Will there will be access to schedule classes at stake level?

There will be access to schedule classes at stake level? ie. 4th Sunday clases. Sunday school also at stake level?

gmolleda7 wrote:There will be access to schedule classes at stake level? ie. 4th Sunday clases. Sunday school also at stake level?

According to the curriculum guidelines, Sunday School is scheduled at the ward level. The stake schedules the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Sunday priesthood and Relief Society lessons (although the stake has the option of delegating the 4th Sunday to the bishop).

This is currently a ward/branch level only application.

This is an early rollout for beta testing and only wards can schedule at this time. I believe they plan to add stake capability, but wanted to get something out as soon as possible, hence it is not complete.

And do not forget that it said anything you enter now is for beta testing only and may very well disappear before the Scheduler goes into active production mode.

In other words, this is for testing and playing around (hence the term "sandbox"), and I would not get too serious in trying to load everything on the schedule for your ward at this point, because is probably will go away and you will have to do it again.

lajackson wrote:According to the curriculum guidelines, Sunday School is scheduled at the ward level. The stake schedules the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Sunday priesthood and Relief Society lessons (although the stake has the option of delegating the 4th Sunday to the bishop).

This is an early rollout for beta testing and only wards can schedule at this time. I believe they plan to add stake capability, but wanted to get something out as soon as possible, hence it is not complete.

First, thank you very much for providing this tool. This has been much requested in my Stake since the new calendar and directory came online and our stake is no longer actively maintaining the legacy tools, including the lesson scheduler.

My comments come from a Stake Clerk's perspective.

I hope this isn't rolled out without having the ability for the Stake to enter lesson schedules for Priesthood and Relief Society and have that roll down to the wards. My experience is that if the stake doesn't have the ability to say up front what lessons should be taught in which weeks, the wards all end up on their own schedules. Leaving it up to wards to list the lessons that the stake provides direction on would be somewhat similar to herding cats. The ability to let the stake input the lesson schedule on the previous version gave our stake the ability to have consistency in our lesson planning that we are struggling with again.

I would suggest that the stake be given the ability to input lessons for Priesthood and Relief Society but give ward administrators the option to override that schedule as there are exceptions at a ward level some times (ward conferences where a different lesson may be taught on different weeks in different wards and the schedule needs to be adjusted for the month is a good example).

I hope this is taken into consideration before this application goes live. If this goes live with only ward administration and then stake administration is added later for priesthood and relief society, it will place a bigger training burden on wards and stakes. I would much rather get the basic workflow in place before the application goes live and build out functionality later than change workflow each time the application is updated.

Jason Hyer
Stake Clerk

I like the idea of both Stake and Ward Administrators being able to edit the lesson schedule. On the current Classic Website, the lesson schedule may only be entered by someone at a Stake Level. Currently, there is nothing there, and nothing I can do about it as a ward website administrator. However, after reading the post above, I can see why it would be useful for Stake Administrators to have access.

Sunday School (Gospel Doctrine) lessons are edited at the ward level only RS & Priesthood lessons are input at stake leve in the current scheduler

Yeah, that's what I meant. I have the Sunday School lessons added, but not the Priesthood and Relief Society lessons. I should have been more clear.

Currently there are not plans to add stake admin functionality in the 1.0 release. We realize the convenience of having a stake admin enter Conferences and RS/Priesthood lessons, and then have those roll down to the wards. However, the added level of complexity of adding a stake layer of admin functionality just doesn't fit with our current level of resources for this project.

The ability to for wards and auxiliaries to create and use a lesson schedule was the priority for the 1.0 release. The convenience of stake "trickle down" functionality is a lower priority. There is consideration and design for stake admin level functionality that is being considered for a later release.

Thank you for keeping us posted! I'm especially excited that I can add lessons from a ward level and that I won't have to rely on someone else to do it.

jdcr256 wrote: The convenience of stake "trickle down" functionality is a lower priority.

I'm sure that in some stakes, "convenience" and "trickle down" would not be the proper terms describing how "decisions" by the stake president is presented to the wards.

Handbook 2: 7.8.1 "Fourth Sundays: On the fourth Sunday the lesson is taught...The stake president or bishop selects the message"

Instructions for curriculum 2012, page 6
"If stake conferences or other meetings preclude the teaching of one of these lessons, stake presidents and bishops decide if it should be taught on another Sunday."

Adding such lessons to the stake calendars would continue to be the work-around in some stakes even after the scheduler goes live...

As a temporary measure while the "trickle down" approach is being considered, would it make sense to simply give stake-level administrators permissions to each ward's lesson schedules? This would be very similar to the Directory, where stake-level administrators have permissions to edit profiles for every member of the stake.

I get the feeling that in some cases (e.g., Maps) the product managers are concerned about stake administrators micro-managing or conflicting with the realm of ward administrators. But there are some very good arguments for giving stake administrators ward-level permissions:

• The Handbook gives the stake president specific authority over some of these areas (as kisaac documented) and general authority over all of them.
• Stake clerks are specifically responsible for training ward clerks; it's very difficult for them to learn what they need to know in order to provide that training with no access. This is an important issue that seems to be neglected in the current direction of the Church with its leader and clerk web applications. I know I'm going to be asked many questions by ward clerks and others about this new lesson schedule module and I will only have a vague idea how to help them. That's not good.
• Some ward clerks need help at times, either because they are not being faithful in magnifying their callings, or because of travel or illness. A stake clerk is one resource that can step in and help in such cases.
• In the specific case of lesson schedules, a stake clerk could provide the first pass at creating priesthood and RS lesson schedules in a way that provides consistency across the stake, then turn over administration to the wards.

