Away appointments
Away appointments are a tidy way to record when members are speaking, playing or visiting at another ecclesia. Rather than each person submitting their own unavailability, a coordinator can keep the whole list in one place — and still let members add their own.
An away appointment does three things: it blocks the member’s home duties over that window (an administrator can still override a specific roster), it shows on the calendar, and it rides in the member’s calendar feed. Members are reminded about their own upcoming away dates on the same schedule as their duty reminders.
The coordinator tools below need the away.managepermission — every coordinator has it. Reading time: about four minutes.
Open Away appointments
From the top nav, open Manage → the Coordinator tab → Away appointments (under Schedule). The page opens on the next three months; use the From and To boxes to widen or shift the window. Each row is one appointment — the member, the dates, the other ecclesia, the role, and any note.
Add an away appointment
Click Add. Pick the member, then set the window:
- All day for a date (or a range of dates) away — a weekend at another ecclesia.
- Time range for part of a day — an evening lecture elsewhere.
Then fill in the Other ecclesia they’re visiting and the Role they’re filling. The Role box is a dropdown of your ecclesia’s roles — pick Exhorting, Speaker and the like — or choose Other and type a free-text role such as “Musician” or “Sunday School”. A Title and Note are optional. Save, and the member is now blocked from home duties over that window.
Editing or removing an entry is the same screen: the row’s Edit button reopens it, and Remove frees their duties again.
Import a whole list
Got a planning spreadsheet of who is away? Click Import. Download the sample sheet first so your columns match: the person (by name, email or id), the dates (a single date, or start date + end date), optional start/end time, the ecclesia, the role, and optional title, location and note.
Upload the filled CSV or XLSX and CDRoster reports what it did — created, skipped, and any rows it couldn’t match. A row identical to an appointment already on file is skipped, so re-importing a corrected sheet is safe; nothing is doubled up.
See who is away on the calendar
On the Calendar, tick Show who is away (next to the Highlight control). CDRoster lists the people away under each day — “Away: Ada Lovelace — Exhorting at Southside Ecclesia” — across every day a multi-day trip covers. It’s the quickest way to see, at a glance, who you can’t roster that week.
Let members keep their own
Members don’t have to wait for a coordinator. On their own Availability page (avatar menu → My profile → Availability) the Away commitments card takes the same details — dates, other ecclesia, and role. See the unavailability guide for the member’s view.
Away appointments also flow into each member’s calendar feed: on their Calendar feeds page they can tick Away appointments to have their trips appear in Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook alongside their duties.
On the iPhone app
Members can see who is away, and record their own away commitments, from the app.
On the Calendar, turn on Show who is away to list the people away under each day — handy when you’re looking for a visiting speaker or working out who is free.
The app calendar with an 'Away' line under a day.Click to enlarge To record your own trip, open your Availability and add an away commitment — the dates, the other ecclesia, and the role you’re filling (Exhorting, Musician, and so on). It frees you from home duties over that window.
The member availability screen with an Away commitments card.Click to enlarge
Different on the app: Recording on behalf of other members, and the bulk import, are web-only (ask a coordinator).
What next?
- Submitting unavailability — the member’s side: blocking a holiday or a temporary break, and recording their own away commitments.
- Building a roster — away appointments feed straight into the solver, so an away member is never rostered at home without a deliberate override.