Gospel Living' app circles

[rgabaldon]

It would be nice to edit circles to include people. We've been using what'sapp for a few years. In it we have groups for priests/teachers/deacons (and others). The parents are included so they can help their children with activities. We also have primary activities for younger and the older girls. Since most young children don't have a smartphone, we include the parents in the group for activity communication. It would be nice to have those features in circles.

[jaynemonson]

I am primary president in my ward and would like to add a circle for each primary class or even the entire primary. In addition the entire Bishopric is included on my primary presidency chat, it would be nice if only the counselor over primary was included in this circle. The app says I am an administrator and can edit the circles but I have yet to figure out how to do this. Any suggestions?

[PhillipsDT]

Can a seminary teacher have a "circle" with his/her class?

[lajackson]

Can a seminary teacher have a "circle" with his/her class?

It appears for the moment that circles are preset in the app and that there is very little that can be done to change the way they have been set by the Church. The best way to let the developers know of requests such as this is to send feedback. Even doing that, the developers will still need to receive instruction from their priesthood leaders to make changes to the app.

Sending feedback is the quickest way to start the process.

[nutterb]

What about divorce families. Is there a way for a child to be part of two households? We really need to put the ability to add circles.

In addition to reporting this need through the feedback, this is the kind of thing I recommend you report to the stake President. He can also inquire of his leaders and bring visibility to the problem.

We have multiple youth in our ward with divorced parents who share joint custody and live in the same ward boundaries. The app falls flat here by defining parents as the adults in the youths household. It's a really poor definition that renders this app practically useless for us.

[davestlyon]

It may not be perfect, but I think it's a pretty amazing first stab. I don't think it was a poor decision to go with what they did. It's the simplest way to do it- to simply go by the households on membership records. Anything else requires a lot of extra work on customization and flexibility. Rather than spend all that time making an amazing feature, they got the app out so people can start to use it. Like anything is not going to be workable for every situation. But I really appreciate what they've done.
Most likely, they've recognized those limitations, but if you think about it, there's no way for the developers to know or understand unique circumstances within wards and stakes. And most likely, people would be even more upset if they tried and got that wrong.

[nutterb]

It may not be perfect, but I think it's a pretty amazing first stab. I don't think it was a poor decision to go with what they did. It's the simplest way to do it- to simply go by the households on membership records. Anything else requires a lot of extra work on customization and flexibility. Rather than spend all that time making an amazing feature, they got the app out so people can start to use it. Like anything is not going to be workable for every situation. But I really appreciate what they've done.
Most likely, they've recognized those limitations, but if you think about it, there's no way for the developers to know or understand unique circumstances within wards and stakes. And most likely, people would be even more upset if they tried and got that wrong.

I see now that my post may have come across as more negative than I intended. I agree that its a great app. And it is probably the best communication tool the Church has produced to date. It's just that in my congregation's specific situation, leaving custodial parents out of these communications has a high and unacceptable cost. So we may be required to use the channels we currently use.

For what it's worth, the send message function in LCR does handle our situation. When I select parents of youth for recipients, I get all biological and step parents of all youth regardless of household. If circles worked the same way, it would be perfect for us.

[pjeffrey]

I was made aware of an a slight issue this morning concerning circles. In some cases dependent ward youth are not connected in a circle with the supporting ward youth leaders/advisers. For example some buildings may have an English-speaking ward and two other non-English speaking wards however the youth in all of those wards are in the same youth activity group. The idea of being able to link circles into a larger circle came to mind as I thought about this issue. Is a solution to this issue on the radar?

[russellhltn]

Is a solution to this issue on the radar?

I'd use the "feedback" feature in the app to point that out.

As far as I'm aware, "Dependency" is not recorded in any electronic record. So it would be impossible to have that happen automatically. They'd have to find out some way to deal with it.

[trorchard]

Is there a reason the specialists for quorums are not included in the circle? Is there a way to add them?