Missionary Dinner Calendar

Hello all. I would like to ask for some community feedback on a tool I built to help coordinate missionary dinner appointments.

http://demo.missionarydinnercalendar.com

I love the features available with the official church calendar on LDS.org, but the problem I had was that members in general can not sign up for appointments without going through a calendar administrator. I wanted to setup a simple site that could work as a stand-alone replacement to the common paper calendars that get passed in many wards, or in conjunction with a traditional paper calendar for members who are not technology inclined.

Here is how our ward plans to use it:
There are 2 account types for a unit. A general ward membership account which is protected by a shared password. The password is freely shared among ward members, investigators or anyone else interested in feeding the missionaries. The password also appears at the top of the printed calendar and in emails sent regarding missionary meals.
This password lets you see what days are available and sign up for an appointment but does not let you see who has signed up for other to protect those who may not want their name appearing online.

The second account is for administrators and is intended to be shared with Ward Mission Leaders, Asst Ward Mission Leaders, Missionary Meal Coordinators, Bishoprics etc.. and allows those individuals to:
Retrieve appointments for the month
Change or remove names from the calendar
Print or save a PDF of the calendar for circulation at church.
Change the member password
Change the administrator password
Name the companionships serving in the unit (helpful for units with more than one set of missionaries)

Though the calendar is publicly available on the web, I have tried to follow the church policies regarding projects like this. No membership or other data from the church is used.

I have built and tested this to be friendly for phone, tablet and desktop use. Though I have not tested it on an android tablet yet.

The plan is to roll this first out to my ward, and work out any issues that might come up, then make it more widely available if there is interest.

There is one known issue that I have decided to live with because I can't see a great solution. I would welcome any input on it. If you pass the printed paper calendar at church and also have people signing up from their devices while at church there is the potential for collisions when the paper calendar is collected but someone already signed up for a particular day since the time the calendar was printed. There really isn't any way I can see around this without suspending online appointments during church hours but that seems counter productive. My hope is gradually to wean people off the paper calendar, or have them contact the WML/Meal Coordinator directly to make appointments.

Thanks!

First of all, nice work!

jds580s wrote:There is one known issue that I have decided to live with because I can't see a great solution. I would welcome any input on it. If you pass the printed paper calendar at church and also have people signing up from their devices while at church there is the potential for collisions when the paper calendar is collected but someone already signed up for a particular day since the time the calendar was printed. There really isn't any way I can see around this without suspending online appointments during church hours but that seems counter productive. My hope is gradually to wean people off the paper calendar, or have them contact the WML/Meal Coordinator directly to make appointments.

Maybe you could pass around an iPad instead of paper; and have a simplified interface for that iPad that's passed around (names showing, no password) to make it easy to use so the class isn't interrupted with questions about it...

The colored triangles and key are confusing to me and I had to click on a few dates to figure out what they meant. Also, the weekends being darker colors makes me think that they are "disabled" or something. How about three links that appear?:

English Sisters...
ASL Elders...
Both companionships...

If one companionship is already claimed:

English Sisters ✓
ASL Elders...

If you have admin rights:

English Sisters ✓ (John Smith, 555-555-5555 edit)
ASL Elders...

I would recommend putting the dinner policies somewhere from the handbook/mission, such as requiring someone else of the same gender to be present, dinner appointments to be an hour, or whatever requirements the mission has. Also, is there a way to view and/or change a dinner you've signed up to provide, after it's scheduled?

Quick usability question - how likely are members to sign up for dates at home? What is going to be their "trigger" to do that? I'd hate for someone to go it all the development work and then find out it doesn't get used.

A clipboard/iPad passed around in PH/RS meeting is a "trigger". Speaking for myself, outside of church it would probably take a email to "trigger" me. If an organized family has "council meetings" that could trigger things. It might be worth doing an informal poll of the members to see how they see themselves using it.

Thank you for the feedback!

sbradshaw wrote:Maybe you could pass around an iPad instead of paper; and have a simplified interface for that iPad that's passed around (names showing, no password) to make it easy to use so the class isn't interrupted with questions about it...

