How to send an email message to entire ward ???

I feel like there used to be a way to do this through the LCR. Something like "Send a Message," or something like that. I think there was a way to get a list of email addresses that I could cut/paste and then use in my own email application. That would be ideal. But I don't see any of this in the LCR section anymore. Am I missing it? Or did something change?

If anyone knows how to do this, please help! I need to send an email to the whole ward telling them about an upcoming activity ASAP.

Thanks in advance!

What is your calling? The message groups available to a user is determined by their calling. I do not know if an executive secretary can send a message to all members but I am certain the bishop & clerk can. All other users have more limited message groups from which to select.

I'm the ward clerk. I have done this before, but the last time I did it, the site layout looked different and I don't now see the option.

This shouldn't be an "authorization" issue. It's just me not knowing how to do it. Any instructions on what to do?

In LCR under Applications is Send a Message

Ward Executive Secretary can do this. I have been doing it for years. I do wish that we had the ability to add attachments.

Re: attachements. I fiddled around with this last night and found a way.

If you use the "send a message" function, the LCR just generates the email for you. But if you ditch the send a message function and instead just generate a list of email addresses, you can then plug the addresses into your own email provider (I recommend using the bcc line) and send an email that way, with an attachment.

So, how to generate the list. Go to the membership dorectory (not the list of members in the LCR - just the normal membership directory - and on the left, pick ward organizations. Then pick "adults." Then on the right there is an email option which will give you a list of all of the adults email addresses. You can copy/paste that list into the bcc line of your normal email program and make a message with attachments.

jayriggity wrote:you can then plug the addresses into your own email provider (I recommend using the bcc line) and send an email that way, with an attachment.

Assuming your email provider allows you to send to that many.

Thank you for the "How To" steps Jay. I looked around forever for how to send an e-mail to all of the Elders as the Elders Quorum President. No idea why that option is not posted under Organizations in the LCR?

lancekammer wrote:Thank you for the "How To" steps Jay. I looked around forever for how to send an e-mail to all of the Elders as the Elders Quorum President. No idea why that option is not posted under Organizations in the LCR?

I think you'll find the answer in this thread. Note the date.

Did "Send a Message" get disabled in the Application button for Stake and Ward leaders?

morriscovey wrote:Did "Send a Message" get disabled in the Application button for Stake and Ward leaders?

It didn't get "turned off" as much as it's being replaced. I'd imagine everyone in LCR is affected until they get the replacement in place.

As russellhltn posted above https://tech.lds.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=22771 the application seems to be down, until they get it up and running "shortly".

I am hoping that the new "send a message" will have the ability to do attachments but most of all a text editor like bold, underline, Italic, bullet points, text size, text color, ETC. THAT WOULD BE REAL NICE!

Also it has been eluded to above in this thread that using your personal e-mail can be troublesome because they will have a limit on how many addresses you can enter in the send to field (bbc). I don not think that you can do all e-mail in one ward let alone a stake into one e-mail message.

I'm not sure about other email clients, but with gmail, there does not appear to be a limit to the number of recipients allowed in the "bcc" field. At least not one small enough to prevent me from sending to all of the addresses in our ward.

My understanding, however, is that the recipients' email providers might catch emails with large numbers of recipeints and toss them out as "spam."

To get around that, I have used the feature discussed above for getting a copy/paste field of all email addresses and then sent multiple emails (break up the emails into groups and then send the same message to each group in a bcc).

1968leocomeeatabite wrote:I am hoping that the new "send a message" will have the ability to do attachments but most of all a text editor like bold, underline, Italic, bullet points, text size, text color, ETC. THAT WOULD BE REAL NICE!

Sorry, that isn't part of this update. The product manager is aware of that suggestion, but the goal was to fix the bugs in the current application before considering adding any new features.

jayriggity wrote:My understanding, however, is that the recipients' email providers might catch emails with large numbers of recipeints and toss them out as "spam."

However, recipients can't see "bcc". That would only apply to "to" or "cc". Unless you're talking about providers who notices a large number of their users getting the same email.

But in the case of someone like Google, I think if some recipients classify it as spam, then it goes into the spam folder for everyone. So the desire to email the ward could backfire.

Something like that, yeah. I've just heard that some email providers will automatically flag an email that is sent to a large number of recipients. Maybe using bcc gets around that, I don't know. But I use bcc no matter what b/c I've had ward members complain before about it. I learned my lesson ("reply all" on a church email with 150 people can cause some issues...)

