Oracle Calendar Etiquette

Republished with permission from Rules of the Scheduling Road by Jamie Sonsini, UC Santa Barbara

Background

Using Oracle Calendar, individuals can schedule events or meetings with others in their own organization or from across the campus. Along with the benefits of such a service comes, unfortunately, the potential for confusion and misunderstanding. As we begin using Oracle Calendar it might be helpful to consider how Oracle Calendar handles the scheduling of meetings and to explore some issues that may arise.

Several of us in the Oracle Calendar Implementation Group (CIG) discussed a set of suggestions for using Oracle Calendar to schedule meetings with others. 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 they accept the meeting, or do nothing, the meeting will remain on their calendar. Actually, until one declines the meeting it will remain on their calendar and the time will be held. During this period, this time slot is unavailable to be scheduled by others. 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.

Some Thoughts about Scheduling with Others

After you've used Oracle Calendar for a while, you're likely to have settled on a comfortable scheduling protocol with your colleagues. In many cases, you'll schedule meetings directly (i.e., place an item on someone else's calen11/15/06ases you may want to consider a different approach. Some thoughts to consider:

• If the person with whom you're scheduling a meeting is someone in your own department or someone you know well it may be fine to directly invite this person 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.
  • Use Oracle Calendar to identify a date and time during which you are both available for a meeting. You can then convey this information to the other person via an email message that might contain a question like: "It appears that we're both available on Tuesday, March 30, 2 PM - 3 PM, could we meet then?"
In this scheme, both parties view (only) their own calendar and schedule the meeting onto their own calendar.
• Select various dates and times during which you are available and send them this information in an email note. They can then check their calendar and reply back to you. Again, both parties view (only) their own calendar and schedule the meeting onto their own calendar.

Some Thoughts about Oracle Calendar Agenda Items

In Oracle Calendar the creator of a meeting owns the event. They, and only they, can make changes or delete the agenda item. Even though that item has been placed on someone's calendar, the invitee can not make changes to the agenda item. They can only decline the invitation and elect to view (or not view) the declined agenda items.
This would suggest that care be taken when creating meetings to which others are invited. Again there is potential for misunderstanding and confusion. Some suggestions for creating meetings include:

• Use clear, mutually understandable, titles for the agenda item. 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 be confusing for an invitee.
• Check your invitee's calendar or use the Oracle Calendar "Check conflicts" or the "Suggest date/time" features to verify that your invitee is, indeed, available to meet with you.
• Invite only those you wish to attend. Do not invite individuals to a meeting 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 agenda item or by attaching a document (agenda) to the meeting. (See your Oracle Calendar support staff for assistance

And Finally...

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