So if it's not a huge effort, please consider involving stake administrators in lesson schedules.

kisaac wrote:I'm sure that in some stakes, "convenience" and "trickle down" would not be the proper terms describing how "decisions" by the stake president is presented to the wards. Adding such lessons to the stake calendars would continue to be the work-around in some stakes even after the scheduler goes live...

Having an online application where wards control the publishing of their lesson schedules does not preclude the authority of the Stake Presidency to give instruction and guidance, any more than a printed flyer distributed during class does. No authority has been taken away from any Stake leaders. The ability for those leaders to directly input and maintain a ward's schedule, rather than simply giving instruction and allowing the wards to govern themselves, is a "convenience".

We decided the additional complexity of stake administration was not necessary to give wards the ability to publish a lesson schedule, and so would not be a part of the 1.0 release.

aebrown wrote: [*]Stake clerks are specifically responsible for training ward clerks; it's very difficult for them to learn what they need to know in order to provide that training with no access. .....

So if it's not a huge effort, please consider involving stake administrators in lesson schedules.

With the calendar and directory, and both have been out for quite awhile, some wards are off and running, some are not, and need a little "push" from trained people on the stake level. Why would the lesson scheduler, or any new module, be any different?

I would add to aebrown's list one additional point in a case for stake admin ability. And this does speak to Convenience:
If a stake admin COULD enter stake "events" and have it flow to the wards, it would save labor and errors over each organization head or a ward admin doing the entry.

For example, assume two stake conferences and two general conferences. If the stake had ability to specify those, that would be four entries for a stake admin to make, and these could show on each wards lessons for them to schedule around.[INDENT][INDENT]4 conferences = 4 "events" added by a stake admin
[/INDENT][/INDENT]As the beta exists now, and if I understand it, each ward must instead add those four dates separately into each class schedule, for a grand approximate total of entering the dates 244 times in my stake![INDENT][INDENT]4 conferences = 244 "events" added by ward leaders (to all ward schedules individually, across a whole stake)
[/INDENT][/INDENT](hope nobody makes a typo in any of those times....)

(Check my math: Assume nine class schedules per ward X four conference dates = 36 entries made for each ward, times the number of wards (6 for me) = entering four conference dates a total of 244 times!)

kisaac wrote:(Check my math: Assume nine class schedules per ward X four conference dates = 36 entries made for each ward, times the number of wards (6 for me) = entering four conference dates a total of 244 times!)

Being a math guy, I couldn't help but check your math, and I'm having a hard time figuring out where the number 244 comes from, since 244 is not a multiple of 36. If there were 7 wards in a stake, then 7*36 = 252 is pretty close to 244. Some stakes have 10, 12, or even more wards, so the total number could be 432 or more. But a more realistic way to look at is that 4 out of 52 events are stake and general conferences, so for any schedule we're talking about 7.7% of the weeks on the schedule.

aebrown wrote:Being a math guy, I couldn't help but check your math, and I'm having a hard time figuring out where the number 244 comes from, since 244 is not a multiple of 36. If there were 7 wards in a stake, then 7*36 = 252 is pretty close to 244. Some stakes have 10, 12, or even more wards, so the total number could be 432 or more. But a more realistic way to look at is that 4 out of 52 events are stake and general conferences, so for any schedule we're talking about 7.7% of the weeks on the schedule.

Sorry! My mistake! I did some adjusting (adding our "extra" non-traditional unit, more units but with less organizations) and didn't show my math! (yeah, that fourth grade teacher was right, it does get me in trouble....) 244 was my "guesstimate" for us, or 7.7% of the weeks as you put it.

kisaac wrote:As the beta exists now, and if I understand it, each ward must instead add those four dates separately into each class schedule, for a grand approximate total of entering the dates 244 times in my stake![INDENT][INDENT]4 conferences = 244 "events" added by ward leaders (to all ward schedules individually, across a whole stake)
[/INDENT][/INDENT](hope nobody makes a typo in any of those times....)

(Check my math: Assume nine class schedules per ward X four conference dates = 36 entries made for each ward, times the number of wards (6 for me) = entering four conference dates a total of 244 times!)

Actually, events like general and stake conference only have to be added once per ward. There is a checkbox to indicate it applies to all courses. Even for events that don't affect all courses, you just check the courses it applies to. You don't create separate events. So it's only 24 events in your case. And creating an event only takes a few seconds. I created all 4 for our ward in just over a minute.

eblood66 wrote:Actually, events like general and stake conference only have to be added once per ward. There is a checkbox to indicate it applies to all courses. Even for events that don't affect all courses, you just check the courses it applies to. You don't create separate events. So it's only 24 events in your case. And creating an event only takes a few seconds. I created all 4 for our ward in just over a minute.

I think this comment illustrates quite well the quandry that stake clerks are going to be in when this goes live. We are responsible for training the wards but we don't have any view into the scheduler at all.

