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Calendar Guidelines and Etiquette for Students


Oracle Calendar Etiquette for Student


Introduction
How Oracle Calendar Schedules Meetings
Some Thoughts about Scheduling with Others
Some Thoughts about Oracle Calendar Agenda Items


Do's and Don'ts for Inviting People to Functions and for Responding to Invitations

Don't schedule time with faculty members unless you have their permission to do so.

Be careful inviting people you don't know.
Don't invite large numbers of people.
Do make sure people know what you're inviting them to.
Do respond to invitations in a timely manner.


Do's and Don'ts for Managing your Calendar



Do schedule your class time, work time, team practices and other commitments.
Do let others know when you're unavailable.
Don't use meetings in place of Day Events or Daily Notes.
Do accept Day Events, Daily Notes & Holidays.


Do's and Don'ts for Setting Access Rights to Your Agenda


Do allow others to view as much of your time information as possible.
Do understand the difference between access for viewing and inviting.
Do allow people to send you email notifications.
Do set the appropriate access level for each activity you schedule.

Special Guidelines for Student Organizations

Managing Resources through Oracle Calendar


Oracle Calendar Etiquette for Students


Introduction


This document provides some suggested etiquette and guidelines for students to follow when using the Oracle electronic calendar system.

First, you need to opt in to the calendar and access the Calendar system.

Details of the features and functions of the Oracle Calendar system and how to use it are on the main Calendar web site.

We strongly recommend that students use the Oracle Calendar Web Client that is available with a single click from the My Cal Poly portal. Please use the online Help for the web client and the web client documentation. Outlook with OCFO also has online Help and documentation.

You can use Oracle Calendar to schedule events or meetings with others in your own organization or from across the campus. The benefits of such a service, unfortunately, also bring the potential for confusion and misunderstanding. As we begin using Oracle Calendar, it might be helpful to review how it handles the scheduling of meetings and to explore some issues that may arise.

We offer these suggestions in the spirit of congenial cooperation.

How Oracle Calendar Schedules Meetings


When you use Oracle Calendar to invite someone to a meeting, an entry is automatically placed on that person's calendar. They can then accept or reject the invitation.

If the invitee accepts the meeting or does nothing, the meeting will remain on their calendar. Actually, until a meeting is declined the time will be held. During this period, this time slot should not be scheduled by others. A declined meeting will also show on someone's calendar. This is not a bad thing, as circumstances may change and they may later be able to accept and attend that meeting.

Clearly, placing an event on someone else's calendar must be done with thoughtfulness and care. Some folks feel that their calendar is their personal territory and may resent trespassers. The only person who can delete the meeting is the meeting creator.

There is a setting to not show declined meetings. We do not recommend this but if meetings become a problem this may be an option. In the web client go to Preferences then Display.


Some Thoughts about Scheduling with Others

After you've used Oracle Calendar for awhile, you're likely to have settled on a comfortable scheduling protocol with your colleagues and friends. In many cases, you'll schedule meetings directly by placing an item on their calendar and inviting them to the meeting). In other cases you may want to consider a different approach. Some thoughts to consider:

  • If you're scheduling a meeting with someone in your own department or someone you know well it may be fine to directly invite them to a meeting. If you are not sure, you might ask first.
  • If you don't feel comfortable placing an entry on a person's calendar then you might:
    • Ask them to view your calendar and invite you to a meeting. By asking them to place an entry on your schedule you're not stepping on their "territory" but allowing them to step on yours.
    • Put the entry on their calendar by scheduling a meeting, but put some wording in the meeting details, asking them if this is acceptable to them.

Some Thoughts about Oracle Calendar Agenda Items

In Oracle calendar, you can designate other people to have management rights to your calendar. They can schedule meetings on your behalf and accept or deny any meetings which you may be attending. They can also change or delete any meetings that they or you have created. While this feature can be very convenient, it can also be a nuisance if used improperly. Be very selective and careful about giving anyone designate rights to your calendar. For detailed instructions for controlling access rights to your calendar, visit the Calendar Access Rights - Web Client or Calendar Access Rights-Desktop Client web sites.

In Oracle Calendar, the creator of a meeting owns the event. Only the event owner/creator and their designates can make changes or delete the meeting. Even though that item has been placed on someone's calendar, non owner invitees cannot make changes to the meeting item. They can only decline the invitation and elect to view (or not view) the declined agenda items.

If an event owner leaves the university or opts out their events may remain on calendars until their accounts are deleted. This could take up to 5 weeks.

