Send a message to "all members"

I am an assistant ward clerk and am trying to send a message to "all members" using the send a message feature in clerk resources. I do not get an option to email "all members". I see the different ward organizations that I can email, but not everyone in the ward. Can somone point me in the right place?

Instead of using the Leader and Clerk Resources use the Directory to send a message to all adult members which is the closest you will get to sending to all members.

I believe your ward clerk and bishop will have the "email all members" options on the leader tools, but not an assistant ward clerk. There are variations as well, like email all adults, all households, all priesthood, all RS, etc., but you'll have to ask them. (it's been a while and several versions ago since I had that access, so I might be proven wrong.) Why it is limited to them, I don't know.

kisaac wrote:I believe your ward clerk and bishop will have the "email all members" options on the leader tools, but not an assistant ward clerk. There are variations as well, like email all adults, all households, all priesthood, all RS, etc., but you'll have to ask them. (it's been a while and several versions ago since I had that access, so I might be proven wrong.) Why it is limited to them, I don't know.

I will have to ask and see. Does anyone know if those options will be expanded in the future to assistant clerks or the executive secretary?

I am a ward clerk and one of the groups available to me in the Messaging app is "All members".

dfchamplain wrote: Does anyone know if those options will be expanded in the future to assistant clerks or the executive secretary?

Exec sec may have the rights already on LDS.org Leader resources, but I don't know. Speaking only of the "send a message" function (not the directory,) why All EXPANDED Bishopric and Stake Presidency members are not allowed equal emailing rights, especially when any member of the expanded bishopric or presidency may be delegated to do these emailing to support the bishop or stake president, is certainly a mystery to me....
Maybe a programmer is reading and could chime in?

I am a Stake Clerk and and am having a problem emailing all members . When I enter all adults or all members a message appears the group is empty. The Stake Exective Secretary also has the problem. Both of us should have the proper rights. I was told by the MLS help desk to post here, any suggestions ?

dfchamplain wrote:I am an assistant ward clerk and am trying to send a message to "all members" using the send a message feature in clerk resources. I do not get an option to email "all members".

You could ask the ward clerk, ward executive secretary, or member of the bishopric to send the message for you.

dfchamplain wrote:Does anyone know if those options will be expanded in the future to assistant clerks or the executive secretary?

The ward executive secretary does have the "All members" option.

zimmej4442 wrote:I am a Stake Clerk and and am having a problem emailing all members. When I enter all adults or all members a message appears the group is empty. The Stake Exective Secretary also has the problem.

I have never received a "Send A Message" from anyone at the stake level. So, I have no insight if that is even functional yet. Are you able to select any other subgroups for the stake or individual wards? Or are they all empty? Have you tried again a day later? Maybe the server was temporarily down. Are you in the U.S.?

I am in the US. Just tried again with the same problem. Switched to ward and chose a subgroup and the address field was populated. I was told by the Executive Secretary that the old set up could do this. We live in a area of the country where a Hurricane can cause problems, so we need to get the word out to all members quickly.

I really like the "send a message" and how you can select each group. Make sure that they have an individual e-mail in MLS. I do not think that they register an e-mail with only a e-mail in the family contact. That would only go to Family. I am a ward Executive secretary. I would like to put in a request that you ad features like Bold, Underline, Font size, even attachments etc. This would greatly add to this wonderful quick way to get out messages. It could more easily be a great tool to promote ward activity especially if it had the capacity to add graphics for an event. Is this a possibility? I really hope so. Thank you for all the cool applications you are adding to lds.org.

zimmej4442 wrote:I am in the US. Just tried again with the same problem. Switched to ward and chose a subgroup and the address field was populated. I was told by the Executive Secretary that the old set up could do this. We live in a area of the country where a Hurricane can cause problems, so we need to get the word out to all members quickly.

Not sure if that is a bug or a feature. I think the stake leaders should have the ability to send a message out to all members in some cases, even if it is not often. Does the Stake Executive Secretary or the Stake Presidency also not have the ability to send a message to all members in the stake? If not, recommend that you report this bug via the "Submit Feedback" link at the bottom left of the Clerk Resources page at lds.org.

By the way, I don't see "Send a Message" in the "Access Table", which shows what each role can do. I am posting a bug report and submitting feedback on the issue of the missing from the Access Table list.

genman wrote: Does the Stake Executive Secretary or the Stake Presidency also not have the ability to send a message to all members in the stake? If not, recommend that you report this bug via the "Submit Feedback" link at the bottom left of the Clerk Resources page at lds.org.

The stake president does have the ability to send a message to all members. But I don't know who else has that ability -- it seems to be very limited.

genman wrote:By the way, I don't see "Send a Message" in the "Access Table", which shows what each role can do.

I agree that it would be nice to document what each role can do. But I don't think the Access Table is the place to put such detailed information; that would become very unwieldy. I think the better place would be in the documentation, similar to the Roles and Responsibilities sections of the Directory and Calendar documentation.

1968leocomeeatabite wrote:I really like the "send a message" ... I would like to put in a request that you ad features like Bold, Underline, Font size, even attachments etc.

Being able to do formatting such as font size, underline, embedded links, etc is already supported today, although not super user-friendly and not widely advertized. It requires you to deal with html tags, though, so some people will not want to mess with it. And you can't really verify how it will look unless you send the message to just yourself first as a test. Try opening the attached document and copying and pasting it into the Send a Message body field, give it a Subject, and press the Send button. If you haven't yet selected anyone to send it to, it will send it just to you, so you can see what it looks like.

Regarding "attachments" in Send A Message, you cannot currently send a literal attachment. However, you can upload a document into something like GoogleDocs, make it readable by anyone with the URL link, and then include the link in the Send a Message either directly or through an html tag. That's as good as an attachment, actually better because it doesn't load up the members' inboxes with large files.

aebrown wrote:The stake president does have the ability to send a message to all members. But I don't know who else has that ability -- it seems to be very limited.

The stake clerk can, but I can't as an assistant stake clerk.

aebrown wrote:I agree that it would be nice to document what each role can do. But I don't think the Access Table is the place to put such detailed information; that would become very unwieldy. I think the better place would be in the documentation, similar to the Roles and Responsibilities sections of the Directory and Calendar documentation.

Ok, as long as it is documented somewhere. I just used Submit Feedback to file the following Problem Report:

Problem Report: Missing Access Table for "Send a Message".
The Access Table under Leadership/Clerk Resources > Other > Access Table does not show who has which rights for using the "Send a Message" feature. Recommend that this be added to the online documentation somewhere. It has been reported that a stake clerk is not able to Send A Message to All members in the stake; but since it is not shown in the access table, not sure if that is by design or a bug or an isolated service outtage. Please update the Access Table, or in some documentation somewhere, to show the Send A Message rights per role.