Please don't get me wrong. This is great that the schedule is finally close but it is extremely short sighted to not take the extra time and effort to include the stake administrators. I can pretty much guarantee that rolling it out to the wards will get about 33% utilization in my stake. If the stake were included, I could guarantee 100% utilization. I'm not comfortable touting the virtues of this though when I can't support it. If the Stake can't support it, who will. Do you realize how many questions stake clerks and technology specialist answer so that otherwise would go to church HQ. Are you prepared to shoulder that burden?

Please reconsider at least finding a way to give stake people some administrative access, even if it is ward by ward and it doesn't roll down.

Jason Hyer
Stake Clerk

I would like to put in an additional Stake Clerk's opinion. Everything that aebrown said in his post is EXTREMELY valid

There are some very good arguments for giving stake administrators ward-level permissions:

The Handbook gives the stake president specific authority over some of these areas (as kisaac documented) and general authority over all of them.

I whole-heartedly disagree with the response, while it is true the tool doesn't remove the authority, It only makes sense that access at the Stake level is implied.

Stake clerks are specifically responsible for training ward clerks; it's very difficult for them to learn what they need to know in order to provide that training with no access. This is an important issue that seems to be neglected in the current direction of the Church with its leader and clerk web applications. I know I'm going to be asked many questions by ward clerks and others about this new lesson schedule module and I will only have a vague idea how to help them. That's not good.

My Own comment here is that the church has sent out policies, and when you call leader, member and unit support a high priority is given to stake clerks, ward clerks are supposed to funnel up through a stake clerk, who is unable to view/help --> This is my own observation as well, the tools, priorities, seem to go against what I see as a mandate coming down. It makes Stake Clerk's lives very difficult. --> Here is a scenario... Ward Clerk calls Stake Clerk, asks for help, Stake Clerk replies, sorry, I don't have access, I can't see what you see, you'll have to call SLC... Ward Clerk calls SLC, waits on hold a long time because they are not a Stake Clerk, first question from helpdesk, did you talk to your Stake Clerk? Well, I called but he couldn't help me.... Helpdesk, we're need you to work with your Stake Clerk, if he isn't able to help you, please have him call us.

In the specific case of lesson schedules, a stake clerk could provide the first pass at creating priesthood and RS lesson schedules in a way that provides consistency across the stake, then turn over administration to the wards.

So if it's not a huge effort, please consider involving stake administrators in lesson schedules.

I would add additionally, there are stake-level courses that we offer in Family History, Marriage, through LDS Social Services, Know your religion, Institute, etc.. that would be administered at the Stake Level only.

We decided the additional complexity of stake administration was not necessary to give wards the ability to publish a lesson schedule, and so would not be a part of the 1.0 release.

I am personally very interested in who 'we' is, but I realize I'll probably never know. What I hope 'we' is is a collection of Ward and Stake Clerks, experts at MLS from wards and stakes in Utah, but also surrounding areas, maybe some with large boundaries with hours to drive end to end. The perspective would be refreshing I think. Maybe this already happens, but in my experience, a top-down, here's what I'm giving you approach, rather than a bottom-up, what would you like to see approach seems a better thing.

I doubt there is a Stake Clerk in the church that would say... ya... develop it so that only ward clerks have access.

JohnShaw wrote:I am personally very interested in who 'we' is, but I realize I'll probably never know. What I hope 'we' is is a collection of Ward and Stake Clerks, experts at MLS from wards and stakes in Utah, but also surrounding areas, maybe some with large boundaries with hours to drive end to end. The perspective would be refreshing I think. Maybe this already happens, but in my experience, a top-down, here's what I'm giving you approach, rather than a bottom-up, what would you like to see approach seems a better thing.

I doubt there is a Stake Clerk in the church that would say... ya... develop it so that only ward clerks have access.

Although I sympathize and basically agree with all your (and aebrown's) points about why Stake Clerks need access for support and training, I'm going to defend their choice to leave it out of version 1.0. There are always many possible things that can go into a release, especially an initial release. Decisions have to be made. And usually the best decision for an initial release is to provide the very minimum that will be useful to someone. Generally this means it may not be useful to everyone (or sometimes even most people). But it does get at least some real users using it which can then provide feedback on what other features are really important (including, in this case, your feedback as a Stake Clerk).

So as valid as your points are, not every ward needs stake help so there will be a fair number of wards that can start using it. And you may be right that no Stake Clerk would say to develop it with only ward level access, but I'm sure there are quite a few ward clerks who would say, "Yes, give it to me sooner even if the Stake Clerk can't help me yet."

As I've thought about this issue though, I'm not sure the right way to address the support and training issue is to have every application have to worry about providing the stake clerks direct access to every bit of functionality. That adds a lot of complication.

I wonder if they couldn't do something like new.familysearch.org does where a user can log in as a 'helper' and then act as that other person. What if a ward clerk could go to ldsaccount.lds.org (or someplace) and generate a one-time 'token' (possibly with a expiration date). And then the stake clerk could also go to ldsaccount.lds.org (or someplace) and enter the ward clerks username and the one-time token. While the helper mode was in effect the stake clerk would appear to be the ward clerk online and would see exactly what he would see. When the stake clerk needs his own access again, there would have to be some way to revert back.

