Leader tracking for Duty to God program?

Will there be a way for leaders to track/generate reports for the Duty to God program? I realize it's focus has shifted recently, but we are still tasked with helping the YM plan and achieve their D2G.

I'm envious of the YW Personal Progress tracking....

jrjlds wrote:Will there be a way for leaders to track/generate reports for the Duty to God program? I realize it's focus has shifted recently, but we are still tasked with helping the YM plan and achieve their D2G.

That very question was just asked in the recent September 7 LDSTech Broadcast; here is my transcription of that question and answer (from about the 27:45 mark):

Question: Will the leaders be able to mark off Duty to God in the near future?

Answer: That is one of our most requested features -- leader tracking for Duty to God. We are looking at ways to get approval to do leader tracking for Duty to God, but ... we're working on it.

That's great to hear. Is there some place I can write to lend my voice to those asking for this feature?

Taking the response at face value, it appears the hold up is "approval" not prioritization.

RussellHltn wrote:Taking the response at face value, it appears the hold up is "approval" not prioritization.

Sometimes the more voices raised in support of a particular subject raises the priority, thus expediting a decision.

I am the Stake YM president. As I have gone around to all my wards and spoken with the YM presidents and Bishops they have all expressed a frustration with tracking the progress of the youth in the Duty to God program. I have read through the threads and realize that you are working on it. Is there an estimation on when this will be released?

The Bishops would be happy to have the same functionality as there is with the YW's Personal Progress.

mhavran wrote:Is there an estimation on when this will be released?

We don't even know if ICS is working on an application/program. The last information available is that they were working on getting approval to start working on leader tracking application/program as stated in post #2.

jrjlds wrote:Sometimes the more voices raised in support of a particular subject raises the priority, thus expediting a decision.

Is this the appropriate place to raise our voice in support of this subject or would somewhere else be more beneficial to have my voice heard?

drutherford wrote:Is this the appropriate place to raise our voice in support of this subject or would somewhere else be more beneficial to have my voice heard?

There is a very remote chance that some in a position to pass these suggestions on will visit the forum and read this thread or any others like it. The best place to submit suggestions is through the "Do You Have Feedback on This Page?" link found on most LDS.org pages. The Duty to God site does not have one, so I recommend using the link on the LDS.org home page.

I am the Stake YM president and have been for a year. I am also very tech savvy and familiar with the Duty to God program. I also have 2 teenage daughters working on their Personal Progress.

My question is why is the Personal Progress tracking for the YW so much more robust than the tracking for the YM? Specifically here are the features I like about the PP tracking:

1. As a parent I can log in and see exactly where my daugther is at with her progress. I cannot do this as a parent of a YM.
2. As a leader of the YW, they have the ability to see where their YW are in the program. This is vital for advising their presidents on lesson planning and activities. We can not do that for the Duty to God program.

Is there a plan to make the Duty to God program tracking have the same functionality as the Personal Progress tracking?

mhavran wrote:Is there a plan to make the Duty to God program tracking have the same functionality as the Personal Progress tracking?

I moved your post into the thread where this topic has been discussed. Review this thread and you'll see that you're not alone in your hopes.

I know that the boys can keep track of their duty to god online. Is there a way for leaders to view their progress online? If so, who has that access?

[Moderator note: I moved your post into the topic where this issue is being discussed.]

No, such access is not currently available. Read this whole topic, but particularly Post #2.

Why has this not been done for the YM since its been done for YW?

lehrschallbrian wrote:Why has this not been done for the YM since its been done for YW?

The best answer that we have for that question is back in Post #2. The response from the Church employee was "We are looking at ways to get approval to do leader tracking for Duty to God, but ... we're working on it." That "..." does not indicate that words were left out, but rather that there was a pause as the speaker tried to find the right words to say.

It seems clear to me that since they are trying "to get approval," those in authority for this area have not at this point granted approval. Any of us could speculate the reasons, but it would only be a wild guess. The simple answer is that we have not been given any reasons why such a project has not been approved at this point.

aebrown wrote:It seems clear to me that since they are trying "to get approval," those in authority for this area have not at this point granted approval. Any of us could speculate the reasons, but it would only be a wild guess. The simple answer is that we have not been given any reasons why such a project has not been approved at this point.

