Next Revision Unit Web Sites Wish List

[preston.baxter]

Another "wish list" item: multiple photos per family. In my own family of 7 (soon to be 8) the 135x180 pixel limit just isn't enough to post a picture from which anyone could possibly recognize us! :+)

[121887mattandjulie]

This is a summary of all suggestions made to date for improving the Ward Web Site. It includes some personal input from me and has left off a few items that were addressed by the administrator as not being feasible with explanation in the posts they appear in reverse order from that submitted in general as I worked backwards.:rolleyes:
1) Multiple photo submission by members to be approved by Admin for directory, ability to keep your directory picture when you moved to another stake
2) Allow Stakes/Wards to add but not change HQ calendar distributions to customize to local time & schedule
3) Have MLS feed Leadership calling information to HQ for input to Stake/Ward web sites, at least for default calling positions shown.
4) a) Upgrade MLS to accept email address for each member
b) Have MLS feed LUWS with each members email address
c) Have MLS feed Church Directory of Organizations and Leaders (CDOL) with leaders personal email address
5) "feedback" link within a particular event where someone can send an email to the administrator and include in that notification the calendar event date and title
6) Ability to create custom mailing lists and save to profile - not sure if for all users or just administrators. Of course for short duration activity lists building your own on your own email client is an option. The question is what resources for improvement are the most important for the most users with limited resources & time those with most benefit to the most people should have priority.
7) Changes to calendaring submit page to include: Abbreviation definitions for rooms, link to Stake Building Use & Policy guide (can be posted to News & Information Section), define required fields for submittal to include: Stake or Ward Organization submitting request, Contact person with email and phone, rooms requested using room acronyms, times & details.
8) Ability to post multiple email addresses and phone numbers in directory for families as many families no longer have home phone and each has a cell phone.
9) Allow deletion of one day of a repeating event without having to delete the entire repeating schedule.
10) Layered views options of calendar but forcing all layers to show when someone wants to submit a new event to avoid conflict.
11) Work on porting website for use for International users before putting resources into improving for US. My thoughts the US is the Beta testers & there are a lot of issues with current product that impact its usability & benefits, I appreciate the desire of our brethren in other parts of the world to get this in their hands but from a personal experience as a unit web admin you will have a lot more success getting your members to use it if it incorporated some of the improvements suggested before rolling out. Not sure what the member participation is throughout the Church in US, but that is both a factor of dedication of the admin in keeping site useful & updated as well as user friendliness.
12) Lesson Schedule area: add areas for other classes beyond that now provided. $.02 Or make it a resource so class instructors can be given the ability to update it with their planned lessons comments as well with approval by web admin as deemed appropriate by policy. We need more thought into how to deal with lesson schedules skewed by ward conference when the Stake sets schedule for entire Stake for PH & RS without ward ability to edit. Are wards expected to skip a lesson due to ward conference & make it up at year end is there any benefit from lessons taught sequentially? Just as Stakes complain about inability to over ride CHQ, wards have same issue with Stake & class schedules.
13) Ability to subscribe to emails in the profile beyond that now offered to include items such as: Ability to select calling & subscribe to any church articles that deal specifically with it until user opts out or changes profile setting. Updates on changes in ward leadership & new members moved in. See post 10/11 for more examples...
10) Link resources with events, for example building scheduling with calendar Activity now two separate entries, or having holidays show up on multiple calendars, including resource calendars when added to website calendar. Note: This may not be practical & the reason may be that the resource scheduler does not have to be a full admin currently, ergo does not have rights to post in ward calendar. You would take away ability to delegate ability to ward members to be resource managers if you applied this wish, IE adding more for the ward admin to do. Another option suggested that might be more feasible is to have resource requests combined with activity information and if approved by the resource manager, it would then be forwarded on to the Ward/stake admin for approval for calendar publication. Otherwise the buck stops at the resource manager to avoid scheduling events on the calendar by the ward admin only to find out latter the resource was not available & the activity date/time had to be changed or cancelled.
11) Add option in repeating event for a 5th week so events that occur only on 5th weeks can be repeat added.
12) Add user friendly option to allow pre-empting of a building meeting schedules on temporary basis for activities like Stake Conference to show up on home page so visitors from out of town who browse to the Stake web site don’t show up to an empty parking lot.
13) Have callings that are updated in MLS automatically show up on ward/stake web sites, atleast for all the default leadership positions listed. A popular request! Including preferred names.
14) Have submission emails sent to administrators include all information that was submitted including pending and cancellations & changes.
15) Several complaints about bouncing emails , IE members not keeping email address(es) up to date in profiles resulting in rejected mail messages sent back to administrators for each member who has not. Some have just turned off the accounts (politically correct – probably not?) But I feel for them after having tried everything myself. The easy fix is for the system to use just one location for email address instead of two as the members cannot seem to find the second. If the member wants to provide additional email addresses say in the directory, by all means but for admin purposes there should be one address & one location to update it, which would significantly reduce this problem in my opinion.
16) One suggestion was to include non-member spouses so the SA reps are not calling married members. $ .02 Not sure but I would think MLS should be able to print out a list for the reps periodically that excluded married members. Seems there use to be ways to build custom reports. I don’t think adding personal information about non-members is ever going to happen for privacy and or legal reasons. For every few spouses that are non members & would not mind having their information displayed there are several more that might object. Perhaps this could be an option but might require some kind of written authorization from the non-member to publish their information on the ward web site I don’t know that the non member information added to MLS is made publicly available to all members and may only be used by leadership.
17) Create secure areas for posting information where only certain members have access for privacy confidentially reasons. $ .02 Do we really want information like this on a server? What ever happened to PEC/Ward Correlation Council meetings etc…I am sure the sites are secure but do we want to take the extra risk, I for one would not want to see any laundry publicly displayed if the site were somehow hacked.
18) My new suggestions:
a)Add option to export calendar in a MS Outlook compatible CSV file format. See my posted macro that can likely be tweaked/improved and set up to run on a CHQ server to do just that and look into incorporating the new CalDAV standard(see Calconnect.org for more info).
b)Ability for Administrators to post an event immediately but schedule in advance when to send out the email notification to members. As now stands items planned & posted months in advance are forgotten by the time they roll around. Being able to schedule a tickler email the week before would be nice without having to send out broadcast messages tailored to the desired audience. I try not to send out broadcasts to groups to which it does not apply & likewise edit event submissions as members usually just check all when it is not appropriate. No one likes spam even from a church web site calendar!
c) Examine Vcard compatibility with Outlook may have a similar problem to CSV files for exporting ward directory how else can leaders / members import to their Smart Phones
d)Allow administrators to be able to disable email notification option for users who have not updated their email addresses but still allow members access so they can update email info & reactivate their notification selection. This will prevent administrators from being spammed by members returned mail without having to turn off their access completely.
e) Improving the way additional callings are added and deleted. I try to add items grouped together but when one person is released they are all renumbered immediately and to regroup you must renumber all again. Work around : add new calling before deleting old and renumber new same as old before clicking on change on old(which makes it disappear).

