Change in Recording Sacrament Meeting Attendance

[jdan]

This is now available online. But I don't quite understand how it will work properly.

When reading the points below, keep in mind that today is January 3.

1) At the bottom you enter the attendance number. To the left of this is the text "5th". 5th what? I assume it means January 5th, which is the upcoming Sunday. It would be nice if it said "January 5th", instead of just "5th".

2) But today is only January 3, and I don't know what our attendance will be 3 days in the future, so why can I enter the attendance for a future date?

3) When will it change to Jan 12th? If it changes to Jan 12 on Monday Jan 6, then this means that we MUST enter the attendance for Jan 5th exactly on Jan 5th, because we can't enter it before it happens, and we can't enter it the day after, so we can only enter it on the exact day of the meeting.

4) I hope that we will always have power and internet access between the end of Sacrament meeting and when it changes to the next week (midnight I guess). I've lived in places where we didn't always have reliable access 24 hours a day, or we had to go to a library (or a Starbucks) for access - are they open on Sunday evening so I can go there and enter Sacrament attendance?

5) When I am out of town, then I hope someone else will be in town that day to enter the number. This means we will need to to find someone reliable to enter the data on that specific date, rather than handle it when we return.

6) I see no way to correct a previous entry. I guess that I will just compensate on next week's entry by adding or subtracting the difference between what I entered and what I should have entered.

7) If we can't enter the data exactly when it needs to be entered, then a 0 will be used for that week, which is going to hurt our average, even if it is averages over the entire quarter - or will the average be a running average over all time that is never reset, so the longer you have been entering the data, the more stable your percentage will be?

8) I expect that the weekly average will be calculated based on the number of records in your unit on that date, so you will want to make sure your membership records are always up to date each week, rather than just at the end of the quarter when the average was calculated in the past.

[rmrichesjr]

This is now available online. But I don't quite understand how it will work properly.

...

Those are some very good answers. Because this is a user-to-user mutual-support forum, there is no guarantee anyone with correct answers will reply here. You might want to consider asking those questions via the 'Feedback' mechanism.

[russellhltn]

TBut today is only January 3, and I don't know what our attendance will be 3 days in the future, so why can I enter the attendance for a future date?

While it might be the 3rd for you, it's already the 4th in places like Guam and Japan. So, a little bit of "ahead" might be preferable to adding all the code (and risking bugs) of making the application time-zone aware.

[scgallafent]

1) At the bottom you enter the attendance number. To the left of this is the text "5th". 5th what? I assume it means January 5th, which is the upcoming Sunday. It would be nice if it said "January 5th", instead of just "5th".

The entry box that says "5th" is inside of a larger tile that says "Jan." If it said January 5th, that would end up being repeated on every line (January 5th, January 12th, January 19th, January 26th), which would widen the box and affect some of the layout design work that was done on that page.

january-5.png (11.19 KiB) Viewed 928 times

2) But today is only January 3, and I don't know what our attendance will be 3 days in the future, so why can I enter the attendance for a future date?

I'm not sure what logic they ended up implementing to determine when the entry box appears for a given week.

3) When will it change to Jan 12th? If it changes to Jan 12 on Monday Jan 6, then this means that we MUST enter the attendance for Jan 5th exactly on Jan 5th, because we can't enter it before it happens, and we can't enter it the day after, so we can only enter it on the exact day of the meeting.

It won't change to January 12 -- you will see an additional box to record the January 12 attendance.

4) I hope that we will always have power and internet access between the end of Sacrament meeting and when it changes to the next week (midnight I guess). I've lived in places where we didn't always have reliable access 24 hours a day, or we had to go to a library (or a Starbucks) for access - are they open on Sunday evening so I can go there and enter Sacrament attendance?

5) When I am out of town, then I hope someone else will be in town that day to enter the number. This means we will need to to find someone reliable to enter the data on that specific date, rather than handle it when we return.

6) I see no way to correct a previous entry. I guess that I will just compensate on next week's entry by adding or subtracting the difference between what I entered and what I should have entered.

7) If we can't enter the data exactly when it needs to be entered, then a 0 will be used for that week, which is going to hurt our average, even if it is averages over the entire quarter - or will the average be a running average over all time that is never reset, so the longer you have been entering the data, the more stable your percentage will be?

All of these are complaints based your invalid assumption about how you think the system works.

8) I expect that the weekly average will be calculated based on the number of records in your unit on that date, so you will want to make sure your membership records are always up to date each week, rather than just at the end of the quarter when the average was calculated in the past.

It is possible that the development team anticipated that a clerk wouldn't be able to enter attendance every week and has designed it so that won't be a concern.

[drepouille]

That spinner control would enable a clerk to use the web page as a tap counter if the spinner were large enough to tap. I use a tap counter app on my phone. The app uses large up and down controls, and it gives a vibrate feedback for each tap, so I don't have to look at the phone while I am tapping. Anyway, I think this is a valuable addition.

[sbradshaw]

TBut today is only January 3, and I don't know what our attendance will be 3 days in the future, so why can I enter the attendance for a future date?

While it might be the 3rd for you, it's already the 4th in places like Guam and Japan. So, a little bit of "ahead" might be preferable to adding all the code (and risking bugs) of making the application time-zone aware.

And don't forget parts of the world where sacrament meeting is held on other days of the week!

[jdlessley]

It doesn't look like the app is fully developed yet. There are provisions yet to be programmed in - like accounting for no-meeting-Sundays and for things like stake conference or general conference. I am sure we will see more changes to the app. Just sit back, relax, and watch. If necessary, provide feedback when things get rolling and your 'special need' doesn't appear to be considered.

I recommend keeping a tally for each meeting day, whether it is Sunday or some other day, outside the LCR app for reference should there be any issues. We will continue to use our clerk office calendar on the pin-board to record attendance in addition to the app.

[chriswoodut]

I believe the letter that came out about this said that you can update the numbers within the quarter. So, I don't think you have to enter it only on that day and it can't ever be changed.

We've been counting attendance every week for 4 years and have a spreadsheet of those stats. I have a chart of attendance a week, avg by month, and avg by year and we can see the trend line. We had a question about the slight, yet consistent decrease over time. In digging into the data, we notice that it is tied to our high school graduation rate. Our youth are getting older and moving out and our senior members are staying and there isn't much of a turnover in the homes in our area (aging population with few babies being born).

[drepouille]

That spinner control would enable a clerk to use the web page as a tap counter if the spinner were large enough to tap. I use a tap counter app on my phone. The app uses large up and down controls, and it gives a vibrate feedback for each tap, so I don't have to look at the phone while I am tapping. Anyway, I think this is a valuable addition.

Well that didn't work. I tried bringing up the web page on my Android phone today, but my phone did not display the spinner, so I couldn't even try to use it as a tap counter. No problem. I just used my old tap counter app, and entered the final count later.

[klricks]

Note I have already sent a feedback on this...

After going the the sacrament attendance page I cannot navigate to another page. It always jumps back to the sacrament attendance page no matter what other menu item I try to use.
To recover I have to close the browser (tab) then restart the browser (Firefox) and login the LCR again.