And, wow, I didn't know that gmail (or any other provider) did that -- using one user's spam flag as a signal for all other users. That could really cause some problems if I have one random inactive guy on my list who flags us as spam. I hope that doesn't happen.

jayriggity wrote:And, wow, I didn't know that gmail (or any other provider) did that -- using one user's spam flag as a signal for all other users. That could really cause some problems if I have one random inactive guy on my list who flags us as spam. I hope that doesn't happen.

I'm not sure of the details. It might be a type of "voting" and if too many do it, then it happens. Just realize that something more then just moving the email happens when people click "spam". As such, I think I'd caution leaders about "routine" emails and focus on changes that need to get out.

Google's servers (on the outgoing mail side) refuse to send emails with too many recipients. I can't find the exact number published anywhere, but I've ran into that limitation a few times. Breaking it up into multiple emails usually works, but there's also an overall limitation, I believe, that I've run into a couple of times, for sending too many emails (number of recipients) in one day.

jayriggity wrote:I've just heard that some email providers will automatically flag an email that is sent to a large number of recipients. Maybe using bcc gets around that, I don't know.

No, it doesn't, because your email provider has to know all of those bcc addresses to send out the emails, even though the recipients don't know them. Your provider knows exactly how many messages are being sent.

sbradshaw wrote:Google's servers (on the outgoing mail side) refuse to send emails with too many recipients.

In my experience, Google will limit you to 500 recipients a day. That would be one message sent to 500 people, or it could also be 10 messages sent to 50 people each. So if you sent out 50 personal emails during the day to friends and family, then tried to send out the big ward mailing that evening, you would be limited to 450. If you hit the limit and get locked, you will normally be unlocked after 24 hours.

There is also a bad or broken address limit. I believe 25 bad addresses will cause you grief, but the number may be lower than that, so clean your address list each time you send.

I need to send out an Email to the ward tonight. "Send a Message" is omitted. Has it relocated or when will it return?

chadholder wrote: when will it return?

"Soon".

chadholder wrote:I need to send out an Email to the ward tonight. "Send a Message" is omitted. Has it relocated or when will it return?

See this post.

Looks like "send a message" is back. However, the "copy/paste" function appears to be gone. Am I wrong?

Assuming that I'm right, is there a workaround for the following issues:
- sending a message that allows a reply to the sender (but not to the entire recipient list)?
- sending attachments?

Thanks in advance!

jayriggity wrote:However, the "copy/paste" function appears to be gone.

If you're trying to copy-and-paste email addresses, there is no support for that.

jayriggity wrote:sending a message that allows a reply to the sender (but not to the entire recipient list)?

That's what it is primarily designed for and what it does by default.

jayriggity wrote:sending attachments?

Not at this time.

scgallafent wrote:

jayriggity wrote:However, the "copy/paste" function appears to be gone.

If you're trying to copy-and-paste email addresses, there is no support for that.

Well, that's true for LCR but you can still use copy-and-paste using the Directory by going to Ward Organizations > Adults and clicking on the 'Email all adults' link on the right side. But it only does adults, not the entire ward. I'm not sure whether it shows emails for those with restricted privacy settings when the sender is a leader with access to private info.

That would be great if my ward members actually had their correct email addresses on their records. *Sigh*

This is good. I had used that feature before but didn't notice that it was back.

It looks like it automatically DOES NOT include members whose privacy restrictions are in place for leadership only. That is a problem that has been around for a while -- seems like if a member has his/her address on file, but limits privacy to leadership, then leadership should be able to get it. But oh well, not the end of the world. Likely something to do with the fact that it's cut/copy. If a leader were to copy those emails into a ward email message and use the normal CC line, every ward member would see the addresses. With the "Send a Message" function, it works like a BCC. I guess not all leaders can be trusted to understand the difference between CC and BCC or trusted to actually use BCC.

With "Send a Message," every address can be included (you can do a select all, but you can also uncheck anyone you want), and then it sends like a BCC. Looks like it does allow a reply to the sender -- HOWEVER, the average user might not know this because if you look at the address for the sender, it is a "noreply" email address. Recipeint might look at that and assume that they cannot reply.

For my purposes, I'm going to stick with the "Adults" list, copy/paste into a normal email, use BCC, and send messages that way. The only problem with this method is that you lose the members with "leadership only" privacy settings. But I've been reducing that number gradually by talking to the members about it and so far, no one seems to want that privacy setting on their account (nor do they know how it got there in the first place).

Thanks for providing this information. I just called as a counselor and was asked to send a weekly message to the ward and I had never done it before.
Got it done thanks to this thread!

Thank you brethren, yes to send an email to the entire ward, you go to LCR and go to applications and on the first column you will see the option. thank you! I guess some members were using it for other things rather than for Church business.