I like that idea of having an electronic version that could be passed that wouldn't require a password and would show names. That would make things much more user friendly.

I decided to change the password from required to optional but recommended. We gave this a test run and that seemed be a point of confusion.

sbradshaw wrote:The colored triangles and key are confusing to me

I agree. I first tried a similar layout on our printed calendar a year or so ago. It was visually too much. I thought it would work better here using color to provide context but perhaps it should be rethought. The link idea is intriguing. My only hesitation is that all that text appearing in each block may make days appear full at first glance. If you only have one set of missionaries it automatically does away with the triangles and goes to just one color with solid or blank squares.
I setup the colors to be customizable but decided it cluttered in the admin interface unnecessarily. By adding that back in it would be easy to turn off the darker weekend days, but perhaps that would be better site wide.

sbradshaw wrote:I would recommend putting the dinner policies somewhere from the handbook/mission, such as requiring someone else of the same gender to be present, dinner appointments to be an hour, or whatever requirements the mission has.

I love the idea of adding the policies! I know our mission has some additional mission specific policies. Perhaps those could be amended at the end of the general policies by the WML.

sbradshaw wrote:Also, is there a way to view and/or change a dinner you've signed up to provide, after it's scheduled?

No not directly, but I was unsure about my decision to handle it that way. The risk is that if a week fills out and the appointments are provided to the missionaries on Sunday, then a member cancels their appointment allowing someone else to sign up, the missionaries have no way of knowing the change was made. Unless the WML or meal coordinator checks daily to see if the names still match those they provided on Sunday there is a chance for a mix-up or confusion. It also seemed to imply that the appointments were less of a commitment. As it is now, if you need to make a change that is fine, but it requires a call/email to the WML or whoever administers the calendar. Friction-less to make appointments, and just a slight discouragement from cancellation was the goal.

russellhltn wrote:Quick usability question - how likely are members to sign up for dates at home? What is going to be their "trigger" to do that? I'd hate for someone to go it all the development work and then find out it doesn't get used.

A clipboard/iPad passed around in PH/RS meeting is a "trigger". Speaking for myself, outside of church it would probably take a email to "trigger" me. If an organized family has "council meetings" that could trigger things. It might be worth doing an informal poll of the members to see how they see themselves using it.

Good question. The way we are using it is by:
1. Reminding people during meetings that they can sign up online.
May do this on the spot as I can see the dates fill out by the end of our block.
2. Then during the week if there are still openings a reminder email is sent out (manually) that contains a link to the calendar and brief instructions including the password.
Looking at the traffic Sunday is day it sees the most use, followed by Tuesday and Monday, but there is more combined total use during the week than there is on Sunday alone.

Another concern that came up is our WML input the names of the missionaries into the companionship fields which makes their last names public facing. Even though I have the more generic suggestions below the field I will have to add some wording to request that no personal information is included, or allow it to be included in a separate area so it can appear on printed or the private version only.

Thank you each again for the feedback!

jds580s wrote:The way we are using it is by:
1. Reminding people during meetings that they can sign up online.
May do this on the spot as I can see the dates fill out by the end of our block.

Ah, a reminder to be small-screen friendly, as they may be using smart phones and tablets.

I LOVE THIS
Please advise when it becomes usable outside of your ward (assuming you are not in New Brunswick, Canada!). Because of geography our branch has 2 Elders in Canada and 2 Sisters in Maine and a small pot of people who regularly feed them. I'd love to find an easier coordination tool than the old list passed around or whiteboard in the foyer.

Any info on usability is appreciated (I'd be thrilled to be able to work with what you've got in your demo!).

THANK YOU for your efforts.

I agree that a feature like this is long overdue. I would want to keep the interface as simple as possible, and have a few admin options. For example, I would take this calendar and instead of elders and sisters, I would do lunch or dinner for the one set of sisters we have. This could appear as it is with the triangles, but all default to gray until filled, then turn dark blue, for example.