This would let the stake assist when necessary but would make sure it was coordinated with the ward clerk. If the stake clerk needs to learn about newly released functionality, he could work with a ward clerk to get temporary access to figure things out.

And, based on my understanding of how the church's single sign-on works, all this could be done on the authentication level. The individual applications wouldn't have to worry about these issues and every new application would support it from the start.

eblood66 wrote:I'm sure there are quite a few ward clerks who would say, "Yes, give it to me sooner even if the Stake Clerk can't help me yet."

That's me! As a ward website administrator, it has been frustrating to me to have little to no control over the Priesthood/Relief Society Schedule, especially since the Relief Society Secretary lets me know exactly what the schedule is.

Not to be a stick in the mud among all the other opinions voiced here, but I happen to be VERY happy that it came out on a ward level first.

It seems that Stake functionality will eventually be available, and I think the programmers are well aware of the need. So if we're all patient, we'll eventually get what we're asking for.

I guess for my purposes, why not release it to the stake like any other unit, they are just another unit with roles/positions similar to Branch/Ward leadership. I can understand the complexities about a 'stake level' access that trickles down to the wards, but giving a Stake the ability to use the Lesson Scheduler for Stake Level classes being held, doesn't seem outside the realm of 'ease of initial release' and also allows the stake the ability to provide the training due to access granted and the same ability to create / play with the application.

What is so hard about providing a roadmap to your end users

Initial Release targets Wards and Branches, we made this decision..... beta anticipated 02/2012 - anticipated rollout-Q1 2012
Further Releases will target a stake's ability to override, ...... beta anticipated 06/2012 - anticipated rollout-Q3 2012

It would eliminate a lot of discussion, or at least target the discussion in effective areas.

eblood66 wrote:So as valid as your points are, not every ward needs stake help so there will be a fair number of wards that can start using it. And you may be right that no Stake Clerk would say to develop it with only ward level access, but I'm sure there are quite a few ward clerks who would say, "Yes, give it to me sooner even if the Stake Clerk can't help me yet."

I think the real issue to me in this rollout is that it is not only too little, it is too late. We're already midway through February, I anticipate the actual rollout being March, by then we've operated 25% of the year with an older system, or a paper system. I don't anticipate adoption of the system until the start of the year next year. Maybe I'm just a downer in this, but I didn't see or read the clamor over a simple scheduling system. I haven't had anyone in my stake come to me and say, hey, we need this, when is it coming.... I do hear other things, but I'm a broken record in that area by now... Frankly without Stake-level access, what is my motivation to ensure that it gets rolled out to the wards and branches? I'd probably prefer to wait until the stake might have the access, or roll it out to begin a year.

It is disappointing that we couldn't enter 2012 with some of these systems in place (Newsletter and Scheduler), I believe with all my heart that it was the intention to provide it prior to 2012 but for many reasons beyond IT control, other areas were prioritized ahead of it.

JohnShaw wrote:Frankly without Stake-level access, what is my motivation to ensure that it gets rolled out to the wards and branches? I'd probably prefer to wait until the stake might have the access, or roll it out to begin a year.

To me that's a reasonable position on the stake level. Actually, I doubt our ward will use this any time soon. Most people in my ward just don't go on-line to get information. But I'm glad to be able to play with it and I'm glad that others will start using it. With that feedback hopefully it will be useful for all units sooner.

JohnShaw wrote:It is disappointing that we couldn't enter 2012 with some of these systems in place (Newsletter and Scheduler), I believe with all my heart that it was the intention to provide it prior to 2012 but for many reasons beyond IT control, other areas were prioritized ahead of it.

I'm pretty sure that most of the reason is that the calendar system took longer than expected and it was (rightfully in my opinion) a higher priority.

lajackson wrote:According to the curriculum guidelines, Sunday School is scheduled at the ward level. The stake schedules the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Sunday priesthood and Relief Society lessons (although the stake has the option of delegating the 4th Sunday to the bishop).

Where exactly in the curriculum guidelines does it say this? I just looked through the "Instructions for Curriculum 2012" and can't find anything like that. As a stake clerk I've been unhappy ever since the Church shifted the responsibility for Sunday School to the wards. In my stake the wards are all on the same schedule for Gospel Doctrine. The priesthood/Relief Society lessons get shifted around because of ward conferences; however, since those are set on the stake level, there's no way to customize the schedule for each ward. In addition, we allow the bishoprics to choose the topics for half the Teachings for Our Time lessons, but they have no way of posting what those topics are. So my preference, if there must be a "separation of powers," would be for the stake to administer Sunday School and the wards to administer priesthood/Relief Society (with direction from the stake, of course). I realize that may not work for all stakes, so it would help if the stake could select which way it works--though I realize that would significantly increase the complexity of the system.

mtwerner wrote:Where exactly in the curriculum guidelines does it say this? I just looked through the "Instructions for Curriculum 2012" and can't find anything like that.

From page 6 (emphasis added):

Second and Third Sundays.

If stake conferences or other meetings preclude the teaching of one of these lessons, stake presidents and bishops decide if it should be taught on another Sunday.

It seems unlikely the stake president would have any decision power unless the stake set the schedule in the first place. It would certainly complicate it if wards were on different lessons.

