How literal is MSP about "on the same weekend" ?

[Jeff Thomas]

In our scheduler settings, here's the configuration: 

My question is: How literal is MSP being about the word "weekend"?

Reason for asking: We schedule groups of altar servers at daily Mass on each of the five weekdays (we have a school associated with our parish). We do the weekday altar-server scheduling manually at the moment, but are looking to using the MSP scheduler to fill the weekday server positions in a future schedule. A number of these servers are siblings, so their families want them to be scheduled together on whatever weekday they will serve.

So let's focus on a single family, Family A. Over in the profile of the Family Groupings/Family A, here is the here is the configuration:

The point to make here is that the second box is not checked. We want the kids in a family to be scheduled together, on the same weekday -- not one of the children on a Monday, and the other on a Thursday, say.

And, for reference, here is a look at one of the altar server's individual profiles:

So, when we turn the scheduler loose on weekday Mass altar-server positions, will MSP keep these siblings together on a weekday, just as would keep them together on a Sunday?

[Krista Kutz]

Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

Jeff, thank you so much for chiming in with your experience and this great question!

"Weekend" here in the MSP settings you highlighted means about 48 hours. So, if one family member is scheduled on a Tuesday, that setting will prevent the others from being scheduled again until Thursday. But this is to prevent them being scheduled across different days that are too close together, and does not play into being scheduled together. 

It is a different setting in the ministry itself that will keep the kids scheduled together as Altar Servers, pictured here: 

And, depending on the specific setup of the Altar Server ministry (for example, are there subdivisions or titles being used, and how many total Altar Servers are needed at each weekday service) and the family (how many kids are there as Altar Servers, and which subdivisions/titles do they belong to), one thing you might consider is sending in your data files to MSP (Help - Send Data Files to Tech Support) and our team is happy to review the setup and make a specific recommendation! 

All, please feel free to chime in with other altar server scheduling tips (daily or weekend), happy to hear them!

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday,

Krista

Rotunda Software

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[Jeff Thomas]

Yeah, about this setting:

In our setup for altar servers, we don't check this box. But I wonder if that's a mistake. Follow me for a sec:

It does seem reasonable that the default should be to keep siblings together. If that's the default, then this box ⬆️ should be checked.

Do I understand correctly so far?

 Let's assume I do. Okay, so, that's the default. But families can opt out of that default, by doing this:

Again: Do I have this correct so far? Am I getting this right?

If so, then I think we ought to change our practice. If we want a keep-siblings-together default, then we should do this in the server ministry configuration. . . 

. . . and then let families opt out of that default, like this:

So that's my main question. I'd like to know if I'm thinking this through accurately.

In addition to that question, here's another: What if we don't establish the keep-siblings-together default? What if we configure our server ministry like this?

If this ⬆️ is our server ministry configuration, is there any way for a family to indicate actually, we want our kids to be kept together?

. . . and I'm thinking the answer to my question is no, except for this:

. . . which would work as far as keeping the sibs together is concerned, but it also would require that Mom serve as a reader, and Dad as the extraordinary minister, at the same service. It's the all-or-none nuclear option. The family might get scheduled once per year.

Okay, you've followed me all this way, and thank you. And I would appreciate your corrections to any of the above.

But, having said all this, I finally come to a last question, which is related to something Raina said about Schedules in another post in this group:

"By default, MSP has a setting that keeps family members from being scheduled at different services on the same weekend."

Okay, so if that's the Schedules default, what is the point of this, over in Ministries:

Why is this box needed if keep family members from being scheduled at different services is hard-wired into the database as the default?

I guess what I'm wrestling with, above all, is the hierarchy of defaults across schedules and ministries and family groupings etc., and how to configure our ministries and families so that they work with, and don't fight against, those defaults.

[Raina Hanson]

Hi Jeff, 

Happy to clarify! 

The ministry setting, "Never split up family members in this ministry/subdivision" will ensure that family members are scheduled together only in that ministry. This helps if the family members in this ministry also belong to other ministries, or in the case you have here, where you want the Altar Servers scheduled together in the family each time, but it doesnt matter if other family members are scheduled or not. 

On the other hand, the family settings control how the family is scheduled. "**Never** schedule family without all of its members" means all family members must be scheduled (which does not sound like what you are looking for here). "Allow members of this family to be split up in ministries for which families are flagged to always be scheduled together" is great when the family is in a ministry where the ministry setting to keep family members is turned on, but that would be a negative because: 

• a family member is also in another ministry, and they would not be scheduled there if they always have to be in the ministry where the other family member is scheduled
• the number of family members in a ministry exceeds the number of volunteers you need for that ministry
• the family members want to serve as often as possible, and not be restricted by if other family members are available in that ministry or not. 

In this case, I think what you probably are looking for is to turn on the ministry setting to keep families together, and the family settings can be adjusted on an as-needed basis. 

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Raina Hanson

Director of Technical Support

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