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Service Schedules

Service Schedules

A Service Schedule is a gathering your community holds again and again, like Shabbat morning or a weekday minyan. You set it up once, and each date it falls on appears by itself, with that day's reading when the schedule follows the Hebrew calendar. iLeyn assigns readers to those dates, and MitzvahManager places ceremonies on them.

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What a Service Schedule is

A Service Schedule describes one gathering that repeats: how often, when, where, and what each date starts with. You find it in Settings under Service Schedules, and New Service Schedule adds one. A schedule has:

  • Name: what the schedule is called, and the name of each date's Service unless you set a Service Name.
  • Cadence: how often it repeats (the kinds are below).
  • Start Time and End Time: optional. Leave both blank for a gathering with no set hour.
  • Location: optional. With both times set, it reserves that place for those hours.
  • Effective Dates: the first date it can offer, and an end if it has one. An end retires a schedule and keeps its history.
  • Service Template: optional. Its honors, roles and prayers are the starting point for each date.
  • Service Name, Notes and Admin Notes: copied onto every date.

The kinds of schedule

The Cadence decides which dates a schedule falls on. Four kinds follow the Hebrew calendar and bring each date's reading with them. Two follow the ordinary calendar and add no reading.

  • Weekly Shabbat Morning Readings: each week with a weekly Torah portion, with that portion and its haftarah. A Shabbat that gives way to a holiday reading is left to that holiday's own schedule.
  • Weekly Shabbat Mincha (Afternoon): each week with a Shabbat afternoon Torah reading.
  • Holiday or Special Occasion: on each day you choose of a holiday, in the years it applies, with that day's readings. One schedule can follow every day of a holiday, some of its days, or one.
  • Individual Weekly Parashah: once a year, in the week a chosen portion is read.
  • Regular Weekly Service: every week on the weekday you choose.
  • Regular Yearly Service: once a year on the date you choose.

The calendar, reading cycle and traditions come from Settings under Chanted Text. A new schedule takes the reading cycle from there when you create it. If the calendar cannot name the reading for a date the schedule offers, the date still appears, marked Reading to be chosen.

A schedule that follows a holiday

With the Holiday or Special Occasion Cadence, the editor adds a step, Holiday or occasion. Choose the holiday from the list, or type to find it. Then choose which of its days the schedule follows:

  • Every day of the holiday.
  • A named set of its days. Sukkot and Pesach have Yom Tov days and Chol ha-Moed, and Pesach also has Last days.
  • The days you check, one by one. With a single day checked, the schedule follows that day alone.
  • One of the Related occasions, where the holiday has them: an occasion or reading that belongs beside the holiday and is scheduled by itself, such as Erev Pesach or the Shabbat during Chol ha-Moed.

Each date brings that day's reading, and a day of the holiday that falls on Shabbat brings the reading for that Shabbat. The days offered are the ones your calendar has: Pesach has eight days in a Diaspora calendar and seven in an Israel calendar. If you change the calendar in Settings under Chanted Text, the change first lists each holiday schedule it changes, and how.

Two holiday schedules on the same day

Two holiday schedules can fall on the same day. Suppose you hold your usual service on every day of Sukkot and a larger one on Hoshana Raba. Set up the first schedule to follow every day of Sukkot, then add a second for Hoshana Raba alone, at the same Location and hours. The schedule that follows fewer days holds the day they share. Hoshana Raba moves to the second schedule, and you do not have to uncheck it on the first. On the first schedule the date stays in view, marked Held by Hoshana Raba. The same rule decides between two holidays that meet on one date, such as Rosh Chodesh during Chanukah: the schedule that follows fewer days in the year holds it. If the first schedule already had a Service on that date, the Service is kept and marked Prepared before Hoshana Raba took this day, so you can keep it or remove it. When neither schedule follows fewer days, as with two that both follow every day of Sukkot, they are a duplicate: saving the second asks first, and if you go ahead, both schedules create a Service on each day they share. If a calendar change later leaves two schedules following the same number of days, the one created first holds the day. All of this applies only when the two schedules have the same Location and their hours overlap. Without a Location and both times, each schedule keeps all of its dates.

Time zone and Location

Every date and time is read in your organization's time zone, set in Settings under Basics. Until it is set, no dates can be worked out, so set it before your first schedule. Once a schedule has a Start Time, Use a Different Time Zone lets it keep its own, for a gathering held somewhere else. In MitzvahManager, a schedule students may be placed on keeps the organization's time zone. A Location with a Start Time and End Time reserves that place for those hours. If another schedule uses the same Location at overlapping hours on some of the same dates, saving asks first: it names that schedule and says when the two overlap. To keep both, choose Create Anyway for a new schedule or Save Anyway for one you are editing, and both schedules create a Service on those dates. Restoring an archived schedule asks the same way, with Restore Anyway. A date only one of the two falls on is not shared. The weekly Shabbat schedule does not fall on a Shabbat that gives way to a holiday reading, so a holiday schedule at the same Location and hours is not asked about that Shabbat. Nor are two holiday schedules where one follows fewer days: that one holds the day, as described above. A Location an active schedule uses cannot be archived until that schedule moves elsewhere or is archived itself.