I would appreciate a small note field where the members could add the time of the appt. when they sign up. This would not have to appear on the calendar, but perhaps a simple report that is generated?

I agree that an easy "trigger" for this is to send out the link via email or text. I think it is always a good idea to send it put to the less-active households a week before sending it to the full ward.

Please let me know when it is up!

Another sign-up method might be an e-mail confirmation/notification system similar to how Craigslist works:
Basically you simply enter your e-mail, when signing up. If it recognizes you then it will just send an e-mail to confirm the appointment. If not then it will ask for additional information immediately to help with contact information, then send a confirmation e-mail anyways.

Each time a member confirms their appointment the system should then send a e-mail to the WML/Mission leader to inform them of the change. (Or optionally setup a scheduled job once a day that sends them a list of changes). This would avoid members besides the mission leader signing up other members, and help close the loop for those that were not sure.

Changes can be made by using the same confirmation e-mail link. Another logic suggestion is to not allow changes by members within so many days online (configurable by the WML). With a phone number to the WML/Missionaries available for last minute changes.

Also I have not taken a look myself, but if there is a place for a popup, or message/reminder from the WML that can be posted in notifications/dietary requirements or other helpful information that may need to be passed along.

Finally have a notification e-mail sent out to the member of the up coming dinner appointment, and to expect a call from the missionaries to confirm the time and other details.

Sounds more complicated then it is, on the user side just replace the password with e-mail address. Everything else besides the confirmation e-mail is the same. The rest is logic notifications, and e-mails. Which may help with everything else, similar to return and report (which has been working great in our ward). Also making the site mobile friendly (Layout for iPhone/android, iPad, tablet verse desktop) This last part might be the hardest, but will increase usage. Otherwise it looks like a great start.

Outstanding! I want it! When will it be available for use outside of your ward? Please let me know ASAP

Very close to having this open for some wards to beta test. PM me

This idea is really impressive. Missionaries in my ward tried a similar idea with Google docs.

http://MissionaryDinnerCalendar.com is open for signups. There are a couple features still in the works for the next release. If you have any questions or feedback feel free to let me know.

Thanks!

Does this calendar allow times for lunch and dinner? It looks similar to an online calendar my ward recently used to schedule meals for those recovering from illness.

I prefer to include telephone numbers, but that is problematic for security reasons.

I just created a ward missionary meal calendar on lds.org, which anyone on the ward council may update. While it is visible to all members of the ward, it may only be edited by ward council members. The other limitation is that it does not allow our sister ward, with whom we share missionaries, to view it or edit it.

While it isn't specifically designed for lunch and dinner times, it can easily be adapted.
Instead of using the calendar for 2 separate sets of missionaries you could set it up as Lunch Appointments and Dinner Appointments.

Regarding phone numbers, for privacy reasons I don't specifically request them on the signup page, but many members like to include one on the same line as their name when signing up. Those will be visible to the calendar administrator and on the printed calendar. The same goes for time of day. Our ward often sees appointments like "John Smith 5pm 555-5555"

There is no problem with 2 wards sharing one calendar, just make sure the other ward's leadership has the admin password as well.

Thanks!

A separate way to mark days that the missionaries are not accepting dinner appointments would be nice. P-days for example, I do it now by entering "No Meals" but a separate color would be nice. Or an X-out for the printed Black & White Calendar. And a recurring appointment option would also be nice.

BTW: Thank you, we are using this tool.

An easy way it which we dealt with this,is to give an assignment to a member to make the appointments-it works great in our Unit

hey please, allow translation api... i can translate for pt-br ^^

It would be great if this had notifications via email or text. Our missionaries have Samsung smart phones can can receive email or text notifications when someone signs up for a dinner appointment. However, they cannot view the website directly due to restrictions on their phones.

I am in charge of Missionary in our ward and I can't see many signing up on line. If it isn't right there in front of me I would forget all about it when I got home.
I love serving our Missionaries and making sure they are taking care of.
.

janicehopkins wrote:I am in charge of Missionary in our ward and I can't see many signing up on line. If it isn't right there in front of me I would forget all about it when I got home.
I love serving our Missionaries and making sure they are taking care of.
.

