Change the contact in public maps tool

[duckdan]

I'm serving as bishop of a YSA ward. I get 5-10 messages a week through the public facing maps tool. The message comes with the subject Message Sent Using Maps Services. This is a MAJOR source of frustration.

First, the sheer volume of requests, many of which are somewhat ludicrous in nature. The Church emphasizes taking things off the bishop's plate... well here is a prime opportunity! NONE of these requests needs to go directly to me. They can and should go to a clerk, a secretary, or someone specially called to answer emails. Though each request might be small, getting these on a regular basis creates an enormous amount of unnecessary complexity.

Second, although my email address is masked when they first send a message, if I reply to the message, they get my email address. Now they can email me directly, when they aren't even in my ward. That's minor, though, compared to the volume issue above.

My clerk and I experimented with changing the email address associated with maps. There is one option in LCR somewhere (he did it), and indeed, I stopped getting the messages. But I also stopped getting messages from the Church, period. So important emails and confidential emails were now being sent to my clerk, and he would have to forward them to me. No bueno.

Seems like two simple fixes are available:

1. create a generic email address for every ward. the clerk/secretary can be assigned to it.

2. separate out the email address associated with Maps and allow the ward to assign that without affecting other messages received from the Church.

Cheers

[rmrichesjr]

Because the forum is basically a user-to-user discussion forum, it's unlikely anyone with the ability to implement your suggestions will see this thread. Here, the best case is if someone happens to see your post and knows of a workaround or solution. There are two ways to get ideas like yours to people with authority/ability to effect changes:

1. Use the Feedback button or link. Those reports go to service missionaries who can route the reports to someone with ability to make development decisions.

2. Ask your stake president to raise the concerns/suggestions up his chain of command.

[rmrichesjr]

Okay, there's a third method for someone serving as Bishop or similar leadership calling:

3. Call the Global Services Department and ask if they have suggestions or solutions or can route your suggestions to makers of development decisions.

[mdigi]

Agree with passing your feedback up through the official channels to get improvements in place.

In the meantime, setup a rule in your email account to automatically forward emails [having the subject line you referenced] to your clerk's email bucket.

Depending on your email provider/ software, you may need to instruct your clerk to remove any artifacts of your email address when responding to the email.

[BrianEdwards]

I tend to agree with your notion of having the default contact point not be the Bishop / Branch President, but it's difficult to know if the Church has purposefully decided to make the Bishop be the contact point, or if that's just the easiest way for the functionality to have been implemented. I would loved to have had a toggle of sorts where I could have selected who in the Branch Presidency was the contact email, even if it was my name that appeared in the online listing.

Regarding random/spam type of emails, I usually reported them to GSC. My thought was that if I received that type of email, it was likely that many other Bishops / Branch Presidents were also receiving the same email request, and that the Church could potentially track and "do something" if needed.