Fourth Sunday —Teachings for Our Time.

The stake president or bishop selects the talks.

That seems pretty clear.

Sorry, I should have only quoted the first sentence. I've never seen anything that says Sunday School is scheduled at the ward level.

I think the same quotes will show that the ward can/does do some adjustments of the stake schedule.

JohnShaw wrote:I doubt there is a Stake Clerk in the church that would say... ya... develop it so that only ward clerks have access.

Believe it or not, in our quest to simplify the app, the strongest advocate for leaving stake admin out is indeed a stake clerk.

The bottom line is, schedules change. Teachers get sick, team teachers prepare the wrong lesson on the wrong week, Bishops (and yes, Stake Presidents) get inspiration and decide a certain lesson should be taught at a certain time. The schedule changes for all kinds of reasons. The closer an admin is to the class, the more likely the schedule will be updated to remain relevant. If the schedule isn't relevant, no one will use it, so what's the point anyway.

In cutting corners to fit our resources, we decided to support the people who could best maintain the schedule first (ward and auxiliary leaders). Are there really good reasons to support Stake admin, absolutely. It just didn't fit in the 1.0 release, so we had to push it off for later.

What I'm getting at is that someone made what I consider an arbitrary decision to have Sunday School lessons entered by the wards and the priesthood/Relief Society lessons entered by the stake. There's no basis in any directives for doing that, and it doesn't work for us, as I already explained.

Besides, the information you quoted said that bishops can also decide on adjustments to lesson schedules--but the way it's set up, they can't change priesthood/Relief Society lessons at all. As I mentioned, the wards should be able to edit their Teachings for Our Time lessons. It could also be helpful for the wards to be able to customize first-Sunday lessons and bishopric lessons, but right now that's not even an option.

So I guess I should be grateful that in the new lesson scheduler everything is on the ward level, though in the past even getting our wards to enter the Sunday School lessons was like pulling teeth.

jdcr256 wrote:The closer an admin is to the class, the more likely the schedule will be updated to remain relevant.

This is the primary reason I like the new scheduler the way you rolled it out. Thank you.

The real issue we're dealing with is that the team building the app is under a short deadline with limited resources. Admittedly the team needed to find ways to 'cut it short' - with that, it makes sense to roll it out the way it is. To my thinking I'm fine with it, but it seems more urgent if we were trying to make a 2012 deadline to start the year with the solution in place, but now that we're already into the year, why the need to 'cut it short'? Why not develop it fully, roll it out a bit later?

Again though, why not roll it out to the stake units as well, they are just another unit... let us get some experience with the app also so we can help train, I realize you'd have to have an ad-hoc type of training, but maybe all we need is to have the stake unit have the ability to do something like the Family History Class, or the Temple Preparation Class, the non-standard, non-weekly typical classes that are offered at the ward level, but sometimes at the stake level.

Something else to consider in the design process is if later features "takes away" something from the V1. When they do add stake control, I can see the wards complaining and wanting things like it was before. Particularly if the stake doesn't fulfill it's part in setting a schedule.

It's easier not to give in the first place then to try and take things away later.

jdcr256 wrote:Believe it or not, in our quest to simplify the app, the strongest advocate for leaving stake admin out is indeed a stake clerk.

In cutting corners to fit our resources, we decided to support the people who could best maintain the schedule first (ward and auxiliary leaders). Are there really good reasons to support Stake admin, absolutely. It just didn't fit in the 1.0 release, so we had to push it off for later.

With that Qualifier, if you had asked me, a stake clerk, I would've said the same thing.... Another great reason to publish your roadmap, strategic initiatives you're working towards, deadlines you are on, etc... The community is here to support you, and offer assistance, we are the ones who roll out the apps to your end users, typically.... I would take advantage of a group like this.

RussellHltn wrote:It's easier not to give in the first place then to try and take things away later.

I'm not sure what you're referring to here. What are we taking away?

JohnShaw wrote: Why not develop it fully, roll it out a bit later?

This sounds like some people believe we are talking about an application that has been fully released. It has not been fully released. The scheduler is in beta and we as the community are helping with the development by giving feedback and insights into issues so that when it is fully released there will not be significant issues. Granted we can use it, but as noted in the Lesson Scheduler Application now available in Beta thread notice even the data may not persist once it is released. If you are using the scheduler for your official scheduler for your unit then you may be quite unhappy when the data is reset, if that need were to occur.

I would rather deal with the issues in beta as a community and not have to wait for an end product that may or may not meet unit scheduling needs. We get the opportunity to provide QA checks and feedback that influences the direction of the final product.

Take a look at this interview with Jeff Brown by Alan Smoot about the community involvement in product development. We get a better product in a shorter time. But we have to be aware that the beta product is not perfect and that our input makes a difference.

jdlessley wrote:This sounds like some people believe we are talking about an application that has been fully released. It has not been fully released.

So the question becomes what features will it have when it reaches "fully released". I'm under the impression that the stake will not have any access until some time later. It's not being added during the beta.

jdcr256 wrote:I'm not sure what you're referring to here. What are we taking away?

In this case it may be more of the illusion of control (because the stake has always had the authority, just not implemented in the system).

