Home and Visiting Teaching Planning Program

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WelchTC
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#11

Post by WelchTC »

Just recently we had to ask another web site that was promoting geo-coding of the ward information and plotting it on a map to shut down. The policy from the Church states that if you export data from MLS or from the LUWS, you are responsible for keeping the data secure. What this means is that you are not to upload your data to another server as when you do so, you can no longer protect the data. This is to both protect the Church, you and the operator of the web site. This is not to say that these web sites are bad but that until we have better guidelines in place, we want to play it safe. I've been working with various departments within the Church to refine this policy and to broaden it to talk more about the types of applications being developed. But until I can get this policy developed and approved please do not upload exported data to any web site. There currently is no policy in place that prohibits you from using another web site as long as you don't upload exported data from MLS or LUWS. However caution and prudence should prevail. Do your best to keep people's information safe.

Thanks for your help.

Tom
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brado426
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MLS Data

#12

Post by brado426 »

Tom,

In accordance with your reply, I have removed the link from my post. You may want to remove the link in your earlier post as well.

Brad
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WelchTC
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#13

Post by WelchTC »

Good idea brado426. I'll do that.

Tom
hiramknick-p40
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HT/VT Reporting

#14

Post by hiramknick-p40 »

I understand the importance of keeping the data safe, unfortunately as there is one computer and several organizations looking to use it at my local meetinghouse. It would be great if we could organize HT/VT online and allow individual members to report online or give the quorum/group/RS leaders the ability to record successful visits.

I believe that this is one of the largest omissions from the LUWS currently.

Thanks,
-HK Pittsburgh
atticusewig
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HT/VT-ing repoting using LUWS Resource Calenders

#15

Post by atticusewig »

Here's a crazy idea for recording Home & Visiting Teaching via
the ward website.

1) Set up Resource Calendars for Home Teaching and
Visiting Teaching or go detailed and do one for
each district.

2) Set up admins and e-mail notifications for HT/VT Leaders
and/or District Supervisors.

3) People submit when they visited their families just like
a calendar item. They can enter the date, the time, and
any special needs or achievements under the event
description.

4) Because these entries have to be approved - any
confidential (i.e. special needs of the family, etc.) can
be removed and stored by the admin locally before
being posted. Why post visits ? 3 reasons:

a) So leaders can quickly see which families are being visited.

b) To foster that spirit of competetion we see in the church
which is the reason the Church has insurance for things
such as church basketball.

c) Because it is just plain funny to see all the entries at the
end of the month.

- Atticus Ewig
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brado426
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HT/VT Reporting

#16

Post by brado426 »

The HT/VT Reporting system that I've been working on (currently in testing) does what you folks are asking for. It does not, however, allow you to change HT/VT assignments. In my opinion, this functionality should stay within the MLS system to keep data in sync.

How would you like to have a nice summary chart like this and a complete list of households and whether or not they were visited at the end of every month without having to gather any results on your own? This sounds too good to be true..... but it isn't. :)

Image
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thedqs
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#17

Post by thedqs »

So does your system use the ward website or another way to find out the stats. You only said that it does what you're asking but didn't explain how it is done.

Anyway that would be great program to help in the work. (And I like the graph too. :D)
- David
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brado426
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HT/VT Reporting Website

#18

Post by brado426 »

I explained how the site works in some detail earlier in this thread. It is currently a stand-alone site, but there is no reason why it couldn't be integrated with the ward website with a bit more development.

The site currently requires that the HT/VT data is exported from the MLS system and uploaded to the website (currently against church policy, which is why the site is only in testing at this time.) When Home/Visiting teachers report, the stats are automatically calculated. The ideal solution would be to automatically sync the HT/VT data to eliminate the manual MLS export and upload requirement. I'm not sure if the Home/Visiting teaching assignment data is stored at a central location with church headquarters or not. If it is, it would be relatively easy to sync up that data with the website automatically.

I recently added a new report to the system that shows all households or sisters and whether or not they have been visited or contacted for the entire year. This is an incredibly valuable report for planning home/visiting teaching assignments. At a glance, a presidency can see exactly who has not been visited/contacted for a long period of time and assign teachers accordingly to ensure that they are taught. :)

Brad O.
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nbflint
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#19

Post by nbflint »

Instead of waiting for the church to change their policy, have you considered releasing your website as a CMS system that each ward to could run locally? Depending on the technologies you've used, I've seen some impressive webserver/addon packages that allows web sites to be hosted locally or on a usb drive. This would allow others to benefit from your program under the current church policy as no data would have to leave the ward.

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brado426
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#20

Post by brado426 »

The site can certainly be run locally as I have done it many times for demonstration purposes. The problem is that the whole purpose of the site is to allow Home/Visiting Teachers to report for themselves. Installing this application locally on a ward computer or non-Internet connected computer would defeat the purpose of the site as automatic e-mails requesting results could not be sent to teachers and teachers would not be able to report. The Presidency may as well just use the MLS system to enter results under such a condition. This application really requires the Internet to be of value.

Brad O.
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