Best ways to organise and view band member availability?

FarleyUK

Hi all,

I'm tearing my hair out trying to find an approach that works for everyone in my band. There are 4 of us in the group, and 1 of the guys works shifts so we need to be able to see his availability for gigs etc., as well as everyone's holidays.

Now, the complication comes in the fact that the shift guy is not tech-savvy at all, and neither is the rhythym player.

It's taken us 2 years to get the shift worker to sign up to an iCloud calender myself and the drummer created (much to our amazement), and he can see everything in there, add dates etc. So we thought that was it - but then the rhythym player said he cannot see it as he hasn't got an Apple device.

We've tried using a word document with all dates, hosted on a Facebook group, but the shift guy could never download it.

Does anyone have any recommendations on the best ways or apps (across both Apple and Google phones) to do all this?

Thanks.

stickyfiddle

Google calendars work with everything. Very easy to set up

FarleyUK

stickyfiddle said:

Google calendars work with everything. Very easy to set up

Yeah, you'd have thought so.... but when I tried it, both the shift guy AND the rhythym player claimed they never received anything and couldn't set it up.

You have to have a Google account to use it, right?

stickyfiddle

You can set up a "band gmail", give everyone the password, then use that only for the calendar function. It's not hard to do

FarleyUK

stickyfiddle said:

You can set up a "band gmail", give everyone the password, then use that only for the calendar function. It's not hard to do

Yeah, you and I know that.....

RedRabbit

We've just started using TeamUp as we have a mix of apple and android devices and it seems to work well across both (and there's a web app too).

Set up is fairly straight forward once the account has been setup - just install the app and enter the access code. After that it works pretty much like any other calendar app. Ours is set up so each member has their own colour and band books has its own colour as well so we can see at a glance who is/isn't available. 

robinbowes

We use doodle for planning rehearsals.

https://doodle.com

John_P

I use a band gmail address and calendar for each of my bands,  works great.

Whatever you use there is always a likelihood that someone can't use it (or claims they can't but really can't be bothered),  so I just ask them to txt me when they know there is a date they aren't free and enter it.    It has worked out less stress than constantly trying to "persuade" them.

vasselmeyer

All the bands I've played in for the past five years have used Google calendar. Whatever your bandmates might say, it DOES work on every mobile platform out there, even Windows Phone. You do need a Google account to use it, but you can set up a Google account using any email address. You don't need a Gmail address to do it. Once it's set up, you just need a shared band calendar and as long as you set the right options in the calendar setting, everyone can see it and add to it.

vasselmeyer

stickyfiddle said:

You can set up a "band gmail", give everyone the password, then use that only for the calendar function. It's not hard to do

That is very poor security practice, especially seeing as how many people are careless around security on whatever device they use to access web services. A shared calendar is just as easy to use and you won't lose access tot he band account if someone is careless.

Toon

+1 on Doodle. Used it for the last couple of years - it's great, easy to use, free and can be accessed from phone, tablet or PC.

RocknRollDave

Some band members just need need spoonfeeding so only a direct phone call to check dates will help.
Get some reliable deps in place if you can and book in confidence. If matey boy can't commit straight away, dep gets the gig instead. He'll soon work out how an online calendar works. 

stickyfiddle

vasselmeyer said:

stickyfiddle said:

You can set up a "band gmail", give everyone the password, then use that only for the calendar function. It's not hard to do

That is very poor security practice, especially seeing as how many people are careless around security on whatever device they use to access web services. A shared calendar is just as easy to use and you won't lose access tot he band account if someone is careless.

Sure, but if you're literally only using it for the calendar its not a major security risk. Obviously I wouldn't share the password to my own gmail account just to let someone else see the calendar!

gusman2x

Google calendar works. What doesn't work is when no tw@ fills it in.

Roland

We tackle that by filling in non-availability. You leave it blank at your own risk. 

Vaiai

We also use Google Calendar and Drive - The calendar is a rough guide tho and we still confirm 100% before accepting a gig - with childcare and availability of grandparents etc you can never guarantee the calendar is perfect.
Putting non-availability at least helps in some way

We also used Drive to manage files, links etc and the benefit is multiple ppl can edit at once - our song choice doc in Dropbox was a nightmare as it couldn't do this.

FarleyUK

Yep, we're looking to move away from spoonfeeding these two band members, hence the question.

I've created a TeamUp calendar, looks pretty tasty - and nice that you can use the iPhone calendar to view it as well (even if you need to use the app to add dates).

I'm sure there'll be some reason as to why someone cannot use it, but I've done pretty much all I can. Cheers guys!

John_P

I'd be interested to hear back in a few weeks to see if you have found a way to get them to use it.     I've found people some people are like that and I gave up trying to force them.   

koneguitarist

stickyfiddle said:

Google calendars work with everything. Very easy to set up

It's what we do as well. Simple yet works.

FarleyUK

OK, they have all said they can use TeamUp, and I've shown the apple iCal users how to import the TeamUp calendar view into it so you can see at a glance as well.

However, now the drummer is complaining that "It doesn't alert you when a date is added". Er, isn't the whole point of a calendar that you LOOK at a date you have in mind to see if anything is going on....?

p90fool

RocknRollDave said:

Some band members just need need spoonfeeding so only a direct phone call to check dates will help.
Get some reliable deps in place if you can and book in confidence. If matey boy can't commit straight away, dep gets the gig instead. He'll soon work out how an online calendar works. 

That's what I do. We have a Facebook messenger group and I maintain the calender based on what the other members tell me, but in practice I can accept any gig if our lead singer says yes, then worry about the deps afterwards. It's handy that my wife is the drummer though to be fair.

Having a group calender which relies on everyone uploading their availability has never worked for me. There are three local venues who call me first (usually on a Thursday) when they get a cancellation for an upcoming Saturday, so for me, deps work better than dodgy outdated info from technophobic rhythm guitarists.