I agree with Greg that the email subsystem of the ward website needs an overhaul. Since this probably is not going to happen right away, I will address each feature below, and how we handle them in my unit while we wait for the upgrade.
--- Greg Hart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > *Issues with LDS.org's email system (in no > particular order):* > > Requires full admin access to send emails (this > means these admins will > also have full access to all of the ward > administration functions as > well). I think it would be interesting to see access rights similiar to those used in MLS added to the ward websites. It might be cool to have it automagically tie-in to the Leadership Directory (for example, whomever is assigned as the Elders Quorum President, can have access to the email broadcast for Elders, and HomeTeaching Administration if that subsystem is added like people have hinted about), but each user should be able to assigned access rights by the Admin, to cover callings that are not standard (we had an Relief Society Asst. Secretary for example). Basically, when all the new features roll out, it would be nice if the Admin could give certain people limited access to administative functions instead of just a blanket access. > Submitting an email through > LDS.org requires the admin to: 1) go to lds.org 2) . . . > 14) several hours later you check your email and it > went out - hooray! > Compare this with the admin receiving an email with > a link that they click > to approve the and it goes out immediately. It's the I agree it would be nice to be able to receive the actual message being submitted, and a "click here to approve it" link. > Due to the effort required and unreliability > involved in the lds.org > system, some users would either not send the message > at all or just > circumvent the system (ask for the full official I will explain how we "circumvent" it at the end. > unnecessary). This would cause problems because, > there would then be an > old 'official' ward email list being passed around > and used that would > obviously not include new members - and so > announcements would go out > inviting everyone from the old list, including > people who had left, and > leaving out the most important new members. Yes, of course, this is even more compounded when you have a bunch of lists of emails. Elders send around a paper and ask for emails in Elders Quorum, and make their own list. Relief Society does the same. And it is always funny how many emails there are on these lists that are not on ward website or are bouncing. > Usually, since the admins send the message and not > the actual sender - the > responses end up getting received by the admin who > then has to forward all > of them to the actual sender (usually because users > will just hit 'reply' > to the message rather than read the instructions in > the message to email > someone else, then have to copy and paste that email > address of the actual > sender and send it that way). > > Does not allow attachments. > > Doesn't support emailing members outside the ward > (involved non-members). > > Doesn't archive the messages. > > Allows only plain-text formatting. > > Only supports very restricted and buggy file-sharing > on the site (I > believe the file has to be either pdf, doc, or xls > and under 50K). Okay lots of problems - I always find it odd that attachments are in proprietary (I cannot spell) formats, but the church wants us to use openoffice.org. I mean, the Oo formats are compressed natively- a 50 K Open Office Writer document can hold many more pages of *content* than a Microsoft .Doc. At least let us use .zip files if we are stuck with proprietary formats. Okay, here's how I handle email broadcasts in my unit: I get the calendar item requesting a broadcast or someone emails my personal email address saying who it goes out to. I write down all the checkbox in the calendar notifications (such as notify High Priests, Elders, and Young Men). I also copy the message to a temporary place such as notepad. I CLEAR all the checkboxes, and approve the calendar item. I then use the Email Broadcast function, check the boxes that I had written down, and preview the message. I view the source of that page, and copy it to the clipboard. After this I CANCEL the email broadcast. >From here I use unxutils a sourceforge.net project and some custom scripts to generate a text file of the email addresses from the HTML source of the preview page. Mainly it is grep and sed, and sed again to remove any email addresses that I know ALWAYS bounce. I then use my email spam-like client to send the message that I copy over from the temporary place (notepad for example). It is a lot of steps, but I have found that a lot of members prefer to have emails with content rather than the whole "Go to the website if you want to find out" message. Palm Pilot/Blackberry users are especially gratefull to receive information instead of something that generates more ward website traffic - which slows everything down for everyone. - Dave / Atticus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Need a quick answer? Get one in minutes from people who know. 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