[WelchTC]

Thanks for putting that together!

Tom

[FullmerCB]

Thanks to all who have taken the time to give us suggestions for improvements to the Local Unit Websites. I am on CHQ team that is working on gathering these requirements ... , the same team that will ultimately rebuild the LUWs & internationalize them. Please be assured that we have captured your feedback & will take it into consideration in our planning. Again, we appreciate it.

I can't give details yet, but there is great momentum at this time around this project at CHQ. Exciting things are in the works (more than just planning & requirements gathering). However, as you all know, things take time here. That has been one of my lessons learned in my first year of employment at the Church. Please continue to be patient, and continue to give suggestions. We hope to have news for you soon. As Tom W. has said --- the members of this forum will be among the first to know about any announcements in this area.

Again - thanks for your faith & interest in advancing the Lord's work.

Chad F. (Snr. Product Manager - LDS Church)

[aebrown]

12) Lesson Schedule area: We need more thought into how to deal with lesson schedules skewed by ward conference when the Stake sets schedule for entire Stake for PH & RS without ward ability to edit. Are wards expected to skip a lesson due to ward conference & make it up at year end is there any benefit from lessons taught sequentially? Just as Stakes complain about inability to over ride CHQ, wards have same issue with Stake & class schedules.

I've been meaning to ask about this, but this recent post reminded me.

There seems to be a nearly universal assumption that a ward conference would affect the priesthood and Relief Society lesson schedules because for some reason the normal Teachings of the Prophets lessons would not be given during a ward conference.

Is that correct? From my reading of the Handbook (I don't have access right now to cite the actual page), during ward conference, normal priesthood and RS lessons should be held. So if a ward conference falls on a 2nd or 3rd Sunday, the normal Teachings of the Prophets lesson would occur, and thus the schedule can be consistent across the stake.

