Tech Forum

It would be very helpful to be able to add nonmembers to the local unit web sites. This is a capability of MLS, and for all the reasons it's good in MLS, it would be good on the local unit web sites. Here are two reasons:

1. Many nonmember spouses are happy to be listed with their member spouse on ward directories. For example, in our ward there is a great man who is very active in the scouting program, is happy to have people contact him (encourages this), but just happens not to be a member (yet! ). In MLS he is listed in the household with his member wife, but we can't do that in the LUWS. This also makes it impossible to list him in the Leadership Directory.

2. When a person is excommunicated, they disappear from membership lists, which is such an odd thing that it makes people wonder. In MLS we can fix that by adding them back in as a nonmember spouse so that on any ward directories that may be broadly used, they will appear just like they always did. But on the LUWS, the member spouse will suddenly be listed alone, which may raise questions.

Now I know that there are issues about how we could authenticate such people for logging in to the site, since that currently requires a member record number, but that's not really a requirement. The majority of the members of our stake can't login (because they haven't bothered to register), but they are still listed on the site. However, if we could figure out a way to give them access (perhaps piggybacking on their member spouse's authentication), that would be nice.

Having served as the SA rep for many years in a variety of wards, it would be helpful to include non-member spouses. SA reps who do their callings frequently contact people that they do not know. Excluding non-members makes it appear that the LDS church does not recognize their marriage --especially when an unknowing SA rep starts going down the ward list contacting everyone! Working w/RS & PH leaders in advance only works when all members are contacted from time to time. When no contact has been made & the leaders don't know the ward members, this complicates matters.

Greetings all. I just discovered this forum while searching for other things. Very glad I found it! Very informative.

I have couple of suggestions myself (I hope I'm not duplicating prior suggestions)...

1. A lot of info is automatically pulled from MLS to support LUWS, but I would like to see even more. I know updating every unit calling could get a bit messy, but it would be nice if certain key ones were auto-updated.

2. IMO, a rather easy tidbit of info pull from MLS that's currently missing is PREFERRED NAME. It just looks bad to have full given names listed for the various callings, ward/stake phone lists, etc.

3. We've called a Ward Photographer, but there's really no place to post event pictures (Ward parties, work projects, scouting trips, etc.) other than snapshots on the wall outside the Bishop's office. LUWS just seems like a great place to be able to post these kinds of things without having to link to an external site.

I think the more useful we make these various websites, the more they will be utilized by the unit members.

Mikerowaved wrote:3. We've called a Ward Photographer, but there's really no place to post event pictures (Ward parties, work projects, scouting trips, etc.) other than snapshots on the wall outside the Bishop's office. LUWS just seems like a great place to be able to post these kinds of things without having to link to an external site.

The News and Information section does allow posting of photos in a news or information item. The photos have to be uploaded by a site administrator. So for example, a youth leader could submit a news item telling all about a recent activity. Then that leader would have to get the photos of the event to a site administrator who would take care of approving the submission as well as uploading the photos. Attachments other than photos can also be uploaded.

Alan_Brown wrote:It would be very helpful to be able to add nonmembers to the local unit web sites. This is a capability of MLS, and for all the reasons it's good in MLS, it would be good on the local unit web sites.

This is something we are working towards.

Tom

I have also found that having a seperate calendar for the resources is redundant and hard to use and hard to understand for the less tech savy (read 99% of my ward).

It would be much easier if the Church buildings and resources where a pull down menu of the resources available to that ward when they submit a request to the Ward Calendar. At this point the requester could just put in an event request (say primary activity) and then select thier building cultural hall and kitchen from a pull down. This pull down list would only list the buildings and rooms available to that ward (say the ward building and maybe stake center). The request would go in and let the building schedulers know about it and the request can be approved or denied once instead of it getting approved on the Ward Calendar, but having the resouce denied by the building scheduler because the building is already in use.

One of the wards in our stake has been very faithful in recording mailing addresses and residential addresses separately (most do not get mail delivered). However, LUWS doesn't display the mailing addresses, thus significantly reducing its worth to this unit.

I was wondering whether it would be worthwhile for me to encourage them to update all of their addresses to combined addresses (e.g. PO Box 1234; 567 Memory Ln; Lossless CA 99999) or whether instead LUWS may be expected to include mailing addresses in the near future. Any suggestions? Our stake has decided for the first time to NOT print directories, with the intention of using LUWS. This is made more difficult without mailing addresses....

Who is needing the mailing address? For church functions, MLS will crank out mailing labels.

I agree the current setup is an issue, but this may be a work around until LUWS2 comes along.

It would be nice to have bouncing email addresses shut off automatically. Say if it bounces 3 times (?) then notify the ward administrator and shut it off from further emails.

It's rather daunting to get and track down over a hundred of these things every time you send emails with calendar events.

I just inactivate a user's account after multiple email bounces (thus emails are no longer sent to their address). The user usually will tell me that they cannot log in, at which time I enable the account with the promise of having them update their email address.