Nonprofit seeks free cloud based shared password protected calendar
May 9, 2018 8:01 AM Subscribe
The community darkroom I'm involved with needs a better way to schedule darkroom time. We would like people to be able to add their own time reservations to a shared calendar but not write over any currently existing reservations. We also need to be able to pull and restore access via, I guess, a password system. And all this needs to be smartphone accessible. Is it out there?
Difficulty level: we have no money, like, none. Currently we use a Google calendar that requires members to contact an administrator and the administrator to change the calendar. Nobody has time for this and the system has broken down.
How the darkroom works is that members sign up for access to the darkroom facilities on a monthly basis. A lot of people will sign up for a month when they have a lot of work to do, work intensively, then go away for a few months. Every month we send out an email to everyone who has signed up with the new door lock codes. We could add a calendar password to that. As it stands now, each member - not a whole lot of people, usually between 5 and 10 at the most - is supposed to fill out a web form for their requested darkroom time which also asks what they're doing. Then an administrator reviews the request, theoretically on a very timely basis, and adds their time to the Google calendar. Supposedly the member isn't cleared to work until their name appears on the calendar on the website.
This used to make sense when we were in a larger space with more scheduling variables and a super dedicated director. In the new space, which is smaller, it's pretty much one person at a time using the darkroom and there isn't really a director per se anymore, just a couple of extremely busy volunteers. So there isn't really any reason people couldn't just add their own times to a shared calendar. However, we are reluctant to just hand over all control to everyone. Some things like classes take precedence over individual darkroom time and of course we would want to make sure that nobody can erase anybody else's reservation.
None of us are very techy. OK, actually, none of us are at all techy. And the person who set up the website is long gone and nobody is updating it (I am about to take that over or possibly we're going to just scrap it and make a new one) and, anyway, all thoughts are welcome! The current system is here. Before you click that be warned that we are having another problem where the website sometimes redirects to something that looks unpleasant, so there's that too. I think it should be okay here clicking from a link - I think it's the .org vs. .com thing? - but I do not actually know.
Difficulty level: we have no money, like, none. Currently we use a Google calendar that requires members to contact an administrator and the administrator to change the calendar. Nobody has time for this and the system has broken down.
How the darkroom works is that members sign up for access to the darkroom facilities on a monthly basis. A lot of people will sign up for a month when they have a lot of work to do, work intensively, then go away for a few months. Every month we send out an email to everyone who has signed up with the new door lock codes. We could add a calendar password to that. As it stands now, each member - not a whole lot of people, usually between 5 and 10 at the most - is supposed to fill out a web form for their requested darkroom time which also asks what they're doing. Then an administrator reviews the request, theoretically on a very timely basis, and adds their time to the Google calendar. Supposedly the member isn't cleared to work until their name appears on the calendar on the website.
This used to make sense when we were in a larger space with more scheduling variables and a super dedicated director. In the new space, which is smaller, it's pretty much one person at a time using the darkroom and there isn't really a director per se anymore, just a couple of extremely busy volunteers. So there isn't really any reason people couldn't just add their own times to a shared calendar. However, we are reluctant to just hand over all control to everyone. Some things like classes take precedence over individual darkroom time and of course we would want to make sure that nobody can erase anybody else's reservation.
None of us are very techy. OK, actually, none of us are at all techy. And the person who set up the website is long gone and nobody is updating it (I am about to take that over or possibly we're going to just scrap it and make a new one) and, anyway, all thoughts are welcome! The current system is here. Before you click that be warned that we are having another problem where the website sometimes redirects to something that looks unpleasant, so there's that too. I think it should be okay here clicking from a link - I think it's the .org vs. .com thing? - but I do not actually know.
Best answer: Perhaps Skedda would suit you?
posted by flabdablet at 9:22 AM on May 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 9:22 AM on May 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, Google Calendar is designed to do this. My organization uses it to schedule dozens of rooms over multiple buildings. There is more information here.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:29 AM on May 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Rock Steady at 11:29 AM on May 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I'm not seeing how a shared Google Calendar can have events created on it by anybody other than its administrator without also handing over the right to modify or delete existing entries. If I were a non-techy darkroom user wanting to book a spot on a shared Google calendar I would have no clue how to go about it.
Where is the Google help document that explains how to handle mygothlaundry's use case, given that she specifically mentions that nobody has time to take on the role of managing the scheduling centrally?
Skedda has a free tier that should be adequate, can integrate with Google and other calendars via iCal, and is purpose-built to do this exact thing.
posted by flabdablet at 12:50 PM on May 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Where is the Google help document that explains how to handle mygothlaundry's use case, given that she specifically mentions that nobody has time to take on the role of managing the scheduling centrally?
Skedda has a free tier that should be adequate, can integrate with Google and other calendars via iCal, and is purpose-built to do this exact thing.
posted by flabdablet at 12:50 PM on May 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Send memail or email if you want more info. Basically, you create an event and add people.
posted by theora55 at 4:26 PM on May 9, 2018
posted by theora55 at 4:26 PM on May 9, 2018
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posted by theora55 at 8:26 AM on May 9, 2018