"Send a Message" Function on LCR

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lajackson
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Re: "Send a Message" Function on LCR

#261

Post by lajackson »

ss26 wrote:I've had a number of stake members say they aren't getting the e-mails.
I email our elders quorum every other week. And every other week a few of them do not receive the emails. It is a different group that gets missed each time. They have email addresses that are served by every major provider. Mostly it works. Sometimes it does not.

I have resigned myself to the fact that the email system does not have its act totally together. And by that I do not necessarily mean the church part of the system, although I know it flakes from time to time. But the email system in general is not a 100% reliable way to communicate.

However, it is the best I have at the moment for what I have been asked to do.
bschroader
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Re: "Send a Message" Function on LCR

#262

Post by bschroader »

ss26 wrote:In our stake, the stake president sends weekly e-mails through Send a Message. I've had a number of stake members say they aren't getting the e-mails (I'm the stake clerk). Our stake president says he's including these folks but it doesn't show up in the spam/junk-mail or anywhere else they can see. I have this same problem (of not receiving them on a consistent basis).

So far, the people that have brought it to my attention have GMail. Is there a way for church employees to trace what happened to these missing messages? Is there a department I should contact to ask about this?

Thanks for any info!
There is one thing to consider. Look at each reported incident's record on LCR to see if their email address is populated in their email field.

I send out E-Mails weekly for the ward and if members want to opt out of the mailing list, (typically less active), I simply remove their E-Mail address from their record. It's the easiest way for me to manage "do not contact" concerns from recipients.

Anyway, just a thought.
chriswoodut
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Re: "Send a Message" Function on LCR

#263

Post by chriswoodut »

I have a member that works for familysearch.org and that's the email address he uses. He doesn't get my emails from LCR. I passed that info via feedback just in case they ever want to dig into it.

I sometimes wonder if who the sender is, is part of the mix. My personal domain I can setup SPF records so that receiving email servers can verify if the email is reallllllly from me or from a spammer. If LCR uses a the reply-to with my email address, does the recipients server see that and do an SPF look up on the reply-to field and then reject it because the email is originating from a server that isn't mine? Every receiving email server can and will be configured differently.

If the combination of failed emails is sender and receiver combination specific, reproducing it becomes harder.
russellhltn
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Re: "Send a Message" Function on LCR

#264

Post by russellhltn »

chriswoodut wrote:If the combination of failed emails is sender and receiver combination specific, reproducing it becomes harder.
As I recall, AOL and Yahoo had particularly harsh SPF records. By any chance, is the sender using one of those services?
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davesudweeks
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Re: "Send a Message" Function on LCR

#265

Post by davesudweeks »

Another thing to check on the email address side is where it it recorded. As I understand, Send A Message only sends to the "Individual Email" and never to the "Household Email." If there is nothing in the individual email field, it DOES NOT switch over to the household email field. This behavior is by design so if you have a single person, be sure their email address is in the right place (or in both places) to make sure they will receive the communication.
heathermelindarich
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Re: Permissions -- "Send a Message" Function on LCR

#266

Post by heathermelindarich »

chriswoodut wrote:
tomj wrote:Our stake is seeing an issue start to come up where sisters are being called by the Bishops as "Ward Communication Specialists" to expressly send out announcements to members ( vision of a Digital Bulletin perhaps), as the church has directed units to reduce over the pulpit announcements with the new schedule. A work around is in place for wards whom call a brother, as the ward can assign them with assistant clerk permissions. From what I understand, The system does not allow this for sisters. I've have a Sister contacting me (Stake Clerk) to help her get permissions to Send to All Members. I think it would be wise to consider creating a "Communications" position in the system which would allow for Adult Brethren and Sisters to be able to have the permissions to utilize "Send A Message". I already know its going to be a bit of an uncomfortable conversation with the sister contacting me, that in order to do her calling she has to send the communication to a Man (assistant clerk) in the Bishopric to then send out the message. The irony is I'm sure the calling was given to reduce that burden on Bishopric members...
Some callings for women do have access to send-a-message. https://lcr.lds.org/access-table?lang=eng

I will also note that using the ward/branch calendar on lds.org does allow for Events to send out reminder emails in advance. We're starting to use that and the organizations can populate their own events and control the email notification's timing. We have moved to a digital sacrament program and announcements each week. We have an assistant clerk in charge of it (with edits by the ward clerk as needed when sitting in meetings). It's working well.

