Need something better than email links

[BrettMiller]

We have a rotation for in-person and zoom based sacrament meetings. We also have 100% virtual "2nd hour meetings" with zoom links for all the various youth Sunday School classes, YM/YW classes, Priesthood, RS, etc.
We are finding that using email to send out all these links, even on a weekly basis, is challenging for some of our members. They "lose" the emails or can't figure out which one is the right one.
I would really like to have a online "page" that people can always go to to reference the current links. However, as far as I can tell, ward web pages are not allowed and ward Facebook pages are not allowed. I thought the Church Calendar might be a good way, but the calendar entries do not support HTML links so members can't just click a link to get to the meeting. I'm not sure what else to consider.

Any ideas?

[russellhltn]

However, as far as I can tell, ward web pages are not allowed and ward Facebook pages are not allowed.

That's not quite true. You can see internet.ChurchofJesusChrist.org for details.

However, I'd hesitate to post the links in public. Perhaps a better plan is to post a read-only link to a Google document ir equivalent and email that static link. That keeps it from being public, while still keeping it static and updateable.

[drepouille]

I use my G Suite account to schedule Google Meet events. Sacrament meeting is a recurring event, so the URL and phone number never change. For each ward council meeting, I duplicate the previous event, changing the date, so all ward council events use the same URL and phone number. That generally reduces the confusion among the members. However, I do have the occasional problem with iOS device users.

Gmail users don't realize that when they accept the invitation, the email disappears from their Inbox, and the event appears on their Google Calendar. Yesterday, a few minutes before Sacrament meeting, a sister asked me to resend the meeting link. I just told her to look at her Google Calendar. Bingo!

[CalS201]

Our stake maintains a single web page each bldg in the stake (4 wards per bldg) on google "sites". Sites is part of the free Google suite of apps. Everyone was sent an email with a link to the webpage. Each week the member just goes back to the same webpage. Changes are done by the stake clerk as SacMtg youtube urls change and as Zoom 2nd Hour Class urls change. See attached PDF

[drepouille]

Since we hold Gospel Doctrine class and Relief Society in the main chapel, our recurring event is titled "Sacrament Meeting PLUS SS or RS" and runs continuously for 90 minutes, or as long as the meetings last.

[wfindlay]

What about posting them on the ward calendar?

[drepouille]

I thought the Church Calendar might be a good way, but the calendar entries do not support HTML links so members can't just click a link to get to the meeting.

[wfindlay]

I thought the Church Calendar might be a good way, but the calendar entries do not support HTML links so members can't just click a link to get to the meeting.

Oh yep, I missed that point. Well... maybe we need to hunt down who can add a field to the ward calendar application for "online location" that would show up as a hyperlink. It seems like a requirement for an event calendar these days.

[wfindlay]

Here is a thread where someone brought this up where it might be worth expressing the need for it: viewtopic.php?f=110&t=33696&p=216568#p216568

[wfindlay]

I just noticed that web links do actually show as hyperlinks (and are clickable) when you open an event in the calendar section of the iOS tools app (without needing to format them that way). Update: but sadly not on Android (where the formatting doesn’t even include line breaks) or the desktop webpage.