I can understand that. It may not be an ideal solution for your ward—It is often easy to forget once you are back home.

Many wards find great success getting signups if they send out an email with a link to calendar and some brief instructions if your members are not familiar with it.

And other wards just use the tool to simplify generating blank calendars each month to pass around on Sunday and don't use the other features.

Thanks!

I would reference the Meal Train website for ideas for your new idea. I hope it becomes an official standard tool! I have been thinking of trying Meal Train in our ward, with the hope that less active would sign up. But I'm worried that coordinating the paper version with the online version will cause more work and hassle. I'm sure you have designed a way to print the calendar.

janicita wrote:I would reference the Meal Train website for ideas for your new idea. I hope it becomes an official standard tool! I have been thinking of trying Meal Train in our ward, with the hope that less active would sign up. But I'm worried that coordinating the paper version with the online version will cause more work and hassle. I'm sure you have designed a way to print the calendar.

Yes, it's easy to print a paper calendar from the MissionaryDinnerCalendar website. It prints pre-populated with all the current signups so it's easy to see what days are available and which are taken.

Many calendar administrators 1) print a paper calendar on Sunday before going to church. 2) Pass it around the various organizations while at church. 3) When back home or from a mobile device input the names of the people who signed up via paper into the online calendar.

Then some time during the week if there are still appointments available you can send out an email to ward members, non-members, investigators etc... giving them a link to the calendar where they can signup online.

I find in many wards there are tech savvy members who only want to signup online because of how convenient it is to do when at home in front of the family calendar or in a family meeting, and others who are less tech savvy who prefer to put their name down on paper rather than fiddle with phones and email. I wanted to make sure this tool was able to reach both groups equally well.

Thanks!

With reference to Paper/digital sign up conflicts, maybe assign a ward missionary to be in charge of coordinating the calendar. Once that paper calendar has gone around in that class, enter all the sign-ups online immediately. If there is a conflict work it out with both members right there.

morganbw wrote:Once that paper calendar has gone around in that class, enter all the sign-ups online immediately.

I'd be cautious about that. If you're inputting people's information into an online system without their permission, you could run into trouble. Blocking off the date without saying who it is would be much safer.

So, I just found this and love the idea behind it.

I see there haven't been any posts in a few years and wondering if you're still doing any changes to the site.

I would love to see a spot for the member's phone number and then that could be used as a reminder to the member as well as give the information to the missionaries.

With all of the changes in this new year, this could be a really helpful tool.

bigjbandit wrote:So, I just found this and love the idea behind it.

I see there haven't been any posts in a few years and wondering if you're still doing any changes to the site.

I would love to see a spot for the member's phone number and then that could be used as a reminder to the member as well as give the information to the missionaries.

With all of the changes in this new year, this could be a really helpful tool.

Glad you found it!
The "Name" field can actually take more information than just a name. Many members in my own ward put their phone number or dinner time on the name line. As the administrator you can add text above the calendar to instruct members that they can do the that.

Yes, it's still under active development. I've had a number of feature requests that are bundled into what will be the next release.
An email will go out to calendar administrators when that becomes available.
Of course this is a hobby project for me so I don't have a time frame, it has to come behind higher priorities, and life seems to have a lot of those lately

Thanks!

I've used this tool on and off over the past couple of years. I think that it is great!

I have run into a bit of a problem. Back in 2017, as the new WML for my ward, I created a new calendar, titled, "Kelly Canyon Ward". I used the tool successfully until I was released and received a new calling. I gave the login and password information to the new WML and then forgot about it. That new WML didn't end up using the tool and didn't keep track of the login and password information. A member who remembered me using the tool has recently been called to assist the missionaries in our ward with dinners and has reached out to me because he would like to use the tool once again.