There still may be reasons for the LUWS to allow ward overrides (for a specific TFOT lesson, for example), but the most commonly cited reason on this forum -- ward conferences throwing off the schedule for a particular ward -- doesn't seem to be a valid reason. Am I missing something?

[nmecantwin73]

I'm sure if differs Stake by Stake, though the handbook probably gives general guidelines, but our Stake generally outlines the topic for Ward Conference. Sacrament meeting consists of the Stake President and the ward Bishop speaking on the topic. Sunday School is generally held "as normal", though this year for the first time, a member of the High Council instructed us on the chosen topic. Priesthood meetings (Melchizedek) are generally held under the direction of the Stake Presidency (conducted by the High Priest Group leader) where a member of the Stake Presidency and/or a High Councilor instruct on the chosen topic of the conference.

This is where the lesson schedule would get "off track". However, for the past couple of years, our Stake has held Ward Conferences on the fourth Sunday - one ward per month - so we miss the TFOT lesson only.

[Mikerowaved]

Yep, very well done (including the creative numbering! )

One suggestion I didn't see was to PLEASE have the Preferred Name information forwarded from MLS to the LUWS.

[jbh001]

As I was making some changes to the ward webpage this morning, I had the thought, is there any way that when you are adding items, such as a holiday, "Easter", "Christmas", or any other type of activity, if an option could be there to have it be included in ALL calendar items, such as the calendars you create in the Resources section?

I usually request that the stake add these holidays (and other events such as switching to/from daylight savings time) so that all the units in the stake know to take them into consideration when scheduling. There are few things that upset the women of the church more than have a priesthood leader schedule some meeting on Valentine's Day or Mother's Day.

[jbh001]

Another issue I've seen is that the address listing for members doesn't consistently use the same locations for data. Specifically, if an apartment number is listed on the second address line, it shows up where the city normally shows and shifts the other data over by one. It would be nice to have it consistently displayed and downloaded.

This is a bit off topic, but apartment numbers shouldn't be listed on the second line of the address. In the U.S. the Postal Service (USPS) wants all this information on the same line. To see what this looks like, enter the address here (those in Canada can check here). The USPS reads addresses from the bottom up. So a properly formatted address would look like:

John Doe
123 Main St Apt 1
Anywhere UT 84000

If you must carry the address onto a second line it should look like this (remember, read from the bottom up):

John Doe
Apt 1
123 Main St
Anywhere UT 84000

Or even better for MLS printouts (like abbreviated directories):

John Doe
Temple View Apartments # 1
123 Main St
Anywhere UT 84000

Because of the way MLS handles addresses, when someone uses a post office box or private mail box I put the physical address in the first line (it's hard to home teach a PO BOX) and the delivery address in the second line:

John Doe
123 Main St Apt 1
PO BOX 0000
Anywhere UT 84000

Or for private mail boxes (PMB):

John Doe
456 Back Woods Dr Apt 1
123 Main St PMB 42
Anywhere UT 84000This is really for the ward clerk (or assistant ward clerk) to do. But I find going to the trouble of standardizing all the addresses in the ward according to USPS (or Canada Post) guidelines makes it easier for leaders and home/visiting teachers to have better luck finding an address if they can plug it into Google Maps to help them find it. Having the USPS help you locate people is easy and cheap. All it costs is the price of first class postage along with the ancillary endorsement of Return Service Requested.

[jdlessley]

Detach the admin's personal e-mail address from calendar event notification e-mail message broadcasts. Make the default for the e-mail the event submitter's e-mail address. For those cases where the submitter's e-mail address is not available such as when the event submitter calls in the event to the admin person rather than using the LUWS allow the admin to choose or enter an e-mail address. Which e-mail address is the default is open for discussion.
I have a problem as the person approving calendar events and my personal e-mail address being used as the 'sender' in the broadcast message sent after a calendar event is approved. This creates several problems for me.
1. I am not the person with information on the event and therefore do not want questions from people about the event calendared. Questions should be directed to the submitter or the identified point of contact for the event.
2. For security reasons I do not want my persnal e-mail address showing up on other people's computers without me specifically giving them my address. I would like to control who gets my e-mail address to keep the spam and other related issues from being a problem.
3. People do not keep their user profiles up to date on the LUWS, Because of this some of those same people assume that messages sent to them that they do not want are my problem. I get irrate reply messages quite often telling me to remove them from my mailing list (This is another issue in itself.).