Would signupgenius.com be safe for Church use?

Hello,

We're looking to make an electronic sign-up for Tithing settlement. Signupgenius seems to have just the right amount of functionality and it's easy to use. We're aware of other options out there such as youcanbook.me and simplybook.me, but those seem to be an overkill.

Would using signupgenius.com be ok? Any ideas?

Thanks in Advance,

Nefi

I'm not sure on official policy, but we used it for tithing settlement last year. Worked well to coordinate all those meetings and allow members to sign up electronically. That was pre-pandemic as well, and it doesn't require any personal information for people to sign up.

If we used it in our ward, a significant percentage either could not or would not use it. Curious if you had a backup plan for those without access to technology and those unwilling to use the site for personal reasons.

Do members themselves sign up, or do you have to upload a list?

I'd have a hard look at the privacy policy to make sure there's nothing objectionable in there.

Hello,

>Do members themselves sign up, or do you have to upload a list?
Members sign up themselves.

>I'd have a hard look at the privacy policy to make sure there's nothing objectionable in there.
Good point.

I thought about signupgenius because it seems to be popular around here. For example, local schools use it for Parent-Teacher conference sign ups, the local food pantry uses it as well for volunteer sign ups. (https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a084e ... volunteer3) I figured most people would be familiar with it.

>If we used it in our ward, a significant percentage either could not or would not use it. Curious if you had a backup plan for those without access to technology and those unwilling to use the site for personal reasons.

Our back up is to have anybody who couldn't/wouldn't use it to call me (executive secretary) to set up their appointment (and I would probably go into the online tool and sign up there for them).

My Bishop asked another bishop friend and he recommended youcanbook.me
At first look this tool seemed to offer a lot more than what we needed, but after I got passed the initial account creation and calendar linking steps, creating the sign up was straight forward and the sign up presented to the user seems cleaner and easier to use than signupgenius. It still remains to see how many features I'm going to lose once the trial period ends in 12 days.

At this point, we're leaning towards youcanbook.me.

Thank you all for your input !

nefi.munoz wrote:Our back up is to have anybody who couldn't/wouldn't use it to call me (executive secretary) to set up their appointment (and I would probably go into the online tool and sign up there for them).

Some would disagree with me and that is certainly their right, but I would personally be very unhappy with someone who entered my personal information (even just my name) on a web app that I did not authorize. I believe in attending tithing settlement, but the end does not justify the means in my book. If a member doesn't want their name or or other information added to some webpage somewhere outside of the church network, church leaders have an obligation to protect their wishes, even if it is a bit of an inconvenience.

davesudweeks wrote:

nefi.munoz wrote:Our back up is to have anybody who couldn't/wouldn't use it to call me (executive secretary) to set up their appointment (and I would probably go into the online tool and sign up there for them).

Some would disagree with me and that is certainly their right, but I would personally be very unhappy with someone who entered my personal information (even just my name) on a web app that I did not authorize. I believe in attending tithing settlement, but the end does not justify the means in my book. If a member doesn't want their name or or other information added to some webpage somewhere outside of the church network, church leaders have an obligation to protect their wishes, even if it is a bit of an inconvenience.

I suppose you could add a unique ID of some sort, and keep a list on your computer of who the unique ID corresponds to.

davesudweeks wrote:

nefi.munoz wrote:Our back up is to have anybody who couldn't/wouldn't use it to call me (executive secretary) to set up their appointment (and I would probably go into the online tool and sign up there for them).

Some would disagree with me and that is certainly their right, but I would personally be very unhappy with someone who entered my personal information (even just my name) on a web app that I did not authorize. I believe in attending tithing settlement, but the end does not justify the means in my book. If a member doesn't want their name or or other information added to some webpage somewhere outside of the church network, church leaders have an obligation to protect their wishes, even if it is a bit of an inconvenience.

Why not ask the person calling if they have any concerns with you adding their name to the online sign-up list. There will be some who say they do mind but the majority will probably be fine with it. The point is to ask for their permission.

In my previous Ward, I set up "youcanbook.me" and it worked well. Note that if you use this year-to-year, you cannot re-create a trial account using that same email, so another email would have to be used subsequently (not saying that's what anyone should do to get around the free trial limit, we may or may not have done this ourselves...). We went to a single day of Tithing Settlement as opposed to multiple days, as this was better for the Bishop and his family. In the Sundays prior to Tithing Settlement, we had a laptop available in the foyer before and after sacrament meeting where members could sign up, and a Clerk was stationed there to help those who weren't comfortable signing up themselves. Of course now with the pandemic and many members still not attending in-person sacrament meetings, this adds a different dimension.

More recently, we used SignupGenius for sacrament meeting attendance when we had a fixed 25-person max per meeting. And we didn't receive any pushback from members about the 'public' nature of signing up. If we had, I would simply have entered in generic data for them (for example, using a generic name that meant something to us, and then also using a clerk's email address).

In signup genius, you can type in anything in the name field when you sign up. Members who don't want their name public could just type in Reserved or something like that and send an email to the Clerk/Bishop/Exec.Sec. that they have that spot.

BrianEdwards wrote: More recently, we used SignupGenius for sacrament meeting attendance when we had a fixed 25-person max per meeting. And we didn't receive any pushback from members about the 'public' nature of signing up. If we had, I would simply have entered in generic data for them (for example, using a generic name that meant something to us, and then also using a clerk's email address).

As far as Virtual Attendence, what we do in our Ward is that when someone signs on, in addition to their name they add the number of people watching at home, for example Cooke-2, Jones-5, etc. Seems to work for us. The ExSec sent out an email to all the Ward members with the request that they add this little bit of info to their sign-ins.