What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

Any discussions around the Gospel Living App on various mobile devices.
russellhltn
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#11

Post by russellhltn »

chriswoodut wrote: Sat Aug 21, 2021 3:52 pm Gabb phones don't allow app installs. They can do SMS messaging but not group messaging, so they already are hampered by not being about to do group texts or groupme. Those youth are essentially in the same bucket as no-phone youth.
Wasn't Twitter originally built on SMS?
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sbradshaw
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#12

Post by sbradshaw »

Here are a couple more:
– It requires installing an app that people may not already have installed. (Potential solutions: Integrate circles chat with other Church apps that members already have, like Gospel Library and/or Member Tools, or make circles chat more appealing by giving it a slimmed-down stand-alone app that doesn't carry with it the bloat of other functionality that doesn't feel relevant to all members.)
– It doesn't have the ability to route notifications to other channels, like email or text, for users who either don't have the app installed, or who don't have push notifications turned on.

GroupMe doesn't have either of these problems because it has a web app and it can route notifications to email or text – meaning that there's no requirement to ever install an app. It does, however, require signing up for the service, which is an area where the Church could one-up them, because most members already have a Church Account, or are incentivized to get a Church Account for other reasons, like seeing the ward directory, doing family history, paying tithing, etc.
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willthrowforfood
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#13

Post by willthrowforfood »

Another issue that we have is that even if all of our Deacons had phones and used the app, they are not very in control of their lives. I would say that more than 90% of the communications that we see in GroupMe are responses from Parents, even if the Deacons have a phone and GroupMe on it. This becomes difficult with Circles because while Parents have access to their kids' circles, they are not notified in any way that there is a new message... even if they go into the app and look at their own circles. There should at least be an option to choose which circles the parents receive notifications from.
chriswoodut
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#14

Post by chriswoodut »

We're going to try Circles with our teachers quorum. One benefit of the app is it supports the youth entering their goals into it. The youth haven't been too enthusiastic about jumping on board and surprisingly don't seem to understand the technical limitations of massive text groups.

One note, our ward member that works for the Church development department mentioned that non members can now be part of the group. I don't have admin rights to the group to try to confirm that statement. Maybe one of you can see it.
BrianEdwards
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#15

Post by BrianEdwards »

non members can now be part of the group
I've got Gospel Living 1.7, and as mentioned previously, I can still only see members and callings as options to add to Circles. And I wouldn't be able to say if "adding non-members" is a technical issue they're working their way thru and we'll eventually see it; or if there's any privacy or other issues to consider when bringing in non-members into an official Church application like this, and we might not see this ever. And since we likely won't ever see inside the decision-making bubble, as users we're all kinda just in that waiting mode.
jpyne4
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#16

Post by jpyne4 »

I really want to use it.

As EQP I need a circle for Service Committee and Activities Committee but don't see it.
I can't create a custom Circle
No Web (PC) support - phone keyboard is not ideal
pabloh007
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#17

Post by pabloh007 »

I hadn't really heard about the application but it sounds interesting. I developed a solution for my ward to broadcast text messages to members. It is more an administrative tool than social platform. We found most members in my ward prefer to receive announcements through text than social media.

https://ward-notification-pager.io

It's a web based application that allows you to target organizations and you can create custom orgs and then broadcast messages.
It is built on top of twilio sms platform and you need a twilio account to send messages.

if anyone is interested in trying it out PM me. or email me, my email is on the attached document all the way at the end.
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blasen
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#18

Post by blasen »

We are trying to use the app for all of our communication. The biggest obstacle is that parents don't get notifications unless we add them to the group. Is there a way to allow notifications for those who have "view only access" namely the parents? Adding them to each circle is not ideal. It should be automatic like view access but include notifications.

BDA
chriswoodut
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#19

Post by chriswoodut »

blasen wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 8:08 am We are trying to use the app for all of our communication. The biggest obstacle is that parents don't get notifications unless we add them to the group. Is there a way to allow notifications for those who have "view only access" namely the parents? Adding them to each circle is not ideal. It should be automatic like view access but include notifications.

BDA
Thanks for this heads up about the notifications. We're trying to get it rolled out in our YM quorum. Parents not getting notifications will be an issue -- glad to see we could add them manually.

In the app, you can submit feedback under Profile there is a send feedback option (at least in Android).
ybc44
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#20

Post by ybc44 »

Hard limits on callings, such as only one secretary for a presidency - in this case primary - all secretary callings should be one to many, otherwise add-on secretaries can't participate in automatic relevant circles.
Seconding custom circles - ward choir is another good example
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