Tech Forum

mrrad wrote:But we're saving paper (and the planet!)

That's not going to save the planet, unfortunately. :p

Just a different perspective... I think all members should have the WiFi password. If they are going to make the decision to come to church, they should be able to make the decision to use the network judiciously. Pulling up a 250k pdf of the ward bulletin isn't going to impact the network much at all - even if the file isn't local.

heyring wrote:Just a different perspective... I think all members should have the WiFi password. If they are going to make the decision to come to church, they should be able to make the decision to use the network judiciously. Pulling up a 250k pdf of the ward bulletin isn't going to impact the network much at all - even if the file isn't local.

If we had the bandwidth to support all of that traffic, I might agree with you. Pulling up a 250k pdf file isn't the only thing they do, lets be honest. There is expectation, and then there is reality. They check Facebook, browse the internet a little, get on LDS.org, which is fine by me, but all that traffic bogs it down and makes it difficult for leaders to access it when needed. We have one Wi-Fi network for all three units that meet in our building, one of which is a YSA ward.

Agreed.. We are lucky enough that our building bandwidth can stand up to the amount of users that are allowed to connect by the number of IP's the 881w Firewall will dish out. Our only slowdowns on Sundays are when we try to access LDS.org (because the rest of the planet is doing the same).
We will be testing out having the Bulletin on LDS.org via Newsletter app and having an inconspicuous QR code members (the techy ones of course) can scan when they walk in.

heyring wrote:Just a different perspective... I think all members should have the WiFi password.

Not every building has good broadband.

Sometimes I forget that our Stake is in the minority that uses the schedule where Sacrament Meeting is the last meeting of "the block" on Sunday. So, if the "final draft" of the Sacrament Meeting program is ready one hour before Sacrament Meeting then that means people can download it during that break between Priesthood Meeting and Sunday School. But, in the majority of wards where Sacrament Meeting is first, if the program is ready one hour before "the block" starts then people could just download it before they leave their homes. So, in the majority of wards, getting the PDF before leaving home wouldn't have any affect on the Wi-Fi service in the church.

It seems to me that the ward's Newsletter on lds.org is the logical place for sacrament meeting programs, bulletins, etc. Why complicate access with a local computer when lds.org is already setup? Why develop yet another app when lds.org's Newsletter is already available? Impact on the internet is not an issue because viewing a PDF file takes only a fraction of the resources of that needed to view a video. Besides, the best time to view the program is on Saturday while preparing for Sunday. An additional benefit is having past programs available for a period of time.

The purpose of having an online app to build the programs wouldn't be so that you could distribute the programs electronically. It would be to facilitate in building programs. Every ward in the entire world needs a sacrament meeting program. Each person called to do the programs has to re-invent the wheel. There is no integration when you do it this way. The bishop should be able to assign brother x to give a talk, and have that automatically appear in the program app. There is a lot of integration that needs to happen, that currently doesn't.

When you consider the sheer number of people trying to solve the program of building a sacrament meeting template, it just seems it would make sense to make an online solution that can integrate with other systems.

aaronfrost wrote:Every ward in the entire world needs a sacrament meeting program.

I realize that many wards have a sacrament meeting program, but I have lived in many wards that did not. They seemed to manage nicely.

aaronfrost wrote:The purpose of having an online app to build the programs wouldn't be so that you could distribute the programs electronically. It would be to facilitate in building programs.

Actually, I think this thread was started because someone was concerned only about electronic distribution to save on printing. In the past, others have discussed creating templates for Sunday Bulletins (a.k.a. Sacrament Meeting Programs) in, for example, this discussion here.