EMC Events Calendar
Help: General Assistance

HELP!

  • Click here for help on entering new events into the calendar
  • Click here for help setting up repeating events and duty rotas
  • Click here for the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list

Please advise any errors, omissions, or questions arising from this "help" by email to EmcHelp@macfarlane.biz


Contents: General Assistance

  1. About the Events Calendar
  2. Privacy
  3. Public Users
  4. Members-Only Users
  5. "Administrator" Users
  6. All about the rotas
  7. "It's Not Working!"

About the Events Calendar

The EMC online events calendar is intended to meet the following needs:

There are three kinds of user for the EMC online events calendar:

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Privacy

The online events calendar is covered under the Data Protection Act consent form that all members sign when they join the club; this allows their information to be used in order to administer the club's business.

Events in the online calendar are marked either as "public" or "private". Those that are "public" may be viewed by the general public, without first logging-in to the website. These events are shown within the online calendar with an unlocked padlock symbol to their left.

"Private" events are only visible to club members, after logging-in with an appropriate username and password. All "duty rota" events are "private", visible only to other club members, and cannot be seen by the general public.

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Public Users

Public users can access limited features of the online events diary without having to log-in first. Public users are able to:

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Members-Only Users

In addition to all the features that are available publicly, further features are available to members after logging-in using an appropriate username and password:

Note: Members can create new events and then update them until you close your browser. You won't be able to alter or delete the events you created earlier, if you close your browser and then open a new one. This is (admittedly) a fairly crude mechanism, but it prevents other members from altering events that you have created. If you made a mistake, or need to change an event that you created earlier, contact someone on the committee and ask them to correct it for you (the committee members all have access as "administrators").

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"Administrator" Users

In addition to all the features that are available to the public and to members, further features are available to "privileged" users ("administrators") after logging-in using an appropriate username and password:

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All about the rotas

The online events calendar contains a number of features that are intended to make life easier for the duty rota participants, and for the section secretaries and their delegates. Currently, the only people authorised to alter duty rotas are the section secretaries, and other members of their section to whom they have delegated "rota" responsibilities.

How does it work?

When will I receive e-Mails?

You can expect to receive e-mail messages from the rota system under the following circumstances:

In each case, the e-mail will include all future duty dates, plus a separate section detailing those that are specifically assigned to you.

I don't have an e-mail address...

If you don't have an e-mail address, the online events calendar caters for you by allowing the section secretary (or whoever is in charge of your rota) to print the same information in the form of a personalised letter.

When are the calendar events generated from the rota?

Rather than schedule the rota forever into the future, just the next few months are scheduled at a time. Within a few weeks of the end of the last scheduled duty, another few months will be automatically generated. This will typically be about once every 3-4 months.

If you make changes to a rota, new events will NOT be automatically generated (unless the schedule is close to running out anyway). Instead, you can re-generate the events on-demand. You might do this, for example, when someone is added or removed to the rota. This means you can replace one person with another on the rota (in the same position in the list) and then re-generate a new schedule of events: everyone else will get the same duty days as before - their duties will be unchanged.

If you need to re-generate the rota...

Be careful when re-generating rota events. If you don't get the results you expect, you can put it right by doing it again and starting with a specific person, or with effect from a specific date. But if you got it wrong the first time, it may not have been possible to reinstate any previous duty swaps, so you might have lost them by then.

What changed recently?

During July-August 2017, there were quite a few changes and improvements:

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"It's Not Working!"

To get the best out of this website, the following settings must be enabled for your browser:

If your security settings are not correctly configured, you may find that you can enter data on the website, click buttons, and so forth - - but it won't seem to do anything for you!... Assuming you are using MS Internet Explorer (preferably version 6 or higher), you can adjust your security settings as follows:

  1. Click on the "Tools" drop-down menu option, then on the choice labelled "Internet Options..."
  2. Choose the "Security" tab that appears on the next window, and then click on the green "Trusted Sites" symbol
  3. Click on the "Default Level" button, and then move the vertical slider control to any of the settings "Medium", "Medium-Low" or "Low". (That is, anything except "high"! I use "Medium-Low", myself).
  4. Click on the "Apply" button. It should look something like this:
  5. Click on the "Sites" button and add the website "http://www.gmacfarlane.com" to the list. Make sure that the checkbox at the bottom is clear (ie, not checked), and it should look something like this before you click the "OK" button:
  6. You'll be back at the "Internet Options..." dialog again; click on "Apply", then "OK"
  7. Close and restart your browser in order that these changes take effect.

If that didn't fix it...Norton Internet Security 2003 ("NIS 2003") has been reported as causing some problems - try disabling that when using this website (at your discretion), or follow Symantec's own instructions, here.

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