Sending Messages to All Adult Members

As the Exec Sec I recently needed to send a message to all adult members in the ward. When I did this through leadership tools I found that 78 members came up with an error that the member has selected to not receive emails or do not have email addresses. I found many of these to be legitimate but found 25 or so that do have emails and didn't have any setting set. Can you tell me where members need to go to undo this setting so that I can email them from the church tools?

Also on a similar note, it would be nice to keep all directory information as last name first name, when emailing people it was first last which makes it hard to scroll through and know if a family is getting the message or not.

Thanks,
Wayne

lewiswf1 wrote:I found many of these to be legitimate but found 25 or so that do have emails and didn't have any setting set.

What country are you in? In the United States and Canada, the household profile is visible by default. In the European Union, Mexico, and some other areas, the household profile is private by default. So based on your statement I am guessing you are in a country where the profile setting is private by default and the members in question have not opted in.

Not having a visibility, or privacy, setting is not possible. A visibility setting is going to be one of three settings - Stake, Ward, or Private - Leadership Only. The setting for those households or individuals where no e-mail was sent was in all likelihood "Private - Leadership Only".

lewiswf1 wrote:Can you tell me where members need to go to undo this setting so that I can email them from the church tools?

Assuming those members want to opt in, the information about editing profiles is found in the Directory Help under "Editing Your Profile".

The Exectutive Secretary is a default administrator and can assist members with their profiles. You can change the privacy settings. However you should not do this without the consent of the member.

Thanks, I'll take a look there. I definitely won't change profiles unless the member allows. Thanks so much.
Wayne

I went and looked around a families profile that was blocked from the email sender and I can't see anything that would prevent them from getting email. The parents profiles are all set to Ward level, I did see that their oldest child was set to Private, would that then cascade up to the parents level blocking them from receiving emails from the "All Adults" category?

Thanks,
Wayne

lewiswf1 wrote:The parents profiles are all set to Ward level

We've seen a number of reports that having the profile set to anything but "stake" causes unexpected problems - even for ward leaders.

Is there a recommendation then to set all members to "Stake" level? Can you elaborate more on what issues you've seen when set to "Ward" level? We are about to print our 2014 directory and so we'll be going through the directory and can make the change where appropriate (with permission of course). That's just a lot of work to reset everyone to the stake level.

lewiswf1 wrote:Is there a recommendation then to set all members to "Stake" level?

In the U.S. the default is "Stake", which means that members of other wards in the stake can see the adults who have their permissions set to "stake".

lewiswf1 wrote:Can you elaborate more on what issues you've seen when set to "Ward" level?

I don't remember the exact details - just that some functions leave out or error out on names that are set to "ward" level. That would be fine if the user running the function belonged to a different ward, but that's not the case.

russellhltn wrote:

lewiswf1 wrote:Can you elaborate more on what issues you've seen when set to "Ward" level?

I don't remember the exact details - just that some functions leave out or error out on names that are set to "ward" level. That would be fine if the user running the function belonged to a different ward, but that's not the case.

One specific example is in the Send a Message feature. That is part of the Leader and Clerk Resources area of LDS.org, and so is not completely germane to this forum section that deals with the Directory. In the topic "Send A Message" only works for those with "Stake Visibility" (and several other topics) we see that the people with "Ward" or "Private - Leadership Only" visibility for their email addresses are omitted from the Send a Message recipient list, even though the feature is being used by leaders who specifically have the right to see information that has the "Leadership Only" privacy level.

Similarly, in the Directory, when I try look at an organization (for example, Relief Society), I do not see any email addresses for those sisters with email addresses set to "Ward" or "Private - Leadership Only". And when I use the "Email all Relief Society" link at the top of the Organization list, those email addresses are also omitted. I see only the email addresses set to "Stake", even though I am a stake clerk, and when I look at a household I can see email addresses that are set to "Ward" or "Private - Leadership Only." It makes no sense that visibility settings would be properly respected in one part of the Directory application, and misinterpreted in another.

Thanks for the help, too bad this has been going on for a year or more.

Thanks,
Wayne

lewiswf1 wrote:We are about to print our 2014 directory and so we'll be going through the directory and can make the change where appropriate (with permission of course).

One more example of a waste of budget allowance, especially in this day of electronic devises. Just saying.

Gary_Miller wrote:One more example of a waste of budget allowance, especially in this day of electronic devises. Just saying.

Not everyone has, wants, or can afford an electronic device. Just saying.

But I'd think the days of a formal printed directory would largely be a thing of the past.

russellhltn wrote:

Gary_Miller wrote:One more example of a waste of budget allowance, especially in this day of electronic devises. Just saying.

Not everyone has, wants, or can afford an electronic device. Just saying.

While this is true for tablets and phone, most people have access to a computer. Those that don't can get a directory printed just for them from their ward clerk instead of doing an expensive mass printing for everyone in the ward.

russellhltn wrote:But I'd think the days of a formal printed directory would largely be a thing of the past.

You would think but some people have a hard time breaking away from tradition.

Gary_Miller wrote:

russellhltn wrote:But I'd think the days of a formal printed directory would largely be a thing of the past.

You would think but some people have a hard time breaking away from tradition.

Not quite the same as "nevermore". But I would expect the number of units doing it to dramatically decrease.

Gary_Miller wrote:

lewiswf1 wrote:We are about to print our 2014 directory and so we'll be going through the directory and can make the change where appropriate (with permission of course).

One more example of a waste of budget allowance, especially in this day of electronic devises. Just saying.

We don't know the circumstances in lewiswf1's area. If the leaders there feel this is worthwhile, then that's great for them. Even though our stake no longer prints a stake directory, I know some people miss it. If I want to contact a member, the first place I think of looking is the LDS.org directory (or LDS Tools). Unfortunately, I find many people don't naturally think to look there for member information. The church has provided several great online tools, but I still find a lot of opposition to using them.

Thanks Gary I agree in theory, its a single sheet, double sided. On the back it classifies the youth so that the ward can connect better with them and know which classes they will be in, shows baptisms, etc. If only LDS tools could do that we wouldn't print it. While I'm on LDS tools, would be nice to list HT/VT assignments so we don't have to print those either. Our ward is pretty connected with available tools which are catching up, hope to continue to see us as a church make more advances in this area.

Wayne