I'd assume that wards would have a limited ability to override what the stake enters. Someone is going to complain if V1 gives them total control but V2 then limits them. I'm just saying you need to be ready to explain any changes that adds restrictions. (While freedoms are welcomed with open arms.)

As a thought (although this is probably too late): What if you gave the stake sole control over PH/RS just as the Classic system does now and add the ward features in later? Same end result, different route. That could change how the users perceive the final product.

RussellHltn wrote:I'd assume that wards would have a limited ability to override what the stake enters. Someone is going to complain if V1 gives them total control but V2 then limits them. I'm just saying you need to be ready to explain any changes that adds restrictions. (While freedoms are welcomed with open arms.)

We don't have any plans to change the control that the ward has over their own schedules. We may add the ability for a stake to edit a wards schedules, or allow the stake to create templates that wards can modify, but none of that would affect the level of control that wards have now.

jdlessley wrote:This sounds like some people believe we are talking about an application that has been fully released.

My point is why the rush now? Why rush to bring out only part of what you want to bake into the system. By the team's own admission they had to limit what they originally wanted to do in an initial rollout (that's my interpretation) due to time and resource constraints. Nobody is expecting v2 or v3, that's reserved for adding to the calendar, adding to lds tools or gospel library, or adding RSS feeds, having lessons show up when you log into lds.org, etc....

JohnShaw wrote:By the team's own admission they had to limit what they originally wanted to do in an initial rollout (that's my interpretation) due to time and resource constraints.

The "initial rollout" is currently beta only, for community members to do quality assurance testing with it. As of right now, it is not ready to be used in wards and stakes since there are still many issues to be ironed out. At this point, I would encourage people to "play with it" if they want to, and nothing more. It's not as if we are being asked to incorporate this in our wards right now. There will likely be many changes before official implementation occurs. One of those changes may be stake access, and it may not be. (I would have no knowledge either way). Does that make sense?

(Sorry, I feel like we all keep talking past each other on the issue. Hopefully we can all get on the same page).

AileneRHerrick wrote:There will likely be many changes before official implementation occurs. One of those changes may be stake access, and it may not be. (I would have no knowledge either way).

Actually, we do have knowledge of that. There will not be stake access in the first release:

jdcr256 wrote:In cutting corners to fit our resources, we decided to support the people who could best maintain the schedule first (ward and auxiliary leaders). Are there really good reasons to support Stake admin, absolutely. It just didn't fit in the 1.0 release, so we had to push it off for later.

But I certainly understand the need to make compromises between features, time, and resources. My hope is that the stake administration features will be added to Lesson Schedules by November or so -- that way the stake can be involved in the 2013 planning process.

aebrown wrote:Actually, we do have knowledge of that. There will not be stake access in the first release.

Oh, I could be wrong, but I thought that the beta version that was online now was the "first release" and intended for beta use only. I could be mistaken, but that was my understanding.

JohnShaw wrote:My point is why the rush now? Why rush to bring out only part of what you want to bake into the system.

I don't see that there is a rush. There is no requirement that units use the beta. The link to the beta has only been publicized in the forum. We have most of this year to test it. There may be a period during 2012 that v1 will be available. But in my opinion that gives time to work out issues that need to be taken care of before everyone begins 2013 with the new lesson scheduler and the classic is retired. The only point I am seeing discussed is that the stake will not have input directly to the online schedule at least for version 1. That could be incorporated before the release that is used for 2013.

Essentially I am repeating what AileneRHerrick has posted. I like the idea of having hands-on before it replaces the classic. The classic is still available and I suspect will be for a while after version 1 is released.

AileneRHerrick wrote:Oh, I could be wrong, but I thought that the beta version that was online now was the "first release" and intended for beta use only. I could be mistaken, but that was my understanding.

Until there is a version 1 it is not an official release. Alpha and beta versions are pre-release stages of development. The release today was beta revision 506, not yet to version 1.

jdlessley wrote:Until there is a version 1 it is not an official release. Alpha and beta versions are pre-release stages of development. The release today was beta revision 506, not yet to version 1.

Okay, got it.

Will the Scheduler be available in other languages with Version 1? Hopefully German is available : -)

I need to clarify some things here, and I see I should have been clearer earlier. Once the known bugs in this version are worked out, we will reset the data, remove the beta warnings, and begin linking to the application. It will then be officially available for wards to use.

In other words, the functionality that is there right now is the intended functionality for the 1.0 release. We still have a developer fixing bugs, but our resources are being moved on to other projects right now.

Our goal right now is to wrap up before the end of the month.

There are enhancements on our backlog for future releases, which we intend to fund, but we don't get to choose our own budget, so I can't give a timeline. We really tried to focus on the most basic functionality that would make the application useful. There are lots of cool bells and whistles that we had to leave out for now.

gxwheel wrote:Will the Scheduler be available in other languages with Version 1? Hopefully German is available : -)

Once we are fairly certain there are no more major changes to the UI, we will submit the English strings to translation. As far as I know, we intend to submit for the same 11 languages the calendar is available in. However, when using the lesson in a language, your manual selections will be limited to the manuals that are available on LDS.Org in the language you have selected, which may vary based on the language.

jdcr256 wrote:I need to clarify some things here.

Thank you! Your response was helpful.