I've verified that the Kelly Canyon Ward calendar still exists, but I cannot remember the login and password information and there is not an option to reset the password or login name. Any idea on how to recover administrative rights to the calendar at this point?


Respectfully,
Shane Dille
sdilleLDS@gmail.com

sdille wrote:I've used this tool on and off over the past couple of years. I think that it is great!

I have run into a bit of a problem. Back in 2017, as the new WML for my ward, I created a new calendar, titled, "Kelly Canyon Ward". I used the tool successfully until I was released and received a new calling. I gave the login and password information to the new WML and then forgot about it. That new WML didn't end up using the tool and didn't keep track of the login and password information. A member who remembered me using the tool has recently been called to assist the missionaries in our ward with dinners and has reached out to me because he would like to use the tool once again.

I've verified that the Kelly Canyon Ward calendar still exists, but I cannot remember the login and password information and there is not an option to reset the password or login name. Any idea on how to recover administrative rights to the calendar at this point?


Respectfully,
Shane Dille
sdilleLDS@gmail.com

Good morning Shane,
This is a user-to-user help forum and the developer of this tool may not see your post. If you go to his web page (missionarydinnercalendar.com) you can click on his name at the very bottom of the page (right below the disclaimer that it is not an official page of the church) and send him an email.

Just a FYI
The Missionaries in our area are no longer allowed to have scheduled dinners with members as it is prime time proselyting / teaching time.

klricks wrote:Just a FYI
The Missionaries in our area are no longer allowed to have scheduled dinners with members as it is prime time proselyting / teaching time.

We have seen similar changes before in the various areas we have lived in in different parts of the country. It is Mission President specific, I believe, as I have seen the restriction come with one mission president and then go away with the next mission president.

sdille wrote:I've used this tool on and off over the past couple of years. I think that it is great!

I have run into a bit of a problem. Back in 2017, as the new WML for my ward, I created a new calendar, titled, "Kelly Canyon Ward". I used the tool successfully until I was released and received a new calling. I gave the login and password information to the new WML and then forgot about it. That new WML didn't end up using the tool and didn't keep track of the login and password information. A member who remembered me using the tool has recently been called to assist the missionaries in our ward with dinners and has reached out to me because he would like to use the tool once again.

I've verified that the Kelly Canyon Ward calendar still exists, but I cannot remember the login and password information and there is not an option to reset the password or login name. Any idea on how to recover administrative rights to the calendar at this point?


Respectfully,
Shane Dille
sdilleLDS@gmail.com

Shane, I just sent you an email to get this resolved for your ward. Thanks for using the dinner calendar!

How can I recover the admin user name and password for our ward missionary meal calendar? I created the calendar for "Scattercreek Ward" in Centralia Stake, and didn't get the user name and password recorded before a family computer oops! happened. Now I cannot seem to get logged in no matter what I try.

Thank you for helping,
Lynn
l.pasko@hotmail.com

LynnPasko wrote:How can I recover the admin user name and password for our ward missionary meal calendar? I created the calendar for "Scattercreek Ward" in Centralia Stake, and didn't get the user name and password recorded before a family computer oops! happened. Now I cannot seem to get logged in no matter what I try.

Thank you for helping,
Lynn

Lynn,
I just sent you an email with instructions on how to regain access to your account. If you have any other problems or questions just let me know. Thanks!

Starting the trial run this week by passing around a small tablet (previously was a paper calendar in a binder) and putting it into the weekly auxiliary newsletters/bulletins. Fingers crossed for success!

Hi there,

How can I recover the admin user name and password for our ward missionary meal calendar?
My husband and I are the new WML in our ward, and I’ve been trying to find something simpler to set up and user friendly to our ward members. And I've tried searching for a couple day's now and I’ve found you and I thought I give it a try. I registered and put in our ward name, stake, email and so forth. The calendar popped up and I clicked on admin to make some changes on dates because our ward only feeds the missionary from the 16th to the end of the month. It asked me for a user and password which I don’t remember setting up. Please help.

My ward name is "Founders Park Ward" Queen Creek Arizona Central Stake

Thank you,
Sam T.

