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?

#31

Post by russellhltn »

I'll have to check with my Chromebook at home, but I've discovered not all Android apps are available on it. For example the free Microsoft Office for Android doesn't appear on the Chromebook Google Playstore.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

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byoung08
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#32

Post by byoung08 »

Primary President here- we wish we had a circle that include all primary parents. Having one for each group of primary activities is nice, as well as one for the leaders, but I would like to have a way to share primary assignments, or pictures from primary without spamming the whole ward.
eatonjl
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#33

Post by eatonjl »

Too many bugs and no web access for people without smartphones.
t_taufer
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#34

Post by t_taufer »

1) Not being able to post on my children's circles: When leaders post activities/events/etc, parent's can't reply or ask questions. So everyone just reverts back to texting or other tools. The app already supports posting, but if we can't post on the youth or primary circles, it just can't work.

2) Not being able to get notifications on my children's circles. My kids have literally missed activities because we were not notified about the event. I have to MANUALLY go look at each circle to find messages. The app is causing people to be excluded or left out. The app already supports notifications, seems easy to allow notifications on the children's circles. Problem solved.
esmeet
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#35

Post by esmeet »

The biggest impediment to universal adoption is the lack of availability as a web app. We need something our youth and adults can access on their family desktop or laptop computer. We encourage parents to have their family computers in a public place and caution them about getting smartphones or mobile devices that can be viewed in private, but then we develop a church communications app that only works on mobile devices! (Insert face palm here.)

Most of our leaders would use Gospel Living and Circles in a heartbeat if it was more accessible to all of our youth. If even one or two youth in a class / quorum doesn't have a smartphone or mobile device, then everyone switches to something else. Reddit, Groupme, Discord, and Google Hangouts are examples of communication tools people are using instead of Gospel Living; why? Because they can access them as mobile apps, Windows apps, web apps, web pages, etc.

If the Church wants its investment in developing this tool to pay off (and for the content tied to the Children and Youth Program to finally stick), then make the Gospel Living app available as a web app on desktops and laptops.
sanaya
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#36

Post by sanaya »

According to this: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/ins ... e?lang=eng web access to circles if coming soon.
Circles (Coming Soon)
We are actively working to bring Circles from the Gospel Living mobile app to the web. This is a virtual conversation experience that will enable you to stay connected to your family, Sunday School class, quorum, Young Women class, or presidency as applicable.
sanaya
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#37

Post by sanaya »

And for those that don't know the Discovery part of the Gospel Living app has been on the web for awhile:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/ins ... n?lang=eng

Click the source icon in the far right of the filter/search box at the top of the page, and select Gospel Living.
MRVuyk
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#38

Post by MRVuyk »

t_taufer wrote: Sat Feb 19, 2022 4:18 pm 1) Not being able to post on my children's circles: When leaders post activities/events/etc., parents can't reply or ask questions. So everyone reverts back to texting or other tools. The app already supports posting, but if we can't post on the youth or primary circles, it just can't work.

2) Not being able to get notifications on my children's circles. My kids have literally missed activities because we were not notified about the event. I have to MANUALLY go look at each circle to find messages. The app is causing people to be excluded or left out. The app already supports notifications, seems easy to allow notifications on the children's circles. Problem solved.
Our leadership has encouraged the usage, but most leaders are sending out text messages outside of the Living App because parents and youth can respond directly. Recently, a family moved out and was included in a Text message, which resulted in an exchange on how unconnected leadership and youth appear. That is the exception, not the rule, but I wish the Living app (Circles was more robust).

Adding a Ward Bulleting page to replace our Sunday meeting program that we print and throw away.
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BellMR
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Location: Spring, TX - USA

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

#39

Post by BellMR »

We don't get notifications reliably from Circles.
cbass64
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Re: What is blocking the use of circles for your organization?

#40

Post by cbass64 »

The app is incredibly unstable. Most of the time, on my Android (Google Pixel 4a), I don't get any notifications until I launch the app, then several notifications flood the screen. If I do get notifications, when I tap on them the app will load and either display nothing, or it will crash. This is similar to the other's in the bishopric and ward council I have talked to.

There are several members in the ward that cannot get added to the Adult circle for some reason. It will not let the admins add them because it says they are already invited, but the members have no way of accepting the invites. When they tap on the circles page, it just says something like "you are ready to join circles", but has no way of actually joining a circle. We have verified they are using the member account that is tied to their MRN and the same login they use on the church website.

There is no way to remove and re-add a member if they are having issues, because you cannot delete a member that has not been manually added. But if it's not automatically adding them, that makes it impossible for them to join.

Trying to add a calling to a circle is not functional, at least with the custom callings we have tried to add. For example, when trying to add a custom calling, it will add ALL custom callings because when you select one, it selects all. It also shows every member in the ward that has a custom calling as having everyone of those callings (meaning if we have 10 members with customer callings, it will display 100 callings: 10 people each with the 10 callings...way too buggy).

We do still use Circles as the main method of bishopric, ward council and ward activities communication, but we are finding out that more and more people are not receiving the notifications, or have issues with the app not working properly.

Personally, as an IT professional, I am embarrassed by this app and how buggy it is. I'm also embarrassed with how poor the church website has been functioning the last year or so.
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