Life Cycle for Classic Ward & Stake Sites (LUWS)

Share discussions around the Classic Local Unit Website (LUWS).
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sjhovey
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Life Cycle for Classic Ward & Stake Sites (LUWS)

#1

Post by sjhovey »

What is the status of the classic Ward & Stake web sites? Is there any active effort to update them? If so, what is the approximate timeline for completion in the U.S.?
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aebrown
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#2

Post by aebrown »

sjhovey wrote:What is the status of the classic Ward & Stake web sites? Is there any active effort to update them? If so, what is the approximate timeline for completion in the U.S.?
No, there is no active effort to work on the classic Ward & Stake web sites. They will continue to survive until they are retired, which will be sometime after all the equivalent functionality has been implemented on the new lds.org. To date, we have only seen the Calendar and Directory.

Although the Overview for Stake & Ward Websites says of this additional functionality: "These features are currently in development and will be built over the course of 2011," at this point I have to think that development of those features will extend into 2012, and thus the Classic sites will continue to exist into 2012.
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russellhltn
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#3

Post by russellhltn »

aebrown wrote:at this point I have to think that development of those features will extend into 2012, and thus the Classic sites will continue to exist into 2012.
While I agree that the classic sites won't disappear completely at the end of this year, I don't see that as a guarantee that the Directory, Calling or Calendar from the Classic site will continue into 2012.
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jhigbee
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#4

Post by jhigbee »

Website Status Updates: It seems to me that there hasn’t been much discussion recently about the changing status of the new vs. classic websites in this discussion forum (forgive me if I can’t find one if here). But here’s what I’m finding lately about their status:

Directories- Without notice that I had seen, as of a month or so ago the classic site can no longer access ward membership, leadership or photo directories. This means that the convenient format for printing your directory with all the photos that have been added thru the past several years is no longer available. But the new website has recently been updated so that we can now print photo directories. Was/is there a way created to transferred their photos from last year and previous, to the new site? I imagine that very few wards had previously transferred their current photos to their new website.

Lessons Listings- Can still only be accessed from the classic site. Our Stake’s site is set up so that only the Stake administrator can set up the Phd/RS lessons, which he only does in early January (therefore, no Teachings for our Times topics are input on the site); while ward administrators add the Sunday school lessons (which I have been doing, making periodic adjustments as the teaching schedule necessitates).

Facility Scheduling- A friend/bishopric member from a neighboring ward reported to me that members can still not access the facilities scheduling feature from the new website. This would be particularly good to inform people that they can’t yet use the new website to schedule these (bowery, stake camp. etc.).

Based on indications given in previous posts, we might imagine that the HQ administrators are waiting for the new year to make a major shift in adding these features to the new website. But once I get up to speed on the current status of the website changes, I would like share the status with the other clerks in our Stake. So I would appreciate some updated input on their status. Thanks much.
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#5

Post by aebrown »

jhigbee wrote:Website Status Updates: It seems to me that there hasn’t been much discussion recently about the changing status of the new vs. classic websites in this discussion forum (forgive me if I can’t find one if here).
There's an occasional discussion, but in the absence of an updated roadmap, it's mostly just speculation.
jhigbee wrote:Directories- Without notice that I had seen, as of a month or so ago the classic site can no longer access ward membership, leadership or photo directories. This means that the convenient format for printing your directory with all the photos that have been added thru the past several years is no longer available. But the new website has recently been updated so that we can now print photo directories. Was/is there a way created to transferred their photos from last year and previous, to the new site? I imagine that very few wards had previously transferred their current photos to their new website.

I don't think there's been any change in the directories on the classic sites -- they are still accessible if the stake wants them to be accessible. Several months ago, stakes were given the option to configure the classic site so that it would redirect the directory features to the new Directory, and/or redirect the calendar features to the new Calendar. My guess is that the sudden change you're seeing is that your stake decided to enable that redirection. That can only be done by a classic site stake administrator, and when it is done, it affects every unit in the stake.
jhigbee wrote:Lessons Listings- Can still only be accessed from the classic site. Our Stake’s site is set up so that only the Stake administrator can set up the Phd/RS lessons, which he only does in early January (therefore, no Teachings for our Times topics are input on the site); while ward administrators add the Sunday school lessons (which I have been doing, making periodic adjustments as the teaching schedule necessitates).

Yes, that's still just on the classic site, and the basic functionality is that the stake administers Phd/RS and the wards administer Sunday School lessons (it's not just the way your stake's site is set up -- every stake operates that way).
jhigbee wrote:Facility Scheduling- A friend/bishopric member from a neighboring ward reported to me that members can still not access the facilities scheduling feature from the new website. This would be particularly good to inform people that they can’t yet use the new website to schedule these (bowery, stake camp. etc.).

It seems like you are talking about members who have no calendar scheduling privileges. If so, it's true that the new calendar has no feature for online scheduling of any events (it really has nothing to do with facilities in particular). See the topic Where's the "Submit Event" button for members who aren't calendar editors? for an explanation. I strongly disagree with the weak logic of that explanation, but it is what it is. Hopefully those needs are relatively rare, and a building scheduler will be happy to make the reservation in those cases.

Note also that the Known Limitations page says "However, this feature will eventually be added."
jhigbee wrote:Based on indications given in previous posts, we might imagine that the HQ administrators are waiting for the new year to make a major shift in adding these features to the new website. But once I get up to speed on the current status of the website changes, I would like share the status with the other clerks in our Stake. So I would appreciate some updated input on their status. Thanks much.

There is very little published about time schedules. We have been told that the "meetinghouse times, lesson schedules, and news and information . . . features are currently in development and will be built over the course of 2011." But as I have said, I really doubt that those features will appear this year, since there's been no hint of actual development on them, and we only have 2 and a half months left in the year.
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#6

Post by jhigbee »

Thanks for that thorough reply. I think you’re correct in assuming that our Stake website administrator made the switch to the new website for our directories. I wonder if there’s any use in asking him if there are any provisions to retrieve the member photos from the classic site, either before he made the switch or now.
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#7

Post by aebrown »

jhigbee wrote: I wonder if there’s any use in asking him if there are any provisions to retrieve the member photos from the classic site, either before he made the switch or now.

The photos should still be there, and could be retrieved.

I don't know how your photos got uploaded to the classic site, but you might want to think again about whether you want those photos. The requirements for photos have changed significantly. On the classic site, they were limited to a pitifully small 135x180. For a family photo, that made it very difficult to see anyone. For the new site, photos can be up to 375x500, which is almost 8 times as big. If you have the original photos (some wards made a project of taking photos, and might have kept the original higher-resolution images), that would be a better starting point. If you don't, I suppose even the tiny photos from the old site will look better than nothing.

Note also that it is very helpful on the new site to have individual photos. They appear on leadership directories, and also on the leader tools on lds.org, which many leaders find useful. So you will gradually want to collect those photos as well.
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jhigbee
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#8

Post by jhigbee »

Sounds like some good advice- I hope our assigned website photo-rep has kept the former photos; but I agree it would be good to try and get new ones also. Yes, I’ve seen a handful of our more “techno-progressive” ward members upload their individual photos for posting; they will probably be good to have in addition to the household ones.


Thanks again.
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