I have just now posted a question on the talk page of https://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/Office_IT/Calendars to ask who actually uses the WMF Sick/Vacation calendar, and whether it should be decommissioned.
Pretending to schedule a meeting is a viable way to determine if one person is in or out. It falls apart when you are curious about 5+ people. Is it possible to set up group aliases in google calendar, allowing you quickly set up a meeting with a certain 10 people? Another option is adding everyone's calendar to your own, and then checking/unchecking them to overlay their availability. That is also fine for a person or two, but pretty painful with a dozen people. But asking people to update both their own calendar and a team (or WMF) calendar is asking for the two to be out of sync. As any programmer knows, not having a single authoritative source of information is error prone. I see problems, and I see solutions that cause other problems. I don't yet see a panacea. Kevin Smith Agile Coach Wikimedia Foundation *Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Help us make it a reality.* On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 2:27 PM, Arthur Richards <[email protected]> wrote: > I have found the easiest/most useful method to add vacation time as > calendar events on my own personal calendar (as Guillaume described). This > lets others trying to schedule meetings with me see when there is a > conflict without having to double check against another calendar (one that, > if everyone actually used it, would be rather noisy and difficult to parse > through). > > I was also under the impression that the WMF sick/vacation calendar was > defunct? Regardless, I personally stopped using it long ago when it was > clear not many people were using it - or checking it. > > > On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 1:00 PM, Kevin Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Thanks all, and especially S for pointing out existing documentation. We >> so desperately need a single place to find all this wisdom. >> >> I remain torn about whether or not to set up team calendars. >> >> >> >> Kevin Smith >> Agile Coach >> Wikimedia Foundation >> >> >> >> *Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in >> the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Help us make it a reality.* >> >> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 7:15 PM, S Page <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 2:30 PM, Kevin Smith <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Do we have any best practices for tracking team member vacations, >>>> travel, etc.? >>>> >>> We have several :) >>> >>> The description of WMF Sick/Vacation calendar >>> <https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=wikimedia.org_ljc5vdg9vevjf5l948m1fsk5u4%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Los_Angeles> >>> in https://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/Office_IT/Calendars says >>> Add sick, vacation, working remote, OOO, holidays, etc. to this. >>> That's pretty definitive. Yes it can fill your Google calendar window >>> ,but it's easy to uncheck a calendar. It's only viewable by >>> wikimedia.org members >>> >>> Meanwhile >>> https://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/Staff_handbook/Benefits#Time_Off_Benefits >>> says "These instructions include how to add your time off plans to shared >>> calendars", but... they don't! Maybe someone copy-pasted from >>> https://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/ADP_Employee_Self_Service_Portal#Coordinating_Time_Off_with_Calendars >>> which echoes Guillaume's reply: >>> >>> 1. Put your time off on your calendar, and copy (or invite) your >>> manager. ... >>> >>> (but doesn't mention shared calendars). >>> >>> Note you can view an event and More actions > Copy to *Another calendar*, >>> so creating two calendar events isn't twice the work. >>> >>> Nick Wilson (Quiddity) replied: >>> >>>> The two teams I work with (CL and Collaboration) both use their team's >>>> gcalendar (using copied events from personal calendars) to track member's: >>>> vacations, extended-sickdays, traveldays, etc. >>>> >>> >>> Using a team calendar instead of WMF Sick/Vacation allows staff to be >>> more open about "out today for drug rehab", and you can use it for >>> intra-day absences ("Out until 1pm, note missing the deploy"), but doing so >>> means WMF is inconsistent. >>> >>> Cheers, >>> -- >>> =S Page WMF Tech writer >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> teampractices mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> teampractices mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices >> >> > > > -- > Arthur Richards > Team Practices Manager > [[User:Awjrichards]] > IRC: awjr > +1-415-839-6885 x6687 > > _______________________________________________ > teampractices mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices > >
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