MitzvahManager feature

Who attends: Ceremony Coverage

In MitzvahManager, Ceremony Coverage lists the roles each ceremony on the schedule asks for, one person in each. One Rabbi at each ceremony on a Shabbat morning schedule asks for a rabbi at every ceremony held on it. Coverage names roles, never people. The roles come from Staff Roles. Who fills a role is decided ceremony by ceremony on the Coverage view of Ceremonies, where Suggest Coverage proposes people, or automatically when the Suggest coverage setting is on. Coverage applies only while students may be placed on the schedule. Turn that off and the roles wait, unchanged, until you turn it back on. Removing a role leaves people already accepted for a ceremony in their place.

How a schedule makes the dates you see

A schedule stores no list of dates. Each upcoming date is worked out from its Cadence, its Effective Dates and the calendar, so an edit to the schedule reaches every date that is not yet a Service. A date becomes a Service when someone creates it: in iLeyn with Create and Publish or Create Draft, and in MitzvahManager when a ceremony's Service is prepared. From then on you change that date on its Service, and the schedule no longer applies to it. Each date of a schedule has one Service at most. Changing the Cadence changes which dates the schedule offers. Ceremonies already booked keep their own date, time and Location. The editor's Review step lists the dates before you save: the next 12 weeks, or for a holiday schedule its next three dates, looking up to 3 years ahead. It includes any date that is blocked or held by another schedule, and why. A schedule you no longer hold is archived, so its history stays, and Restore brings it back. An archived schedule that was never used can then be deleted.

Blocked dates

A blocked date is a day when something cannot happen: a building closure, a gala, a summer break. Each one says what is blocked (the whole organization, some Locations, or a person), when (these dates, or every year), and what it stops: Ceremonies, Services, or Lessons and appointments. They live in Settings under Blocked Dates. You do not need any to get started; add them as they come up. How they reach a schedule:

  • Blocked for Services, for the whole organization or the schedule's Location: the date drops out of the schedule's upcoming dates.
  • Blocked for Ceremonies: the date stays, and no ceremony is suggested on it. Suggest Dates skips it, and the ceremony planner shows it hatched, with its reason.
  • Blocked for a person: it matters only to the ceremonies that need that person.

The Jewish calendar closes some dates to ceremonies on its own: a festival day, Tisha B'Av, and a Shabbat whose weekly portion gives way to a holiday reading. The planner names the day as the reason. A schedule built on that holiday is never closed by it.

MitzvahManager feature

How ceremonies and automation use schedules

In MitzvahManager, most ceremonies sit on a date of a schedule; Another date and time places one off any schedule. Only schedules with Students may be placed on these dates turned on offer dates for ceremonies. Turn it off for a gathering that is never a ceremony, such as a weekday minyan. Suggest Dates looks across those dates, leaves out the blocked and closed ones, and matches each student to dates that fit their eligibility. When a ceremony's Service is prepared, by Prepare Service or by Prepare Services automatically, it starts from the schedule's date: its time, Location, Service Name and notes, the schedule's Service Template unless another is chosen, and that day's reading. Students on the same date of the same schedule share that Service. Suggest coverage reads the schedule's Ceremony Coverage and suggests one person for each role at each ceremony.

The same schedule in iLeyn and MitzvahManager

A Service Schedule is one record that both apps read. Create it in either app and it appears in both. Edit it in one and the other shows the change.

  • In iLeyn, Services lists your schedules under Recurring, and their dates appear under Upcoming, where you create each date's Service and assign readers.
  • In MitzvahManager, ceremonies are planned on their dates.
  • In both, Settings lists them under Service Schedules.

Locations and blocked dates are shared the same way, so a closure entered in one app holds in the other.

Frequently asked questions

Why does the ceremony planner show no dates?

The planner offers the dates of schedules that students may be placed on. Add a Service Schedule, or turn on Students may be placed on these dates for one you have. Your organization also needs a time zone.

What happens to booked ceremonies when I change a schedule?

They keep their own date, time and Location. A change reaches only the dates that are not yet a Service.

Why is a date missing from a schedule?

A blocked date that stops Services, for the whole organization or the schedule's Location, removes it. So does an Effective End before that date, or archiving the schedule. A weekly Shabbat schedule also skips a Shabbat whose portion gives way to a holiday reading.

How do I take a day back from the schedule that holds it?

Archive that schedule, or change its Location or hours so the two no longer overlap. Either way, the day goes to whichever schedule still sharing it follows the fewest days.

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