Sam,

I replied via email to help get you into your account.
Thanks for giving the calendar a try!

@jds580s

Is there any way that our WML (or whomever is doing the meal coordination) can be notified when someone signs up during the week? The missionaries can't access the site with their web restrictions and sometimes there are ward members that sign up on Tuesday (for example) for a dinner that is open on Thursday, two days later. Unless the meal coordinator is checking daily, the missionaries are never aware of the change and go without a meal- since they are sent a copy of the printed calendar Sunday night - and the member who has signed up ends up with a big meal that doesn't have a couple of hungry missionaries to help eat. Any advice for that problem?

Thanks in advance,
Mike

mwevans wrote:@jds580s

Is there any way that our WML (or whomever is doing the meal coordination) can be notified when someone signs up during the week? The missionaries can't access the site with their web restrictions and sometimes there are ward members that sign up on Tuesday (for example) for a dinner that is open on Thursday, two days later. Unless the meal coordinator is checking daily, the missionaries are never aware of the change and go without a meal- since they are sent a copy of the printed calendar Sunday night - and the member who has signed up ends up with a big meal that doesn't have a couple of hungry missionaries to help eat. Any advice for that problem?

Thanks in advance,
Mike

Mike,
You are not alone, that is a feature request that I have been working on for the next version. For the time being I suggest using the "Notes" section to add a reminder for members that short notice appointments made for the current week should be handled directly with the missionaries or by calling the WML.

Thanks!

Is there a way to reset the password, the set-up password is not working. Thanks
Bishop Grimes

RockyGrimes wrote:Is there a way to reset the password, the set-up password is not working. Thanks
Bishop Grimes

I just replied to your email with a solution. Let me know if you have any other issues logging in.
Thanks!

jds580s wrote:Hello all. I would like to ask for some community feedback on a tool I built to help coordinate missionary dinner appointments.

http://demo.missionarydinnercalendar.com

I love the features available with the official church calendar on LDS.org, but the problem I had was that members in general can not sign up for appointments without going through a calendar administrator. I wanted to setup a simple site that could work as a stand-alone replacement to the common paper calendars that get passed in many wards, or in conjunction with a traditional paper calendar for members who are not technology inclined.

Here is how our ward plans to use it:
There are 2 account types for a unit. A general ward membership account which is protected by a shared password. The password is freely shared among ward members, investigators or anyone else interested in feeding the missionaries. The password also appears at the top of the printed calendar and in emails sent regarding missionary meals.
This password lets you see what days are available and sign up for an appointment but does not let you see who has signed up for other to protect those who may not want their name appearing online.

The second account is for administrators and is intended to be shared with Ward Mission Leaders, Asst Ward Mission Leaders, Missionary Meal Coordinators, Bishoprics etc.. and allows those individuals to:
Retrieve appointments for the month
Change or remove names from the calendar
Print or save a PDF of the calendar for circulation at church.
Change the member password
Change the administrator password
Name the companionships serving in the unit (helpful for units with more than one set of missionaries)

Though the calendar is publicly available on the web, I have tried to follow the church policies regarding projects like this. No membership or other data from the church is used.

I have built and tested this to be friendly for phone, tablet and desktop use. Though I have not tested it on an android tablet yet.

The plan is to roll this first out to my ward, and work out any issues that might come up, then make it more widely available if there is interest.

There is one known issue that I have decided to live with because I can't see a great solution. I would welcome any input on it. If you pass the printed paper calendar at church and also have people signing up from their devices while at church there is the potential for collisions when the paper calendar is collected but someone already signed up for a particular day since the time the calendar was printed. There really isn't any way I can see around this without suspending online appointments during church hours but that seems counter productive. My hope is gradually to wean people off the paper calendar, or have them contact the WML/Meal Coordinator directly to make appointments.

Thanks!

