HT/VT Reporting Website Overview

[brado426]

I thought I'd post some screenshots of the HT/VT Reporting System I have been working on. Perhaps they will stimulate some feedback and suggestions.

The system automatically sends e-mails that look like this:



After clicking on the link, the teacher is required to enter his or her e-mail address to gain access to the system. The e-mail address is not included in the link url:



After the user enters the first part of his or her e-mail address, the 'Reporting' screen appears:



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[brado426]

....continued from previous message....

In addition to being able to report, the teacher has the ability to change his or her e-mail address and/or leave a comment for the Presidency. Any comment entered is automatically e-mailed to all Presidency members.

A 'happy-face' shows after submitting if all households or sisters have been visited or contacted. Perhaps a bit cheesy, but a graphic file can easily be changed.

The following report is e-mailed to the Presidency automatically. Fortunately for this EQ President, this is only test data.



Optionally, the Presidency can generate the following report, which is extremely valuable for determining who has been taught and who has not.



Setting a group up to use this system takes less than 15 minutes and once it is set, there is very little that must be maintained by the Presidency. An 'Admin Menu' is available to Presidency Members, providing the ability to manually update a teacher's results and perform other important functions.

The Visiting Teaching portion of this application includes the standard "Letter/Phone/Visits" options when reporting.

I am incredibly excited about this application and its potential. The test results have even surprised me. We have found that even non-technical people can use and benefit from the system. In our testing, we have seen 70% - 90% of Home and Visiting teaching reporting completed automatically without any effort from the Presidency members. The key is to give the teachers the power to report for themselves.

Brad O.

[rickety]

Some wards only require a report from the home teachers for the last month of each quarter. Perhaps you already allow for that option. Great work.

[thedqs]

Very impressive.

[brado426]

rickety: Is this true? I never knew that. This is exactly the type of information that I was hoping to receive. I didn't know that anyone did quarterly reporting.

Tom W. asked me to clarify two points:

• The data shown in the screenshots is all fake test data
• The site currently requires that data is exported from the MLS system and uploaded to the website. This is currently against church policy, which is why the site is currently only in testing.

Thanks for the feedback,

Brad O.

[mkmurray]

Some wards only require a report from the home teachers for the last month of each quarter. Perhaps you already allow for that option. Great work.

I've never heard of that either...interesting...

[rmrichesjr]

Some wards only require a report from the home teachers for the last month of each quarter. Perhaps you already allow for that option. Great work.

For purposes of refining requirements for the software (and _NOT_ for a discussion on policy), page 169 of book 2, section 1 says, "Each month, home teachers report to quorum or group leaders ..." and later, "The stake presidency receives a monthly home teaching report from the bishop." From page 169, "The bishop receives monthly home teaching reports from the elders quorum president and high priests group leader." and later, "Quorum and group leaders receive monthly home teaching reports from each companionship."

It would appear there is no need for the software to support end-of-quarter-only reporting.

[brado426]

That's good to know. Based on that, perhaps there should be an option to have the system automatically e-mail the Bishop as well? It is already possible to have it e-mail the Bishop by setting the Bishop to an access-level of "Supervisor." However, maybe a special "Bishop" access level should be added that does nothing but e-mail the reports to whoever is designated as the Bishop.

[Mr. M-p40]

First let me say that this is very cool stuff!!!

I am amazed at what members will do of their own volition. I love it and I respect the time and effort placed in building it.

Second, let me say that I am a programmer and software engineer myself as well as the EQP for my ward. I do not say that to boast for either. It just helps to explain my perpetual curse of feeling like I can contribute.

That being said, I think that I have a few embellishments I would make on the screen shots that I see and you ca decide what if anything you want to do with them.



Sorry it's big...here are my thoughts:

Details column would be a link to more details.

As an EQP, I would not only like to know if a family was visited, but when (Is it all being done at the end of the month?) also what kind of visit (Did they just call?, Write? Show up?)

I would also like to know whether or not a lesson was given or the family has needs.

I have eliminated the notes box from your screen shot to avoid getting information saved that is confidential and replaced it with a simple checkbox requesting a PPI.

I know that a lot of this is California Dreamin' (I'm in NorCal) but I usually ask my hometeachers those questions anyway...those are my thought right now.

On a side note...are you making this available to anyone to run locally for fun? It doesn't hurt to ask...

Mr. M

[Mr. M-p40]

I should also not that the new information that I have added would stimulate more reports, including trending (Are people calling more than visiting? Are fewer families getting lessons?) I think those things are very important when trying to figure out what is going on with families?

I also have one other embellishment that is pretty simple. You could add this URL as a link from your family name with the appropriate address information filled in:

maps.google.com/maps?q=50+W+North+Temple+Salt+Lake+City+UT

This would allow simple mapping of that families address using Google.

Just another thought.