It comes back to "we're not the customer" - the Priesthood Dept is.

I wrote a letter asking for just this:

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Priesthood Department/Young Men
20th Floor
50 East North Temple Street
Salt Lake City, UT 84150.

In the meantime, our ward has been using etrailtoeagle.com for D2G tracking.

I would love to have the ability to track D2G also, but in the mean time I have just developed a progress chart with all the youth by quorum and advisers names on the left and the seven D2G sections across the top. As they complete a section they get a smiley face and as everyone in the quorum completes a section, there is a reward of some kind like a pizza party. It has helped encourage friendly competition among the quorums and gives them a visual reminder.

My ward is doing a summer challenge for the boys related to Duty To God. We need a way to track the boys progress. This is super easy to do since they already have the online data entry in production and they already have equivalent progress tracking technology available to the YW that they could borrow. I can't imagine what the holdup would be unless the brethren are about to make significant changes to the Duty To God program (which may have been a possibility recently because of the recent Scouting decisions).

Regardless, we REALLY need this reporting tool as YM leadership and as parents. PLEASE make it happen!!!

JohnWeymouth wrote:PLEASE make it happen!!!

There is no one in the forum who can make that happen. Your two options are the feedback link on the main lds.org site and sending it up your priesthood leadership chain of command.

Thanks I know. I already posted feedback on the Duty To God page. I was hoping a decision maker peruses this forum and might see my post.

Let's Remember that there exists a ton of resources around the Young Men program that doesn't exist for women. For Example, YM can be tracked across ordinations between deacon, teacher, priest, elder. The YW have NONE of this. When a group priotitized a list of who do we do first YM or YW, I am very glad, personally, that the YW got the effort first.

Secondly, there doesn't seem to be an effort to dedicate any kind of development right now. We aren't hearing anything about maps, calendar, directory, newsletter, etc.... mobile tools are minimally coming out..... it feels like the church is waiting to figure out where we're going.

What we do see is a ton of development on lds.org - I don't know what this means, but the lack of attention to the online tools seems like a very LOUD silence.

I'm not sure I follow how the YM had a technology advantage for a period of time. YW don't have tracking for ordinations because they aren't ordained. The way I see it they have a TON more tools for tracking than we do. I'm not saying they shouldn't have these tools. Rather I'm saying everyone needs these tools. The data is available, we just need the ability to report on it. (I probably sound like a jerk and if I do I apologize - I'm not terribly familiar with all the technology that is available but I'm in IT and know what I'm hoping to get would be easy to put into production).

JohnShaw wrote:...Secondly, there doesn't seem to be an effort to dedicate any kind of development right now. We aren't hearing anything about maps, calendar, directory, newsletter, etc.... mobile tools are minimally coming out..... it feels like the church is waiting to figure out where we're going.

What we do see is a ton of development on lds.org - I don't know what this means, but the lack of attention to the online tools seems like a very LOUD silence.

A big +1...very strange.
Church employees were such an active part of this forum. It was so nice to get that feedback from those involved in the development work. They may linger...but don't actively post like they used to.

dshepher wrote:Church employees were such an active part of this forum. It was so nice to get that feedback from those involved in the development work.

It was the developers. I thought they were just in heads-down development mode, but it's been awhile.....

One thing worth pointing out: each development project is done according to the sponsoring department's specifications. So Personal Progress was developed according to the direction of the YW presidency. So some differences is because it's answering to a different leaders then D2G.

The LDS.org home page has an article today about things youth can do with an LDS Account. It mentioned Duty to God. Is this something new that just showed up and what people have been looking for? Or has it been there for a while and people are looking for additional capabilities?

mevans wrote:The LDS.org home page has an article today about things youth can do with an LDS Account. It mentioned Duty to God. Is this something new that just showed up and what people have been looking for? Or has it been there for a while and people are looking for additional capabilities?

The ability for young men to record their own progress has been on the site for quite a while. What people are mostly looking for is a way for leaders to see that progress for the youth. That is still not possible.

