Calendar and room bookings

The calendar shows everything happening in your church: services, rehearsals, meetings and events. Service plans appear there by themselves, so you only add what isn't a service. Rooms and equipment are booked from an event, which keeps two groups out of the same room at the same time.

Find it under Planning → Calendar. What you can do depends on the Calendar permission:

• View (every built-in role): see the calendar and the rooms, subscribe on your phone.
• Edit (e.g. Leader): add and change events, ask for rooms.
• Manage (e.g. Administrator): rooms, resources, shared feeds, booking right away, deciding on requests.

The three small buttons at the top switch between the month grid, a list and Rooms.

Add an event

1. Click New event, or a day number in the month grid.
2. Fill in Title, Category and Starts. If you plan to book a room, fill in Ends too.
3. Add Location and Description if they help. Tick All day for an event without hours.
4. For a regular meeting, tick Repeat weekly and, if you like, set Repeat until.
5. Click Save.

A change to a repeating event applies to the whole series. You can't change one date on its own. Items marked Plan come from service plans and are read-only here: change them in Planning → Services.

Set up rooms and resources

You do this once, with Calendar: Manage. Click Rooms & resources.

1. On the Rooms tab, type a Room name (e.g. Main hall) and click +. On the Resources tab do the same for equipment (e.g. Portable PA, 9-seat minibus).
2. Next to a room, click the person icon (Room managers) and add the people who decide about it. A manager needs an account and access to the calendar. Without managers, requests go to people with Calendar: Manage.
3. Check Room bookings require approval at the top. It's on by default: leaders send a request and the room is booked once it's approved. When it's off, anyone with Calendar: Edit books straight away.
4. Optionally choose a Tech team. Its members can read the room setup notes.

Archive takes a room off the list.

Book a room

The Reservations section appears only in a saved event, so save first and open the event again. This works for services too: open the service in the calendar.

1. In Reservations, pick from Choose a room or resource….
2. Add a note if the manager should know something.
3. Need time to prepare? Click Room setup (before and after)… and fill in Setup before (min), Teardown after (min) (up to 240 each) and Room setup — note for the tech team. This time blocks the room as well.
4. Click Request. With Calendar: Manage, or when approvals are off, the button says Reserve and the room is booked at once. A room's manager also books their own room at once.

If the room is already booked, you'll see Already booked — conflicts with: and the event in the way. Other waiting requests only give you a warning.

Decide on requests

The people who decide get a push notification in the phone app. Without the app, an email goes only to accounts with a confirmed address, so check the calendar too.

1. In Planning → Calendar, click Requests to review. The number on the button shows how many are waiting. People with Calendar: Manage can filter by My rooms and All.
2. Click Approve, or Decline, type the reason (it's required) and click Decline request.

The person who asked is told the outcome.

See who has which room

Rooms shows one week, with a row for each room and resource. Solid blocks are booked, hatched ones wait for a decision, and a separate colour marks setup and teardown time. Click a block to open the event. Everyone with access to the calendar sees this view.

What to watch out for

• A booking doesn't repeat. It covers the first date of the event only, even with Repeat weekly ticked. Later weeks aren't held and Rooms shows nothing for them. If a room must be held every week, add a separate event for each date you want to book.
• Set an end time before you book. Without Ends, the booking has no length and other events can land on top of it.
• Moving an event. If the new time clashes, you'll see The new time clashes with reservations. Move anyway sends your bookings back to requests. Someone else's booking stays in place: ask the room's manager.
• Deleting an event. You can't delete an event with someone else's booking until the manager releases it.

The calendar on your phone or computer

Everyone can add a personal calendar with their serving and church events:

1. Click Subscribe, then Create my calendar link.
2. Click Add to Google Calendar or Apple Calendar, or copy the link. Step-by-step instructions also cover Outlook.

Sync goes one way: make changes in WorshipPro. Google can take several hours to show something new. The link works without signing in, so keep it to yourself. Change link replaces it and the old one stops working at once. Turn off removes it.

A shared feed for the whole church or one team is added with Calendar: Manage: Rooms & resources → iCal feeds, type a Feed name, choose Whole church or Team, click +, then copy the link with the copy icon. A whole-church feed holds every event with its description and location, and anyone with the link can read it. Think before you put it on a public page. A team feed holds only the services that team serves at.

In the phone app

On iPhone, iPad and Android, open Church → Calendar. You'll see the month, event details and any bookings. Add to my calendar saves a one-time copy to your phone, and later changes won't reach it. Subscribe in Calendar adds the live version. With Calendar: Edit you can also add events with New event.

Rooms are set up and booked only in the browser. The Android app can also decide on Room requests. On iPhone and iPad, decide in the browser.

What's next

• Service plans and serving rosters
• My serving: responding and blockout dates