Oh, and since it's my fault that I wasn't clearer that this was a short beta, I'll try to sooth the wounds by saying as much as I can. You want us to move on to the other projects.

jdcr256 wrote:Oh, and since it's my fault that I wasn't clearer that this was a short beta, I'll try to sooth the wounds by saying as much as I can. You want us to move on to the other projects.

Don't worry. No offense taken here. I think you did good by focusing on the ward level first.

jdcr256 wrote:You want us to move on to the other projects.

Ooooh, do tell! <grin>

For what it's worth, as a Ward Clerk and Website Administrator I absolutely LOVE the way v1 is planned. My biggest frustration with the Priesthood/R.S. Schedule in the classic LUWS was that it was inaccurate enough to discourage usage AND there was nothing I could do about it. I'd rather be responsible for inputing and updating the schedule than to have a tool without credibility.

nbflint wrote:For what it's worth, as a Ward Clerk and Website Administrator I absolutely LOVE the way v1 is planned. My biggest frustration with the Priesthood/R.S. Schedule in the classic LUWS was that it was inaccurate enough to discourage usage AND there was nothing I could do about it. I'd rather be responsible for inputing and updating the schedule than to have a tool without credibility.

We had the reverse problem. A few wards would not teach to the schedule the stake entered.

In order to accommodate some of the requests in this thread, we have added the ability for stake admins to view the application as though they were admins in their home ward. In other words, stake admins will be able to log in and create/modify classes and lessons for their own ward.

This will allow stake admins to see and use the admin controls so they can help members of their stake with training upon request.

this is good news

jdcr256 wrote:In order to accommodate some of the requests in this thread, we have added the ability for stake admins to view the application as though they were admins in their home ward. In other words, stake admins will be able to log in and create/modify classes and lessons for their own ward.

This will allow stake admins to see and use the admin controls so they can help members of their stake with training upon request.

I cannot test this, but is this ability available now in beta? What stake callings does this apply to, STAKE WEBSITE ADMIN and / or others?

kisaac wrote:I cannot test this, but is this ability available now in beta? What stake callings does this apply, STAKE WEBSITE ADMIM and / or others?

I tried it, and it's definitely available now to an assistant stake clerk. I assume it's the standard set of stake admins that are the analogues of the ward callings listed in Default administrators for Lesson Schedules.

aebrown is correct, it is the standard set of stake admins. For a stake, this includes the presidency, secretaries, clerks, and stake web admin.

By the way, thank you Alan for updating the Lesson Schedules administrators topic with the results from this thread. I like the juxtaposition of this forum and the wiki, and how information flows from the forum into the wiki.

What about Stake Administrators? Seems our calling has been slowly been dramically
what we can do more what we can not do...
Stake clerks in our Stake what nothing to do with the Stake Calendar
so I'm elected to do the updates
1-can not see other wards to help other new ward admins
2-directory.. that has disappeared
can't help stake members with their profile
3-Lessons: haven't seen anything so I add by hand on Stake Calendar
and add lds.org magazine link to the lessons
4-Newsletter: haven't seen this added to my Stake Admin tools yet

@sharonlower,
You appear to be addressing several issues in one post. This thread is about stake level access/input to ward lesson schedules. If you have issues other than the access by stake leaders to the lesson scheduler, please post those issues in a separate thread for each issue. We cannot address any concerns other than those around the topic of this thread without forking the thread. Please follow the Code of Conduct regarding forking threads and staying on topic for the thread.

sharonlower wrote:Stake clerks in our Stake what nothing to do with the Stake Calendar so I'm elected to do the updates
1-can not see other wards to help other new ward admins

Please address this in a separate thread in the Calendar forum.

sharonlower wrote:2-directory.. that has disappeared can't help stake members with their profile

Please address this in the Directory forum.

sharonlower wrote:3-Lessons: haven't seen anything so I add by hand on Stake Calendar and add lds.org magazine link to the lessons

Stake leaders have access to their own ward's lesson scheduler as though they are leaders within their own ward. Stake level access/input will come some time in the future. The program has been rolled out with the essential elements for wards to schedule lessons.

For a better understanding of why the decision was made and what has been done to accommodate stake leaders see post # 7, post #11, post #27, and post #57.

sharonlower wrote:4-Newsletter: haven't seen this added to my Stake Admin tools yet

Please address this in the Beta Newsletter forum.

What needs to be added is this:

NOT ALL WARDS have Ward Admin and Ward Calendars !
So the Stake Depends on me as Stake Admin to add the lessons
which now I do by hand on each Sunday with the link
that takes the lessons to the lds.org lesson site
and I have a auto email sent to each stake Member 2 days
before the lessons on that sunday

As Stake Admin I now can NOT add emails to stake members
nor can I add photos members send me from their wards
within my stake

I can not even add HC new photos within our Stake

The clerks in our ward will not be adding lessons
they don't want to so I hope I have rights
as Stake and Ward admin with our Ward calendar

Please consider all that the Stake Admin use to do in
the OLD Calendars and now we have nothing to do
but type in calendar events

Frustrating having members so nicely email me for
help and they cant or don't want to take the time
to log in to add their family photos or emails

And we have Chinese and Koream members
that need help and I can not because the rights
for me as Stake Admin for adding to their profile
has been taken away.