So far, I think I prefer those needing to communicate to do so themselves rather than trying to funnel all communication through a single person. It ends up being just as much work to communicate that info to the 'communicator' than to just do it yourself (as a clerk, organization, bishopric, etc).
I am a ward communications specialist and feel it’s silly that the RS assistant secretary can send emails to everyone but I can’t. And I don’t feel like we should have to “falsify” my calling to do so. The Church has asked wards and stakes to reduce time spent with announcements and to help those who are home bound. They should provide a way to do so. My calling is basically worthless without it. And, this is only a recent change as I could before April of last year.
russellhltn
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Re: Permissions -- "Send a Message" Function on LCR

#267

Post by russellhltn »

heathermelindarich wrote:I am a ward communications specialist and feel it’s silly that the RS assistant secretary can send emails to everyone but I can’t.
The position of RS Assistant Secretary exists in the handbook. I don't think Ward Communications Specialist does. When wards make up callings, it should come as no surprise there's no support for that. The systems the church creates follows the structure outlined in the Handbook.

The change you're referring to is probably when the Directory changed, removing the ability to bulk email from the general membership. No doubt, it was a feature that was abused by some of the "out there" members of the church.
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Janetteknight
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Re: "Send a Message" Function on LCR

#268

Post by Janetteknight »

I am Stake Relief Society President and my secretary nor I have access to send a message.
I had it as a Young Women counselor at the ward level and found it the best way to communicate to large groups and through the church.
It sure would be nice to use to announce and invite Sisters in the Stake to our stake activities and trainings.
Currently I am conposing a message and having our stake secretary send it for me.
Janette Knight :D
russellhltn
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Re: "Send a Message" Function on LCR

#269

Post by russellhltn »

Janetteknight wrote:I am Stake Relief Society President and my secretary nor I have access to send a message.
Please see this post
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dtlindsa
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Re: "Send a Message" Function on LCR

#270

Post by dtlindsa »

LCR Messaging messages from local leaders are consistently dropped to specific recipients with no notice to sender or recipient.

No messages from my local leaders (bishop, stake president, elders president, etc.) sent using LCR messaging to the email address in my church profile are received. My wife receives the set of such messages appropriate to her. As a user of LCR, I can produce this result at will. When I send a message from LCR to myself and my wife, she receives it and I do not. I also do not receive the confirmation message Messaging says I will receive.

To report this bug I clicked Do you have feedback on this page from the LCR home page as suggested in this forum. The page I reached is a feedback page asking me to rate my experience with the page. I filled in a report of this bug as Comments and gave my email address. I have received no response in the week since I posted the bug. I had at least hoped for an acknowledgement of the posting.

Some details which I included:

EXAMPLE: My Elders president sent new ministering assignments (using LCR messaging). I did not receive an email. He sent it again. Again I didn’t receive it. He got no error messages.

The last *local* leader communication I received was on 1/27/2018, From: <noreply@ldschurch.org>, [San Jose Stake] Stake Choir Rehearsal. It was sent by <name>, whose calling is Stake Clerk.

This bug does not seem to affect messages from the church general leadership. For example, I received one on 6 Apr 2020.

This may be related to the fact that my wife and I formerly (for many years) had the same email address in our church profiles. She recently changed her email address. Now she gets local leader emails, but I still do not.

As a test, I sent an email to my wife and myself using LCR Messaging on 12 April 2020. Before sending, I floated my cursor over our names and our expected emails were displayed. “From” shows my name and email. I sent it. Messaging responded “Your message is being sent. You will receive a confirmation email when message sending is complete.”

I received neither the confirmation email nor the email message. My wife received the email message promptly. No visible errors were generated by creating and sending this email.

As the sending leader, from this test, I would have assumed that my email was sent to both my wife and myself. However, the email was never sent to me.

It is not acceptable for a messaging system to selectively discard messages to valid addresses without notification to the sender or intended recipient. Here are suggested messages. To the sender: “You tried to send an email to <recipient> through LCR messaging but it was not sent due to an error in … .” To the intended recipient: “<Sender> who is the <unit name> Elders Quorum president attempted to send you an email but it was not sent due to an error in … . Visit <link> to resolve this issue.”

If there is a better way to get this bug information to the developers, I would be happy to use it. Does anyone know a better way? I'm sure I'm not the only person not getting local leader guidance in this current situation due to this bug.
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