Just give the leaders, with appropriate safeguards, access to the records of the YM within their stewardship.

waynecooke wrote:Just give the leaders, with appropriate safeguards, access to the records of the YM within their stewardship.

To whom is this statement addressed? While the community is a consumer of the site, we are not the client. The client is the site's sponsoring church department (General Young Men Presidency and Board? Priesthood Department?). Therefore the decision to make this happen rests with the church department sponsoring the Duty to God site. ICS programmers can not implement this capability without direction from the client.

It was just a suggestion, in the spirit of discussion, not a request for something to be done by the people involved in this Forum, unless someone with the proper position or authority happens to be reading this Forum.

We must congratulate Young women. They has managed to work the flow right. Must Young mens DTG be so hard to re-adopt using the same base as young women? Why invent it twice.

I am also interested in this. I think it would be beneficial for the YM to be able to keep their records online as well as the leaders be able to track them.

Has this been resolved yet I'm trying for my young men!

luatuah wrote:Has this been resolved yet

It's not really a question of being "resolved"; some people have suggested that leader tracking for Duty to God could be helpful, but that's just a suggestion. We have heard nothing concrete about any plans for this being implemented.

Has there been any progress towards giving leaders the access to track duty to God progress for their young men?

scote wrote:Has there been any progress towards giving leaders the access to track duty to God progress for their young men?

No.

Any update on this?

klorimer wrote:Any update on this?

Nope.

Any update to this thread? Has a feature been created yet to track all young men progress?

No. Priorities are set by the General Young Men Presidency and the General Young Men Board.

There are two ways to make your wishes known to the decision makers:
1) Use the Feedback link at the bottom of most pages on lds.org and let them you you want this feature.
2) Have your stake president bring the request to his priesthood leaders at church headquarters or the area presidency.

mhavran wrote:My question is why is the Personal Progress tracking for the YW so much more robust than the tracking for the YM? Specifically here are the features I like about the PP tracking:

Because if the Church had put out a tracking tool for DTG before PP that might've been the last straw for women in the church, with the focus that boys and men get in the church, I'm very happy that PP got their app done. Additionally when all the departments are competing for work at CHQ, many, many men/boy programs (nearly everything else benefits men/boys) are competing with potentially 1 or two things from the women's organizations. It's actually pretty logical when you think about it.

mhavran wrote:Is there a plan to make the Duty to God program tracking have the same functionality as the Personal Progress tracking?

Probably, but as we've seen for the last several years, development of the tools has taken a back seat. It's hard to know where it's gone. The tech conference from last year was mostly a repeat of the prior year and they're not even planning one this year which tells us that they really don't even have anything on-tap for next year either.

johnshaw wrote:The tech conference from last year was mostly a repeat of the prior year and they're not even planning one this year which tells us that they really don't even have anything on-tap for next year either.

I'd be wary of drawing conclusions about the development of particular technologies, based on the cancellation of the tech conference. The organization that oversaw these activities has been disbanded for the most part. My theory is that the Church didn't see sufficient value in putting on an expensive conference for community developers when community development is not a particularly important part of the Church's development strategy at this point. And the tech conference was also for consumers of Church technology, but again, the perceived value for the Church didn't justify the expense. There are other ways to communicate with technology users.

Keep in mind that YW and YM are handled by different groups in the church. They may be approaching the same thing from different viewpoints or have competing priorities for limited resources. That could well explain why Duty to God is being handled differently from Personal Progress.

Also, just speculating reasons, but if you compare the current Duty to God program and Personal Progress program, you will see that Duty to God is much less checklist-oriented and much more open-ended. There aren't very many specific requirements that need to be tracked. This differs from the Duty to God program in the past.

The YW leaders have access to assist with the YW program. Please provide one for the YM and the DTG program.

togden wrote:The YW leaders have access to assist with the YW program. Please provide one for the YM and the DTG program.

It's up to the priesthood department to prioritize that.

Has there been any updates to make the Duty to God easier to track for YM? I have been tasked by my Bishop to kickstart this program here in our ward. Any help with this is very much appreciated.