Take care when creating meetings and inviting people to them because there is potential for misunderstanding and confusion. Some suggestions for creating meetings include:

  • Use clear, mutually understandable, titles for the meeting title. Catchy phrases or humor may be misunderstood or may not be appreciated. For example, "Monthly Meeting" may be clear to the person creating the meeting, but might not be sufficiently informative to someone invited to that meeting.
  • Invite only those you wish to attend. Do not invite people to a meeting just as a means to advise them of the meeting.
  • Specify the location of the meeting.
  • If the agenda is unclear or not well understood, consider adding comments to the Details Description area of the new meeting or by attaching a document (agenda) to the meeting.

Do's and Don'ts for Inviting People to Functions and for Responding to Invitations

Like e-mail, the Oracle Calendar system is designed to improve communication between individuals and groups. In such a system, each user has the potential to impact the ability of others to use the system effectively.

Students will have Oracle Calendar accounts only if they Opt-In (request) via the Portal interface to have one, or have one requested in their role as a campus student assistant.

Within the system, many people will have different views of what seems reasonable or harmless. For example, some users simply press the delete key when they receive daily "junk mail" in their account. Others find this unsolicited mail offensive. Therefore, it is best to err on the side of caution. You probably wouldn't send email to people you don't know concerning a subject that may not be important to them, and you shouldn't invite large numbers of strangers to an event in which they may have no interest.

The following guidelines are examples of how you can make the most of the Oracle Calendar service and how you can show respect for others' rights to a reasonable and fair share of the resources provided by the calendar system. These are only examples - in general, you should always consider how your actions may be perceived by others and use your best judgment.

Don't schedule time with faculty members unless you have their permission to do so.


Students should refrain from scheduling professors, advisors, teaching assistants or any other member of Cal Poly faculty for any meeting or event unless they have been given clear permission to do so. If you are unsure, contact the faculty member first and ask for permission to schedule with them.

Do NOT assume that faculty or staff will automatically attend your meeting unless they specifically accept your calendar entry.

Be careful inviting people you don't know.


In some cases, inviting someone you don't know to a meeting or other function may cause confusion if it is unclear exactly why that person is involved. Make sure the details you provide about the meeting are clear and comprehensive. If you're unsure, contact the person first and let them know why you're inviting them (e.g., because someone they know told you to).

Don't invite large numbers of people.

Few people should need to invite large numbers of people to meetings, events or notes. Users' Inboxes would tend to fill up very quickly if every university event were announced through the Oracle Calendar system.

Generally a meeting would be large if it had more than about 20 attendees. But a special event might justify posting to the calendars of everyone involved.

Do make sure people know what you're inviting them to.

When you invite people to meetings or other functions, make sure that the title is descriptive enough for them to understand the true purpose of the event. If you use the Oracle Calendar Desktop Client, use the Details tab to provide information such as topics of discussion, what preparation they might have to do, what to bring to the meeting, and so on.

Do respond to invitations in a timely manner.

When you respond to an invitation, you not only extend the courtesy of letting the initiator know if you'll be attending you also let others know when you'll be available for other activities.

When you are invited to a meeting or other event, that block of time is set aside as "unavailable" until you respond. Anyone who tries to schedule something with you will encounter a conflict if they attempt to schedule during that time. If you respond that you will not attend, that block of time becomes available for someone else to schedule an event.

The system does allow double-booking of time, as you might be able to attend the second meeting if the first one gets cancelled or rescheduled.

Do's and Don'ts for Managing your Calendar

Do schedule your class time, work time, team practices and other commitments.

You should enter as many of your scheduled commitments as possible so that your calendar accurately reflects your availability for meetings or other functions. You can easily enter your classes as recurring meetings.

For information on setting up a recurring meeting, go to Help within the calendar application.

Ask your employer (if they are on-campus) to enter your work schedule as soon as they know it, or enter it yourself as soon as you receive it. You should also enter team practices, your intramural sports schedule, or other sporting events in which you participate.

Note that you can mark your meetings as Personal or Confidential if you wish and restrict people from seeing any details. They'll only see that you have the time blocked.

Do let others know when you're unavailable.

There are most likely times when you are not in class or at work, but want to show a block of time as unavailable. For example, you may want to schedule some uninterrupted study time. You can schedule this time on your calendar as a meeting to which only you are invited. When another user attempts to schedule a meeting with you, they will see a conflict if they try to schedule during this time.

Don't use meetings in place of Day Events or Daily Notes.

If you are scheduling an event that is casual or optional for all or part of the scheduled time, enter it as a Note or Day Event, not as a meeting.

