Reliable access to ward coordinate data for Church charity project

Discussions about the Ward Directory and Map tool on churchofjesuschrist.org.
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daleksiuk
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Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2022 8:03 am

Reliable access to ward coordinate data for Church charity project

#1

Post by daleksiuk »

Hi all,

I developed a software system that is used in Calgary, Alberta for a significant annual food drive effort that is run by the Church. It's big. We have an entry in the Guiness Book of World Records for the most food collected. This system allows food donors to call a number if their food hasn't been picked up by the right time. We listen to the voicemail, look up the ward that the address is in, and dispatch a volunteer driver from the ward to pick up the food. Some years we get over 1500 calls in a Saturday afternoon.

We have call centre volunteers who listen to a sound file from the voicemail. They enter in the address and click a button that automatically assigns a pickup to the ward based on the address. A driver for that ward sees the pickup and goes and gets the food. We do this ourselves in our own system for two reasons: 1. we handle a very large call volume and it's very fast to have this feature available right when they create the food pickup. 2. I'm very nervous that if we use the church's "Find a Meetinghouse" functionality, we might eventually get flagged as being malicious because of all the volume coming from a single IP.

Every year I ask a local ward clerk for ward boundary files for the city. He logs in to the CDOL system and gives me a file for each stake. The file has ward boundary information in KMZ/KML format that I import into our system so we can dispatch the correct driver for that ward. We've been doing this for a few years now. Previously, we relied on the meetinghouse locator.

The problem is that this year the files were no longer available in CDOL. The ward clerk who helps me contacted someone in Salt Lake who was able to find the right file, but the format is totally different. I made it work this year, but I'm curious if anyone here works in the Church's GIS department or maybe has some insight. I'd love to partner with someone at Church HQ who can help me stabilize this. This is an extremely valuable effort, but I'm getting burned out of having to adapt year after year to get the data.

Does anyone know how to contact someone who can help me? Do I go through local leaders? If so, who? Area Authorities? I can talk to the stake president, but who should he ask? Is there a contact in Salt Lake who can help me streamline this?

Ideally our effort becomes recognized by the church so that we can get "official" access to this data. My fantasy scenario would be a GraphQL or REST endpoint that we can use, but I'd be very happy just to get in contact with someone who can talk to me about this and potentially help.

Thank you very much!
lajackson
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Re: Reliable access to ward coordinate data for Church charity project

#2

Post by lajackson »

daleksiuk wrote: Wed Aug 31, 2022 8:15 am The problem is that this year the files were no longer available in CDOL.
I would suggest that you ask your stake president to contact the Area Seventy that supervises your coordinating council and explain the situation to him. He may be able to help you.

Your ward or stake clerk might also be able to give you a contact from CDOL that may be able to help. The Church still uses some type of mapping system inside the Boundary Realignment program. Perhaps there is a way to tie into that map base.
russellhltn
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Re: Reliable access to ward coordinate data for Church charity project

#3

Post by russellhltn »

A project this big must have a contact with the church to run it. This might well be the Area Seventy lajackson mentioned. I'd run your request though them.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
amigodopovo
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Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2021 9:29 am

Re: Reliable access to ward coordinate data for Church charity project

#4

Post by amigodopovo »

I downloaded the KML files within my area's coordinating council (Spokane) in the spring. It's disappointing to have these files no longer available on CDOL. PDF maps aren't that useful for everything, just as described by the original poster.
BrianEdwards
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Re: Reliable access to ward coordinate data for Church charity project

#5

Post by BrianEdwards »

@amigodopovo, based on the other responses, are you planning on asking your Stake President to query the Coordinating Council for details? It would be good for other Forum Members to know if you are able to find out a more official answer regarding whether Stakes (or Areas for that matter) still have a method for accessing this data for the purposes described. It seems like nobody here on the Forum is currently aware of any workarounds, so your situation might help shed some light on what (if anything) is possible.
russellhltn
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Re: Reliable access to ward coordinate data for Church charity project

#6

Post by russellhltn »

If you're referring to the KMZ files that used to be available in CDOL, please read this post.

A PDF of the maps are still available. Boundaries don't change that often. You may be stuck looking at the PDFs, looking for changes and tweaking that last KMZ appropriately. You could also ask each stake if there's been any boundary changes. I know it sucks, but if the information isn't available even after "going up the chain", you have to work with what you can get.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
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