Lastly: How can I help anyone with new Ward calendars
if I can not see them?

Thanks Sharon
Southern California

You cover a variety of topics in your post, even though this is a thread about class schedules in the Lesson Schedules application. If you want to discuss those other topics further, please do so in the appropriate forums.

Basically, you are asking for more power and control as a stake administrator than I think you are likely to get. There may be some adjustments to permissions, as I mention below, but the philosophy behind the new applications is to distribute the responsibility to the wards to a much larger extent than under the Classic Ward and Stake Websites.

sharonlower wrote:What needs to be added is this:

NOT ALL WARDS have Ward Admin and Ward Calendars !
So the Stake Depends on me as Stake Admin to add the lessons
which now I do by hand on each Sunday with the link
that takes the lessons to the lds.org lesson site
and I have a auto email sent to each stake Member 2 days
before the lessons on that sunday

Wards administer lessons, not the stake. If the bishop thinks its important to have lesson schedules online, he'll ask his ward clerk or another administrator to add them.

sharonlower wrote:As Stake Admin I now can NOT add emails to stake members nor can I add photos members send me from their wards within my stake

That is correct. Adding emails to stake members is considered to be a modification of the membership record (because that's actually what is happening), and thus that capability is restricted to clerks and priesthood leaders.

sharonlower wrote:I can not even add HC new photos within our Stake

Photos are administered at the ward level. There are no "HC photos" -- there are only individual photos, which will appear in a variety of places, including the stake leadership directory for members who happen to be high councilors. Because these photos are tied to an individual, not a calling, it is appropriate that they be administered at the ward level. As a stake administrator, about all you can do is to encourage ward clerks and other ward administrators to manage the photos for their members.

sharonlower wrote:The clerks in our ward will not be adding lessons
they don't want to so I hope I have rights as Stake and Ward admin with our Ward calendar

You keep mentioning lessons and calendars in the same thought. Those are separate applications. But for both of them, administration of ward lesson schedules and ward calendars happens at the ward level.

If it is important for wards to have lesson schedules, the stake president can encourage ward clerks to enter them (he can even direct them to do so). But even though you are willing to help, you can't just take over that responsibility at the stake level.

sharonlower wrote:Please consider all that the Stake Admin use to do in
the OLD Calendars and now we have nothing to do but type in calendar events

Stake Calendar administrators have more responsibilities than that (for example, managing locations, administrators, and calendars). But the responsibility is now more distributed among the wards and other leaders. Embrace the new distributed model, and you'll be happier.

sharonlower wrote:Frustrating having members so nicely email me for help and they cant or don't want to take the time to log in to add their family photos or emails
...
And we have Chinese and Koream members that need help and I can not because the rights for me as Stake Admin for adding to their profile has been taken away.

Kindly point them to their ward clerks for assistance in this area.

sharonlower wrote:Lastly: How can I help anyone with new Ward calendars
if I can not see them?

You will have visibility into ward calendars in the future; see Access to all Ward/Branch calendars within Stake by Stake/District leadership. In the meantime, you can help ward administrators by sitting down with them (perhaps using screen sharing software if they are some distance away) as they sign in to their account.

I realize that I'm coming late to this party, but I would like to add my support for future releases to include access for stake clerks to add such items as TFOT lessons and stake conference dates globally to all wards in their stake.

It would be far more efficient for me to add them once, rather than each ward add them individually.

Thanks for your consideration.

I know this topic has been discussed extensively, but in our stake the stake presidency develops the lesson schedule for EQ, HP, and RS. All the wards use the same master schedule. On the old stake web site we could input a single master schedule for the stake. Now, 21 different people all have to input the same schedule! (i.e. EQ, HP, RS for each of our 7 wards). That's kind of crazy and, as you can image, it just doesn't happen. Only a handful of the leaders have input schedules. It would so much easier to do it once at the stake level. Thanks.

sorensenbm wrote:All the wards use the same master schedule.

Does this take into account ward specific events such as ward conference?

sorensenbm wrote:It would so much easier to do it once at the stake level.

I would agree as long as the wards could adjust the schedule to accommodate ward specific events.

jdcr256 wrote:The ability to for wards and auxiliaries to create and use a lesson schedule was the priority for the 1.0 release. The convenience of stake "trickle down" functionality is a lower priority. There is consideration and design for stake admin level functionality that is being considered for a later release.

I had to do some reflection on the lesson scheduler now that we are nearly a year down the road and unfortunately what I predicted would happen in my stake has come to pass though I underestimated the lack of participation in the lesson scheduler. With 7 wards in the stake, I have one ward that sort of uses the scheduler and that is because I helped set it up. I hope that having the new youth curriculum will prompt more wards to plan schedules in the planner but without the stake pushing reluctant wards to utilize the application and giving them direction, I'm afraid that the lesson scheduler will just be another tool that people look at and say "huh,we have that? I wonder why nothing is in it?"

Maybe if the lesson schedules were available in LDS Tools for mobile users, it might get the visibility to prompt more use.

I would love to see Lesson Schedules for mobile devices. I think that would ultimately help drive more adoption of the tool. Rather than get off the topic in this forum, I created a thread in Mobile Applications -> Gospel Library. See Would it make sense to add lesson schedules to Gospel Library?