyone can potentially be a calendar editor with publish rights. However, this feature will eventually be added.

So it's a known limitation that will "eventually" be fixed, but there is no specific plan mentioned.

GregAnderson wrote:So, in my case, there are separate "event" calendars for Youth, Relief Society, Melchizedek Priesthood and Primary. Then there are separate "leadership event" calendars for presidencies and group leaders of those organizations.

GregAnderson wrote: There's nothing that needs to appear on more than one calendar and, again, I can't see where the scouts would be offended to see "Girls Camp" appearing on the Youth Events calendar.

If that works for you then great. It does keep it simpler.

My main question is how does it handle times when there are two events at the same time? Like Girls Camp the same week as Scout camp? I'm not arguing against it, just trying to understand if it will handle some cases.

ryan jones wrote:If that works for you then great. It does keep it simpler.

My main question is how does it handle times when there are two events at the same time? Like Girls Camp the same week as Scout camp? I'm not arguing against it, just trying to understand if it will handle some cases.

Our stake is doing a similar thing -- we just have a single youth events calendar.

The calendar handles multiple events at the same time just fine, whether they are on the same calendar or not. The only reason there would be a conflict is if two events try to schedule the same resource for the same time, but that's a problem whether the conflicting events are on the same or different calendars.

GregAnderson wrote:Since we're moving away from just one, general calendar I don't yet see the need to create very many new calendars. For example, I created just one calendar for Youth Events and one for Youth Leadership events (presidency meetings and Bishop's Youth Council).

Yes, we began that way as well. But, as those organizations that were already keeping calendars in some other way for their events recognized the new system as a way to keep their calendars AND distribute them to parents, provide email reminders, etc, they wanted to move them to the new system.

I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong in their decisions on how many calendars, I just see the issues in our ward that are, as yet, un-resolved, because this is all new to us and we each are "guessing" as to the "best practices" here.

My thought was also for one youth calendar. However, each young men's organization wanted one, because they wanted to replace their current calendar tracking all their detailed stuff. The deacons/scouts track who is giving Sunday lessons, the topics for weekly mutual, the Sunday sacrament and set-up assignments, presidency meetings, BYC, Basketball practices and games, etc.

The Teacher and Priests each have their own things to track, and generally do not duplicate the deacons/scouts. How could one YOUTH calendar hold all this and still be understandable, including the YW?

Another example: I created one Primary calendar:
However, our webelos den keeps a separate calendar detailing each weekly meeting and the topic, and so do the bears and wolves. That's three calendars...So do the activity days girls. 11 year old scouts? yes. That's five. While I may want ONE primary calendar, each of these calendars are already maintained someplace, because they get sent home with my children- yet I really want to "lump" them under the "primary" umbrella.

The leaders may want it differently. Do I constrict them to only using the primary calendar? In other words, do I tell them we have a really cool new calendar system, with unlimited calendars, but they must all use the main primary calendar, or continue using whatever third party calendar system they are using now?

I really haven't decided what is the "best practices" here, and am throwing this out for discussion....Until we the ability for an event to show on several calendars, the way it is now, BYC must show on at least three of our calendars for all to see it who need to see it....the same would be said for Cub Pack meeting, and Court of Honor's, etc.

kisaac wrote:I really haven't decided what is the "best practices" here, and am throwing this out for discussion....

I think the best way is to sit down with the leaders and explain the pros and cons of the different methods and see what works best for your ward.

kisaac wrote:Until we the ability for an event to show on several calendars, the way it is now, BYC must show on at least three of our calendars for all to see it who need to see it....the same would be said for Cub Pack meeting, and Court of Honor's, etc.

That's one way to do it. The other is to have a combined calendar AND a separate calendar. The combined events go on the combined calendar and the individual events goes on the individual calendars. It's up to the users to subscribe to both - just like it's their responsibility to subscribe to all the other calendars that affect them.

I think the key to figuring out the best way is to make a list of all the things you/they want placed on the calendar. If there's hardly any individual stuff, then a single calendar that covered several groups is best. If there's hardly any combined stuff, then there probably isn't a need for a separate combined calendar.