I recently signed up to use this calendar. It is nice and straight forward. As the admin for my ward I tried to set up the advanced settings so that ward members can view the sign ups. I want them to be able to view the sign ups so they can look back if they forget what day they signed up for. I have had several ward members contact me about this. I have set up a password. Please help! I really want to use this calendar, but it is becoming very stressful.
Thank you!

kathrynleepalmer wrote:I recently signed up to use this calendar. It is nice and straight forward. As the admin for my ward I tried to set up the advanced settings so that ward members can view the sign ups. I want them to be able to view the sign ups so they can look back if they forget what day they signed up for. I have had several ward members contact me about this. I have set up a password. Please help! I really want to use this calendar, but it is becoming very stressful.
Thank you!

Hi Kathryn,

The setting you found in the "Beta Features (not fully functional)" area under the advanced settings menu is included as a placeholder for a future update, but not yet enabled. When you, as the admin, print the calendar the names of who signed up will be visible. This can serve as a reminder for members when it gets passed around (though obviously not all wards are able to meet in person at the moment).

When the new features are released an email will go out to calendar administrators.

Thanks for giving the missionary dinner calendar a try in your ward.

Thank you for your quick reply. Unfortunately I cannot pass around the list where I live. It all has to be done online.
Any idea when this feature will be up and running?

Hi,
Just checking again to see if there is a timeline for adding the advanced feature of letting ward members see who has signed up? Ward members are getting frustrated with me because they are not able to see the sign ups once they sign up. Some people want to be able to go and change their sign up day, if something comes up.
Please reply.
Thank you.

I am really sad that the Beta Features are not functional yet. I am going to have to change my missionary Calendar platform, and won't be able to use this calendar anymore. I have too many frustrated ward members who want to be able to see what dates they signed up for. I really wanted to use this. Another issue is that the missionaries don't have access. Maybe those things will get ironed out down the road. Thanks!

kathrynleepalmer wrote:I am really sad that the Beta Features are not functional yet

Kathryn,

I completely understand. This calendar is a passion project for me. While I'm committed to it, I'm only able to work on it when it doesn't detract from family church and my regular employment responsibilities. This past year has been unusually demanding on some of those fronts.
I am confident that many feature requests will be rolling out, including ones your ward members have expressed interest in, though I'm unable to provide specific time tables on them. You are welcome to keep your account open while exploring other options, that way you'll receive a notification when new features are launched so you can reevaluate using this took in your ward.

Thanks for giving it a try in your ward and for the feedback!

Cannot access our wards calendar through your website, because I assume a previous leader used it, but nobody in our ward seems to know.

How can we reset the admin password? Or give me the contact info (like a last name, or a partially hidden email address) so I can find out who is current admin, and they can switch it over to me.

-Dan

dbollard99 wrote:Cannot access our wards calendar through your website, because I assume a previous leader used it, but nobody in our ward seems to know.

How can we reset the admin password? Or give me the contact info (like a last name, or a partially hidden email address) so I can find out who is current admin, and they can switch it over to me.

-Dan

Hi Dan,

If you reach out to me I can assist you getting your account reset. My contact is at the bottom of the website. Please include your ward and stake name.

Thanks!

I think missionarydinnercalendar.com is a userful app but is missing some functionality like alerting full-time missionaries who signed up for dinner. I created an app that sends a daily text reminder to full-time missionaries so they don't need to visit the website and check the website so often. You can sign up the daily text service here.

http://1000texts.ddns.net/missionary

kkahara wrote: Tue Dec 26, 2023 2:08 pm I think missionarydinnercalendar.com is a userful app but is missing some functionality like alerting full-time missionaries who signed up for dinner. I created an app that sends a daily text reminder to full-time missionaries so they don't need to visit the website and check the website so often. You can sign up the daily text service here.

http://1000texts.ddns.net/missionary

Very interesting, I'll have to take a look at it. I had all but ruled out text message notifications as a viable option due to the fees online SMS gateways charge and wanting to keep missionarydinnercalendar.com a free service.

