New Calendar and Honorarium process

Education
#121

GAAP is required for a fair number of financial dealings, and virtually all organizations of any size adhere to it. Apropriate financial practices extend farther than just bookkeeping however - they also involve the application of appropriate business processes, along with rules and policies to ensure the books can be kept, as well as preventing fraud and theft, embezzlement, etc. None of these things are really optional - its how managers and bookkeepers stay out of prison.

I do not envy the Board and the Finance committeeā€™s work to move DMS towards fiscal sanity and legality. Itā€™s hard and sometimes complicated work, and few people will understand the whyā€™s of it, but lots will bitch every time a new rule has to be applied, largely as a result of their own ignorance. Yours is thankless work, and converting a system designed by the Little Rascals Boys Club, and moving it towards a grown up accounting system is just confusing and hard. But what yā€™all are doing is the single most important thing needed in keeping our doors open long term. I for one deeply appreciate it.

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#122

Iā€™m married to a CPA. Sheā€™s worked for the big eight, six,or four CPA firms before. (It started as the big eight back in the 70s and 80s you know) Sheā€™s also been the controller for a large NYSE traded corporation. When I mentioned some of the things our finance committee is attempting to do she told me that it is hard work and requires significant expertise to do it correctly. And yes, like @Tapper she believes GAAP is the bible on accounting principles. I am another member who deeply appreciates what the finance committee and our board is trying to do.

The two most important support team members in any organization and especially one run by volunteers are a good lawyer and a good accountant/firm. Thank you all for working to make DMS an even better more financially responsible organization.

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#123

Question about the Honorarium portion of the process ā€¦

I understand that in order to receive the honorarium at least three (pre-registered?) persons must attend. If you held a class and not enough pre-registered people showed up, whatā€™s the mechanism for notifying the powers-that-be so that you donā€™t get paid for something for which you are not eligible?

I ask this because I have been teaching the embroidery class lately, and since I limit the attendees to four I could envision a scenario where not enough pre-registered people show up. (Some days everyone plus extra show up, and some days someone goes missing).

#124

I just wanted to say I like the new calendar, and I look forward to seeing my old buddy @talkers tomorrow at his laser class, so I can be checked out on the epilog.

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#125

Thanks for the work to put in the new calendar system.

Aside from the regular discussion above, I wonder if the following can be addressed, if possible/easy to implement.

  1. Cannot see the previous events on the new calendar. Is it possible to do so as of now (how it is implemented), or if not, could it be modified as such?

  2. Is there an easy way to be able to add an event to oneā€™s other calendars (e.g., Google calendar)? It was quite easy in the old calendar system. With the new system, I am adding each event I am interested in /registered to manually. It was a single click in the old system. Wondering if possible or maybe this is an easy improvement.

  3. On the iPhone or iPad, one cannot scroll down the calendar - at least cannot on my devices. Does anyone know a way around (maybe, settings or something). If not, could this be implemented easily? Just a convenienceā€¦

Again, I am bringing these up, in case they can be quickly/easily implemented. Never mind, if too much work.

Thanks.

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#126

Yes this link works with iOS.

https://calendar.dallasmakerspace.org

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#127

1.) This is a feature to draw attention to current classes but people want to be able to see old events. We will work to show old events but keep focus on newer events.

2.) There is the feed https://calendar.dallasmakerspace.org/events/feed that you can add to your google calendar as an ical. Google instructions https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37100?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en Add using a link.

3.) This is a wordpress issue but like @TBJK you can access the full calendar at https://calendar.dallasmakerspace.org/

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#128

Ideally everyone signs up before hand. We will be implementing a way for people to sign up for a little bit after the class starts, but not after the class is over.

We are implementing a portion for the classes that fulfill pre reqs that you put people into certain AD groups. We will see if we can expand this for all classes that shows how many people showed and you just check if people attended. That part is not guaranteed for v1.1, but hopefully in the near future.

#129

Another strong vote here for being able to sign up folks after class starts. I get A LOT of drop-ins in my fiber classes.

Also a strong vote for being able to view past classes. When I first started investigating attending DMS, I poured over back classes as well as upcoming to get a feel for what was offered, how frequently, etc.

And now, months later, I still was using the feature to look over past classes if I was trying to discern a pattern of schedule, especially training required classes, so I could more easily potentially plan to rearrange my schedule to attend one. Also Iā€™ve gone back to a previous class I might hear about after the fact to get instructor contact info to ask questions or contact to see if thereā€™s intention to offer again.

Lots of reasons itā€™s useful to be able to look back. Iā€™d think itā€™d be clear to maybe either grey out past class titles since that a common calendar convention (fading past dates) or do a button of some sort. I think greying is simple and clear.

2 Likes
#130

Thanks @AlexRhodes.

The ā€œCalender Viewā€ shows the past classes.

Google link works great.
The link for iOS works great (see the whole calendar, scroll down, etcā€¦).

#131

First off, thank you @AlexRhodes for the calendar system. Just wanted to note that ā€œScienceā€ is not listed in the Categories section.

#132

Fixed. 123456789101112

#133

That arrow just nicked him! Not even a flesh wound.

#134

@AlexRhodes, thanks for the new system! I opened an iTop ticket on an issue and thought Iā€™d note it here as well. I submitted a class for Aug 24 7 PM (Shapeoko) and it has shown up on the calendar now however attempts to see details/RSVP or edit the event throw an exception. I also donā€™t seem to have received either an accept or reject email. (Detailed trace in ticket - top error appears to be Cake\Network\Exception\NotFoundException)

https://calendar.dallasmakerspace.org/events/view/293

#135

Should be fixed now. Let me know if you still have an issue.

As for the emails, not all the triggers are set up. You should see one if your class is rejected.

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#136

Hooray! It looks like if you use Calendar view, you can now see the prior events. Good job Calendar Team (whoever you are ā€¦ ) Thanks mucho.

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#137

The change was made about 2:30 but didnā€™t get a chance to post till now. It should also display more than the 5 events if there are any such as on Saturday. There were also some other clean up on the backend with contacts. There are still more changes to come, so bear with us.

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#138

Much Better! Looking forward to seeing more than 5 events in Cal View, and the other fixes coming. Thanks!

#139

Kudos Alex! Or mucho goodo in Spanish or something like that.

#140

@AlexRhodes
Any feel for when/if there will be changes made to class registration time window?

As of a couple days ago it closed Registration when a class time started.

This is a big issue since honorariums are tied to it.

For my classes, I have a lot of drop-ins and no max, so none of my folks are used to signing up anywhere. They just show up. And often in a trickle after class starts. :slight_smile: More than a few times weā€™ve had folks join us because they got too close to the Fiber Vortex by wandering by and seeing us up to no good. Iā€™m sure Iā€™m not the only class like that. Until word spreads about the need to register for even open-seat free classes, it can put teachers in a situation of having good attendance but potentially not eligible for honorarium according to the system if folks didnā€™t register before class started.

Iā€™d request the registration window default to at least an hour after class start before it closes. Or ideally maybe 30 minutes after class ends so that it doesnā€™t delay class start while we deal with that.

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