LCR - Send message function - texting

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chriswoodut
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Re: LCR - Send message function - texting

#21

Post by chriswoodut »

mikefr wrote:This is a hot topic. As cool as LDSTools is, I agree with the need to add Texting & Chat with individuals and groups (by Auxiliaries and custom made groups). We'd like a way to easily & quickly send messages to our Ward members. This would be helpful to contact members in a short period of time during severe weather events and other situations when immediate communications with a couple hundred members in seconds/minutes is needed. Would be a great communications tool for disaster preparedness.

While I like Slack (use it at work), it's too feature rich for our needs. And while, Remind is much better suited as far as usability for our members goes, I'm very concerned privacy of members. As we're all aware, some apps like Facebook, Google, even Remind leave the door wide open to accessing and collecting far more personal information than needed to complete a simple task like texting. I would feel MUCH more comfortable with this functionality built into LDSTools. IE, I trust the Church more than profit driven corporations :)

Are there any plans in the works for texting/chatting tool coming from the Church? Thanks for all your efforts!
One big advantage of building messaging into LDS Tools that hasn't been mentioned is maintaining who is on the list and their contact info. The ward directory is the best place to maintain it. And, when people move in and out, LCR handles all that. I don't have to pay attention to adding contact info to 3rd part systems when the ward membership changes (which it does all the time). There needs to be more fine-grained control in LCR for people opting out of messages. We have a few that don't want emails but we don't want to delete their contact info in their membership record. So, we have to remember to remove them every time we send an email to ALL.

I'd like our ward to settle on one 3rd party tool for texting until the church does something itself. We have a mix of GroupMe and regular texting plus the usual 'send a message' in LCR. A bit of facebook.
mcq1
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Re: LCR - Send message function - texting

#22

Post by mcq1 »

I have just been called as our Elder Quorum`a communications specialist. The president has asked me to send out weekly messages to the Quorum. I am not able to use LDSTOOLS because I'm not a secretary. Are there other options? The president asked me look into making several groups and text each group. Not sure how to do this as my phone is a work phone and doing such group texts would be an issue with business policy. Is there a way to send messages, text or email from PC or tablet?
russellhltn
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Re: LCR - Send message function - texting

#23

Post by russellhltn »

mcq1 wrote:I have just been called as our Elder Quorum`a communications specialist. The president has asked me to send out weekly messages to the Quorum. I am not able to use LDSTOOLS because I'm not a secretary. Are there other options?
Not though the church. The EQ Presidency has access to "send a message" on the church website, but there's no way to confer that ability to you.
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.
chriswoodut
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Re: LCR - Send message function - texting

#24

Post by chriswoodut »

mcq1 wrote:I have just been called as our Elder Quorum`a communications specialist. The president has asked me to send out weekly messages to the Quorum. I am not able to use LDSTOOLS because I'm not a secretary. Are there other options? The president asked me look into making several groups and text each group. Not sure how to do this as my phone is a work phone and doing such group texts would be an issue with business policy. Is there a way to send messages, text or email from PC or tablet?
Why don't they just make you a secretary on LCR so you have the access you need to use 'Send a message'?

If you're going to do texting, I would suggest looking at moving to a messaging app like GroupMe or Telegram. SMS/mms text messages have limitations on group sizes. ATT limits it to 10 numbers. Our YM already use Groupme, so I think our EQ should move to Groupme instead of texting, but they haven't. On the other hand, the EQ does use 'send a message' and a combo of texts when necessary. YW only do texting. Our Ward council uses groupme.

That's a long way of saying if you have an organization in the ward already using an app, you may want to stick with that app and add a new group for the EQ because some members will already have the app installed.
russellhltn
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Re: LCR - Send message function - texting

#25

Post by russellhltn »

If you are going to use an app, I'd recommend reading the Terms of Service very carefully. If it's free, you have to wonder how they're making their money. It may force users to see ads or give up information.
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.
chriswoodut
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Re: LCR - Send message function - texting

#26

Post by chriswoodut »

I should add, I think with Groupme you can have a group number. Not everyone has to use the app and can choose to receive messages as SMS message.