I've been in touch with the church global services department to get some guidance on approval for allowing websites access on mission devices. Unfortunately I cannot make the request directly, as it needs to go through mission presidents, and even then could still be denied.

jds580s wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 11:17 am I've been in touch with the church global services department to get some guidance on approval for allowing websites access on mission devices. Unfortunately I cannot make the request directly, as it needs to go through mission presidents, and even then could still be denied.

As far as I know. Only one mission president would have to request the website to be added for it to be added in every mission, as websites aren't mission specific like apps are.

Cmanrogers wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 8:33 pm As far as I know. Only one mission president would have to request the website to be added for it to be added in every mission, as websites aren't mission specific like apps are.

That’s great news. My stake president forwarded my request to the mission president so hopefully there is progress in that front in the near future.

I agree that a feature like this is long overdue. I would want to keep the interface as simple as possible, and have a few admin options. For example, I would take this calendar and instead of elders and sisters, I would do lunch or dinner for the one set of sisters we have. This could appear as it is with the triangles, but all default to gray until filled, then turn dark blue, for example.

I would appreciate a small note field where the members could add the time of the appt. when they sign up. This would not have to appear on the calendar, but perhaps a simple report that is generated?

I agree that an easy "trigger" for this is to send out the link via email or text. I think it is always a good idea to send it put to the less-active households a week before sending it to the full ward.

LukeDylan wrote: Mon Jan 08, 2024 5:07 am I agree that a feature like this is long overdue. I would want to keep the interface as simple as possible, and have a few admin options. For example, I would take this calendar and instead of elders and sisters, I would do lunch or dinner for the one set of sisters we have. This could appear as it is with the triangles, but all default to gray until filled, then turn dark blue, for example.

I would appreciate a small note field where the members could add the time of the appt. when they sign up. This would not have to appear on the calendar, but perhaps a simple report that is generated?

I agree that an easy "trigger" for this is to send out the link via email or text. I think it is always a good idea to send it put to the less-active households a week before sending it to the full ward.

Just wanted to mention that most of that is already possible.

• The names "Elders" and "Sisters" are just the default and can easily be changed to "Lunch" and "Dinner" for use in the way you described.
• The colors are also configurable under the advanced settings, so you can change from the default red/blue to anything else. The available colors can also be changed from the default gray.
• When a member signs up for an appointment, the "Name" field can contain more than just their name. Many wards ask that members add a time or a phone number to confirm the appointment in that field, so the signup might look like "Joe Smith 6pm 555-555-5555". The calendar administrator can use the "Display note with calendar" to provide instructions specific to their ward if members should include any of that additional information.

Thanks!

Many of our Ward Members are elderly and do not have electronic items,so would have do have paper,which then be downloaded on to an iPad by the meals Co-ordinator

michaeljeffreyjones wrote: Mon Jan 08, 2024 12:57 pm Many of our Ward Members are elderly and do not have electronic items,so would have do have paper,which then be downloaded on to an iPad by the meals Co-ordinator

And there are others of us who do have electronic items but have chosen to NOT do "all things digital," especially when it is 3rd party software and we are asked to provide personal information.

davesudweeks wrote: Tue Jan 09, 2024 12:47 pm

michaeljeffreyjones wrote: Mon Jan 08, 2024 12:57 pm Many of our Ward Members are elderly and do not have electronic items,so would have do have paper,which then be downloaded on to an iPad by the meals Co-ordinator

And there are others of us who do have electronic items but have chosen to NOT do "all things digital," especially when it is 3rd party software and we are asked to provide personal information.

I very much appreciate that as I am also a highly privacy conscious individual.

The calendar fully supports paper signups for any who are not tech inclined. In fact some use it exclusively for the paper calendar printing functionality. Before writing this tool when I was a WML I can't tell you how much time I wasted preparing paper calendars.

And privacy is specifically why I designed the calendar to not require member accounts/logins or ask for email address or other personal details when signing up to feed the missionaries.
If someone wants to sign up for an appointment using just their initials, or by communicating with the missionaries that any time it says "Quack" that means dinner is at my house, or with a name "The brother with red hair who sits on the 3rd pew", I welcome it!