Questions about the calendar tool

Originally from a support ticket.

Hi,

A member of our church consistory wants to set up a shared Google

calendar but before she signs up, I wanted to see if our present website

could do something similar for her.  We only provide public events on

the present calendar and this member wants something separate and

private for consistory use. Here is her email:

At consistory we want to set up a google shared calendar to keep all the

events/building usage information. I will need to create a google

account for St. Paul's with an attached email address, then create a

calendar. I am toying with the ideas of having multiple calendars (with

all the data showing on one) to distinguish church meetings from maybe

Manny's hours or use of the building. I don't want to make it too

complicated.

Since consistory will be more involved in the "administative" side of

things we wanted the calendar to be viewable and editable (is there such

a word?) by all consistory members and I don't think we would want all

things visible to any viewer.  -

Question: In the calandar tool section after the month and year, there

is the catagory menu. Is it possible to create a customized scroll down

option under his menu so that this member can create something separate

from the public calendar that we have there now?  Also, is there a way

she could access just the calendar section by using a separate password?

  Looking forward to your advice.

Thanks,

Jackie

Hi Jackie,

Yes, you can pretty much everything (and possibly even more)! Once it is setup, we think you'll find it easy to manage and maintain, but it will take a bit to setup. I'm gong to give you a sketch of the setup, but if you need more step by step assistance, we are happy to provide that. (You can also live chat with us now, which may be very helpful as you set this up!)

Your Calendar Admin has unlimited categories, and these categories can indeed be used to create sections for certain groups of users, or internal items and kept separate from "public" calendars. It is important to understand that the Calendar Admin is one system, but the feeds (events/data) are controlled by categories. So in your situation, you would create a category for church meetings, and maybe an additional category as "consistory", etc.

Your calendar data (or feed) is controlled by the Page Level Tools - the tools that are on your pages in Site Manager. In those calendar tools, you would go in to the Properties menu to be sure that you have "Selected Categories" checked, instead of showing all. By choosing only selected categories, you are ensuring that your private events are not going to be seen on that particular calendar / page.

Next, you probably want to create a page (or pages) that only your admin and consistory members can view on your website. On these secure pages, you can add a calendar - only in this calendar tool, you'll setup the properties to be only those private event categories. This becomes an exclusive calendar just for those categories.

To setup secured web pages, you'll need to use your Members Database and the Groups functionality. I see that you are using your Members Database, but that you have no Groups currently. When you setup a Group, you can password protect - or secure - a web page to only that Group or Groups in the Members Database.

For example, in your Members Database (MDB), you may want to have a group called "Consistory", and then everyone in that group would be given access to a password protected page that had their calendar detail on it.

Now, there is also a mention of building use. Did you know that Site Manager also has a Facility Use Calendar that is connected with the Calendar Admin - and everything else within your site? I can see that you have no current facilities listed, so I'm thinking this may be news to you. :-)

The facilities allows you to add a particular facility to an event in the calendar and have it showing as "checked out". There's a few different setup options to this but mostly it is used with the Facility Use Calendar tool. Facilities can be whatever you would like - such as "Sanctuary", "Conference Room", "Youth Center", "Gym", and so forth. The facilities system allows for a basic request system that you can put online - so that members can request the use of a facility and website admin users can approve or deny those requests.

In conclusion, you can have:

• Unlimited individual calendars, dividing by unlimited categories, with any combination of categories showing, giving you full control of who sees what on what page 
• Password protected web page(s) where you can display calendars (and other content) for only certain groups in the Members Database 
• Facility Use, which can be added into the calendar as an add-on item or can be used as a separate calendar check-out type of system 
• The members of groups can also receive automatic weekly calendar emails for specific calendar categories (example: members group "consistory" can receive an auto-weekly email with events from the calendar category "consistory")

And you can do any of the above in scale to your needs.

Again, this is a bit to setup, but once setup, will be very easy to actually "run" and update. You are half-way there in the setup of several of these items above, and we are happy to assist you with any questions you have. To start with, you'll need to put some thought into what calendar categories you'll want, and then what members groups - and who is in what group. To that end, keep in mind that members can belong in multiple groups.