New Ward, Stake Calendar on ChurchofJesusChrist.org Easier to Use
Contributed By Camille West, ChurchofJesusChrist.org Church News
ChurchofJesusChrist.org Calendar 2.7’s improvements and new training resources will help building schedulers, leaders, and members more easily use the calendar to schedule and keep track of ward and stake events.
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A new version of the ChurchofJesusChrist.org calendar makes scheduling and keeping track of ward and stake events easier for leaders and families.
The last major calendar release was in 2011. The newest version, Calendar 2.7, was released November 27 in 11 languages. According to product manager David Crockett, improvements and new training resources will help building schedulers, leaders, and members more easily use the calendar.
Building Schedulers
Each building now has its own calendar, available only to the assigned building scheduler. To see the name of the assigned building scheduler, simply click on the name of the building displayed on the left side of the screen. “Some people think only the ward building scheduler is supposed to manage the ward calendar,” said Brother Crockett. “But they mainly schedule the building for funerals, ward cleaning assignments, and other family events, not events for the ward and stake organizations. Ward and stake ward leaders can reserve the building themselves when they put an event on their calendar.”
Leaders
Creating events and scheduling buildings and other stake resources is now faster and easier than ever. Simply select the + sign in the top right corner or click on the day for which you want to schedule an event.
Fill in the boxes with the appropriate information for the event. As leaders begin to plan and schedule 2015 activities, now is a good time to learn how easy it is to get their organization’s events on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org calendar.
A series of one-page quick reference guides introduces users to the calendar and provides basic information for each role.
All members of the ward and stake council and their counselors are responsible for and have rights in ChurchofJesusChrist.org Calendar to schedule events for their organizations. Creating events and scheduling buildings and other stake resources is now faster and easier than ever. Simply select the + sign in the top right corner and fill in the boxes with the appropriate information.
When there are scheduling conflicts, the leader trying to schedule the event receives information to help resolve the conflict. All of this can be accomplished without contacting the building scheduler, Brother Crockett said.
One highly requested improvement gives leaders access to multiple calendars. For example, a high counselor can now view the calendars of all the wards in the stake. Full-time missionaries can see calendars for the units they are assigned to. And out-of-unit leaders, such as those serving in young single adult wards, can now see the calendar where they are serving as well as their home ward.
Members
The latest calendar release makes it easier for members to subscribe to the calendars they are interested in viewing. Parents may choose to see the calendars for their children’s youth groups to stay informed about upcoming activities, Brother Crockett said. “And for parents trying to schedule family vacations, having all ward and stake youth events visible in one place can be very helpful,” he said.
When members want to add an event to one of the ward or stake calendars, they just need to contact a member of the ward or stake council, Brother Crockett said. Selecting dates and printing a calendar is easier too. Members and leaders can print a PDF showing scheduled activities by month, week, or agenda (day).
New Training Materials
“Anyone with an LDS Account can use the calendar, said Brother Crockett. “It’s easy to use.” To access the calendars for your ward and stake, go to ChurchofJesusChrist.org and sign in using your LDS Account username and password, then select Calendar from the drop-down menu.
Because leaders are starting to plan and schedule 2015 activities, now is a good time to learn how easy it is to get their organization’s events on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org calendar, Brother Crockett said.
Updated help files make it easy to learn how to create a calendar event. Simply click on the question mark in the top right corner, or open and print the quick reference guide for your calling.
New PowerPoint presentations can be used to train calendar editors (all ward and stake leaders and building schedulers). [See training PDFs.]
The calendar can be used for more than scheduling rooms in meetinghouses, Brother Crockett said. Organization and auxiliary leaders can create calendar events for activities that take place in members’ homes, schedule dates for youth camps, and reserve any resource that needs to be coordinated—such as a stake ball field or picnic bowery.
Wards can schedule Christmas parties, temple nights, and food drives. A ward mission leader can use the calendar to schedule meals or splits for missionaries serving in their ward. Stakes can schedule family history conferences, preparedness fairs, mission prep classes, institute classes, temple recommend interview times, and baptisms, plus include any instructions and even URL links in the event description. “There are many possible uses,” Brother Crockett said.