One down side to apps is you may end up with group communication rather than one-way communication with no reply ability. I've never had a need to look into that (e.g. a situation where I don't want people to have a reply-all option).
chriswoodut
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Location: Utah

Re: LCR - Send message function - texting

#27

Post by chriswoodut »

I did have a use case in the past where I wanted to send a bulk text to a lot of people and I didn't want to use a group text where people could see everyone on the list. There is a tool called Text gBlaster that will let you send texts to a list of people in a Google Spreadsheet.

https://gsuite.google.com/marketplace/a ... 0232482012

Pros:
- Easy to send a bulk email to as many people as you want.
- You can even customize it with their name
- Google spreadsheet is easy to use
- Costs money, but you pay per message and no subscription or anything necessary

Cons:
- It sends the message from a generic phone #, not your own
- People can't reply to it
- Costs money, but you pay per message and no subscription or anything necessary
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sbradshaw
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Re: LCR - Send message function - texting

#28

Post by sbradshaw »

Whatever system you go with, be sure you get permission from members before adding their email addresses or phone numbers to any third-party messaging services. Most services require this in their terms of use.
Samuel Bradshaw • If you desire to serve God, you are called to the work.
caique1031
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Re: LCR - Send message function - texting

#29

Post by caique1031 »

davesudweeks wrote: Wed Jan 23, 2019 11:49 am
mevans wrote:What I'd really like to see is some kind of communication options page for me as a member. Let me choose which methods I want to receive which communications. Maybe I want a text. Maybe I want an email. Maybe I want a voice call with a recorded message. Maybe I want a printed message to arrive in the mail. Maybe I want a private message on Facebook. (Maybe I want my ministering brothers to hand-deliver it :) I realize that for some of those options, units may need to pay for the communication.

We can't easily force everyone to use the same communication method. Some messages are long and don't work as texts. How are those handled? Does the church send a text with a link to open the message?

Messaging may not be the church's core competency, so they may contract out for it. There are companies that do this. It could be that the cost of adding those options is too high.
Amen. I chuckle when I see posts like, "I must have LDSTools to do my calling" or "If we can't text everyone in the ward with a single text we cannot get the message out to anyone."

In absence of "being directed in all things" we need to work together to resolve this given our own specific situations in our own specific units. A solution that works in my ward will likely not work in yours so each ward council needs to put their heads together and work it out for their specific unit. Our ward is using a blended approach consisting of a weekly e-mail blast, a ward facebook page, individual ward organizations using texting as appropriate for their members, an expanded printed Sunday bulletin, and personal visits or calls to those who don't have any of the above communication options (yes, we do have some).
I am trying to not feel offended by your chuckle and your tone in your paragraph after your amen. I’m doing my best to encourage communication to my auxiliary without taking time from my family. Perhaps you didn’t realize how you were coming across, but we need supportive solutions, not judgement.
pabloh007
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Re: LCR - Send message function - texting

#30

Post by pabloh007 »

Hey everyone I came across this post and wanted to add my 2 cents. Our ward came across this problem during the pandemic. Most members in my ward wanted to receive communications through sms/texting. I saw twilio offers sms for about 0.0075 per message. We decided we to give it a try, however it required some development work to be done to be used. In the ended developing a web application that does this. It's called Ward Notification Pager. It has helped our ward get more participation as members can get reminders of activities/meetings etc.

The application is free to use. You only have to pay for the twilio service, in a nutshell you sign up for twilio and then plug in your credentials in the app and you are good to go to start testing. It was designed around ward organizations /groups.

https://ward-notification-pager.io

If you want to browse the app send a message here and I will get in touch with you.
https://ward-notification-pager.io/contact


Here is an FAQ about the app
https://ward-notification-pager.io/about

This app is build and targeted to leaders/administrators. Not where all ward members would have access.
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