The busy parish schedule
A busy church has many schedule details to coordinate. They need a simple, consistent way to manage the many events on the calendar, communicate schedules, and keep everyone updated with event details.
In the past, the parish team used a Google calendar to handle the church calendar. However, the visual limitations of the Google calendar were a big motivation for them to find a different calendar solution. While the calendar admin of the Google cal saw all events in colored blocks, the same visual distinction did not carry over to other calendar users. When the calendar was shared with others, or embedded into their website, the colored blocks changed to colored text lines for events scheduled for a particular time.
Since they have many sub-calendars for various types of events, groups, and programs, the color-coding was an important feature. The quick visual orientation made it easier for everyone to find the pertinent items on the calendar. They decided to make the switch to Teamup calendar to keep the calendar view color-coordinated for everyone.
The Solution
Color-coded sub-calendars for ease of use
With over 40 colors to use, it’s easy to create a bright and color-coded Teamup calendar. And the visual appearance stays the same: from the calendar admin view, to the view of non-admin calendar users, to the embedded calendar (above). Individual sub-calendars are organized inside folders. This makes it easier for calendar admins and users to show or hide the sub-calendars they wish to see, by expanding or collapsing the parent folder.
Community submitted events and approval process
Along with color-coding, the church calendar uses a simple approval system. This way, anyone can submit an event, but it goes through a simple approval process before it is shown on the public calendar.
- One sub-calendar is designated for submitting events. To submit an event, there is a special calendar link with Add-only, no details access permission to the sub-calendar for submitting events, and read-only permission for all other calendars. This calendar link is available in the About box in the sidebar of the embedded calendar.
- A custom event field designates each event’s locations inside the parish buildings and rooms. People who are submitting events can request a reservation of the room or space needed for their event.
- Note: this method doesn’t work well for cases with need to prevent overlapping events. In that case, using sub-calendars to designate event location is a better choice. Read more: Use Teamup for Simple Appointment and Space Booking
- Another custom event field is used to collect email address for people who submit events, so they can receive confirmation when their events are published to the calendar.
