Sending Mass Texts

I just got called as the ward executive secretary and I was wondering if anyone knows of an easy way to make a group on an iPhone 5 for sending mass texts to the whole ward.

If you are confident in the accuracy of your ward directory then you could use the LDS Tools app to send a message to a list. If not, you might want to focus on updating your ward list with cell phone numbers. Have a goal to update 3-5 names per week in MLS. Or announce to ward to update their own on LDS.org.

Other ways to do this are to use a third party app such as "Groups" which is pretty handy to make multiple groups such as ward council, ward, ym, yw, ect..... A more simple way would be to enter every cell phone number in a note and then copy and paste then note into a text message recipients when you want to send.

I'm in a bishopric and set up a list in LDS Tools to send mass text to all our ward. It did take a while since the only two ways I could figure out to do it were either 1) hunt and peck the names from my full stake directory by searching for each name individually or 2) go into each contact and add them individually to a list. I opted to use the latter but it might have been quicker to refer to my ward's membership list separately and assign them to the list that way.

Dev: Please add a filter to view by ward rather than by the entire stake.

There is a older app called Ward Central that I really like in many ways better than LDS Tools. With it, there are check boxes to quickly add members to a group (or list). This seems to be a better way to do it and I would hope that the developers of LDS Tools are looking into better functionality to create lists.

Another issue is that I can only send to 40 individual phone numbers at once (not sure is this is a phone limitation or a limitation of my carrier, Sprint. This is fine if I had realized it before I spent over an hour (what a pain) assigning all my ward members to the different lists (All Ward, Elders, Relief Society) only to discover I had wasted my time on the all ward members list except for the first 40 names selected.

I guess I need to go back in and create lists for only 40 at a time. But then I foresee an issue that how will I know which new members need to be assigned to a list? For now I guess I will need to remember to add them to lists when we get their records, otherwise I will most likely forget.

Dev: Please add a report or some way to view who is not assigned to lists, perhaps a filter by each list?

Any thoughts or ideas for any of this?

jcorpany wrote:Dev: Please add...

You're certainly welcome to start a discussion here about such issues. But if you want your suggestions to get to the developers, then you need to use the Feedback feature in the LDS Tools app. That will ensure that they see your suggestions, whereas anything you post here has nearly a zero chance of being seen by the developers.

I submitted those items as features in the app under feedback. Thanks for the direction!

I use LDS Tools with my iPhone 4s and I don't know if it is because of it's an older iPhone or not, but I am only able to send to about 9 people at a time. So when I was in the Elders Quorum Presidency, I just went in and added people to different lists to send to the Elders. I ended up with about 4 or 5 different lists and it has been pretty easy to send out a mass text. Just go to the list and send out the text, then copy and paste it into the other groups and it could be done in just a few minutes. I hope that made sense!

jcorpany wrote:a filter to view by ward rather than by the entire stake.

I'm not sure I understand what your suggestion is – if you tap on the unit name at the top, it should bring up a menu to switch to a single ward...

Is the mass texting a feature only available to ward clerks? I've been called to communications and information specialist. My bishop has asked me to keep everyone apprised as to ward activities and news via email and texting, as some members prefer one method over the other; however, in my directory, I only have access to mass email and not text. Am I looking in the wrong place or is this something I don't have access to? Thanks in advance!

zemiphobia wrote:Is the mass texting a feature only available to ward clerks?

It's not really a feature at all -- it has nothing to do with being a ward clerk.

The only responses in this discussion about mass texting talked about creating a list in the LDS Tools mobile app. That's a very manual process, so it's a pretty clunky way to send mass texts.

I have been sending emails via the Church's system and have been getting 5 pages of names that messages weren't delivered to mostly because of a new Yahoo.com requirement. What can be done to overcome this little problem?

redlemon wrote:I have been sending emails via the Church's system and have been getting 5 pages of names that messages weren't delivered to mostly because of a new Yahoo.com requirement. What can be done to overcome this little problem?

Don't use Yahoo as your email. What's happening that the church is sending the emails but spoofing your email address as the sender. Yahoo doesn't allow that. So anyone who has a Yahoo email tied with their account and tries to send via the church systems will encounter that.

Ok, Here is the big question.
IS THERE A GOOD WAY TO SEND MASS TEXT TO THE ENTIRE WARD FOR FREE?
Without having to make subgroups and do copying and pasting.
One message, one click and boom, out to the ward.
There are many services out there that will do it for a fee. We don't want a fee. Our tithing is the fee.
Thanks

dwelb1963 wrote:There are many services out there that will do it for a fee. We don't want a fee. Our tithing is the fee.

Non-sequitur. The church does not sponsor any such mass texting. So, your tithing does not pay for texts.

Texting is not free. Even if you do find someone that doesn't charge, chances are it means giving up member's privacy.

I can see that there is a way to send a group message to everyone in our Elder's Quorum. However, I'm wondering if there is a way to send a text message to everyone in the quorum without it going out as one big mass group text where everyone can see everyone else's phone number. I guess I'm wondering if I can send it kind of like sending a Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) email.

Have people found the “Circles” feature in the Living app as an answer to this? It seems like this might be the church’s way to communicate instead of text?

Our ward uses “Circles” within the “Living” app. Its nice not having my messaging app in iOS blow up. My question is…I know that people within circles are generated based on if you’re in RS, Elders Quorum, YW, etc. it would be nice if they could break it down even further with people who have callings within a circle. For instance…it would be nice if there was a Relief Society Activities “circle” so that messages, times, ideas, etc., can be shared on the app and not have all the RS sisters receive it.

Circles is still very clunky and few members use it or respond to it.
I keep hearing that group texts can be done via Tools, but it appears to be a laborious manual task to make our own lists hunt and peck style.