For example, let's say you want people to know that they can drop by your room between 9:00 and 11:30 a.m. to pick up their copy of your group project report. If you schedule a meeting with those people from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., anyone else who wants to schedule a meeting with these same people will encounter a conflict and will be forced to select a different time. However, if you set up a note entitled "Pick up Group Project Report in Sierra Madre, room 999: 9:00 - 11:30 a.m." people will receive the message and other events can be scheduled during that time. You can also use Day Events or Daily Notes to mark important dates (e.g., last day to withdraw from classes, registration dates, payment due dates, etc.) from the academic calendar.

Do accept Day Events, Daily Notes & Holidays.

Your Inbox will be much less cluttered if you simply accept the Day Events, Daily Notes and Holidays that people have sent to you.

Do's and Don'ts for Setting Access Rights to Your Agenda

You have a great deal of control over who can do what with your agenda. However, you should make sure that you don't set your access rights to be so restrictive that it becomes difficult or even impossible for others to schedule time with you.

The guidelines will help you to retain your right to privacy without making it impossible for other users to schedule meetings or other activities with you.

Do allow others to view as much of your time information as possible.

Unless there is a very good reason not to, you should allow anyone to view the times that you have scheduled. Giving everyone access to view the times of your meetings and other activities will help them to schedule with you only when you are available.

For detailed instructions for controlling access rights to your calendar visit the Calendar Access Rights- Web Client or Calendar Access Rights - Desktop Clients Web site.

Do understand the difference between access for viewing and inviting.

You can allow people to invite you to meetings without allowing them to view detailed information about your meetings. To see who is allowed to invite you to meetings, launch Oracle Calendar client, select Tools > Access Rights and click on the Scheduling tab. If the Can invite me to events box is checked when Default: Any unlisted person is selected, then anyone on the system can invite you to meetings, day events, or daily notes.

If you don't want everyone to be able to invite you to meetings or other functions, events or notes, you can uncheck the box. However, unless you specify some people who can invite you, no one will be able to schedule time with you. If you turn off scheduling for everyone, make sure that you add all the people who you want to be able to schedule with you and make sure that they can also view your scheduled time.

Do allow people to send you email notifications.

The Oracle Calendar software allows people who are scheduling meetings or other events to send an e-mail notification to the invitees. By default, you will be configured to receive these messages. You can turn this option off, but keep in mind that if you do, people will not be able to send you email through Oracle Calendar to inform you of changes, meeting agendas, and so on.

For more information, see the Calendar documentation.

This option gives you the choice of sending an email notification on meeting changes or deletions, but not to send when creating new meetings. This is our current recommended setting.

Do set the appropriate access level for each activity you schedule.

When you schedule an activity in Oracle Calendar, you should set its access level. For example, you might want to enter a doctor's appointment with a "Personal" access level, but would probably schedule a class time with a "Normal" level. We suggest setting Normal Entries to "View Entries", but entries entered as "Personal" to "View Times Only".

Special Guidelines for Student Organizations

The Oracle Calendar system allows student organizations to maintain schedules for "resources" such as conference rooms. When used properly, Oracle Calendar can be a very powerful tool for scheduling resources.

The Oracle Calendar system allows some users, called designates, to maintain schedules for other users. All resources must have at least one designate.

Managing Resources through Oracle Calendar

A resource is any non-person that has a calendar account. Meeting rooms, projectors, and shared laptop computers are examples of resources. The ITS Service Desk will create resources upon request.

Each resource has an Owner, who knows the password to log onto the resource account, but each resource must also have at least one "designate" (up to a maximum of five) who can manage the schedule for that resource from their own calendar account. The resource owner's name is shown as the contact person if you query the information about the resource account.

It is best to use only the Oracle Calendar system to maintain a single schedule for resource. For example, if you set up a conference room as a resource in Oracle Calendar but also maintain a schedule for that room on paper, you will most likely run into scheduling conflicts as people will record a meeting in one place but not in the other. If you set up a resource in the Oracle Calendar system, you can do away with the paper schedule.

And Finally...

We offer this document as a starting point for those using a new powerful tool, Oracle Calendar. We would like to invite everyone using Oracle Calendar to suggest additional items to be added to this list by contacting the Service Desk. Only by working together, can we comfortably and productively put this new service to maximum benefit for our campus community.

For additional instructions visit the Calendar web site.

Much of the proceeding information was adapted with permission from the author from material created by Jamie Sonsini on the University of California, Santa Barbara CorporateTime site. Thank you Jamie and UCSB for your generosity