New version of LDS Catalog now online in beta

Simply called "LDS Online Store" it is found here:

http://store.lds.org

Using LDS Account credentials, it automatically verifies eligibility for temple clothing and unit purchases. (Yay! No more remembering a separate login for the "ward account".)

I like what I see.

oregonmatt wrote:Yay! No more remembering a separate login for the "ward account".

Although the site looks great, I was quite disappointed to see that assistant stake clerks (my current calling) have no access to the Administrative Materials section. I've done most of the ordering for our stake on ldscatalog.org in the past, so this is a step backwards for me. Hopefully it's only a beta issue; I sent in my concerns using the site's Feedback mechanism.

Alan_Brown wrote:Hopefully it's only a beta issue; I sent in my concerns using the site's Feedback mechanism.

That's most likely. I'm only the finance clerk in our ward and it seems to work for me. That's what betas are for, right? :p

The site looks neat, and it's great to have more room to type in the search bar. Anyone know if the site is actually accepting orders, or should I wait until it leaves beta before I start using it?

kcowolf wrote:The site looks neat, and it's great to have more room to type in the search bar. Anyone know if the site is actually accepting orders, or should I wait until it leaves beta before I start using it?

The site appears to be fully operational. I was able to put something in my cart, enter credit card information, and do everything up to the point of completing the order. But the "Complete Order" button was enabled once I had entered all the information, and a little note said "Payment option will be billed."

Since I didn't want to order anything, I didn't complete the order, but I'm pretty sure it would have placed the order and charged my card if I had clicked "Complete Order."

oregonmatt wrote:That's most likely. I'm only the finance clerk in our ward and it seems to work for me. That's what betas are for, right? :p

Thanks for checking up on that.

Although I still can't see the Administrative Materials, I did notice that under billing options, I do have the option to bill expenses to my stake. I know that regular members can't do that, so it appears that I am receiving some permissions based on my calling as an assistant stake clerk. That gives me confidence that my inability to view Administrative Materials is just a temporary beta glitch.

Alan_Brown wrote:Although the site looks great, I was quite disappointed to see that assistant stake clerks (my current calling) have no access to the Administrative Materials section. I've done most of the ordering for our stake on ldscatalog.org in the past, so this is a step backwards for me. Hopefully it's only a beta issue; I sent in my concerns using the site's Feedback mechanism.

I would concur with Alan's comments. I serve in the same capacity as Alan and the only item I see in the Administrative Materials section is "MISSION", which offers me three items to purchase - if I were going away on a mission. :rolleyes:

Obviously there's some work to do. I'd recommend that others review the site and offer feedback. This is the best way of influencing changes while the software is still in beta.

Alan_Brown wrote:..... I sent in my concerns using the site's Feedback mechanism.

I had attempted the same thing - sending in some feedback. But, this morning my "feedback" was "fed back" to me. Has anyone else given feedback successfully?

techgy wrote:I had attempted the same thing - sending in some feedback. But, this morning my "feedback" was "fed back" to me. Has anyone else given feedback successfully?

The feedback mechanism is simply an email address: feedback@store.lds.org. I was able to send my feedback to that address, and the email did not bounce. However, I have received no confirmation of my message, so I have no way of knowing if anyone actually read it.

Alan_Brown wrote:The feedback mechanism is simply an email address: feedback@store.lds.org. I was able to send my feedback to that address, and the email did not bounce. However, I have received no confirmation of my message, so I have no way of knowing if anyone actually read it.

I'm thinking that their mail server may be blocking the domain that I used for my Email (Gmail). At least that's one of the possibilities. So I've re-sent the message using a different domain address.

It would be better if they provided a feedback form instead of using Email, especially if they're going to block specific domains.

On Saturday I ordered two items. A unit order on n/c forms that we need and a personal item which I paid using my VISA card. When I first logged on to the site I selected England as my country. While I was browsing the site all prices were in GBP (£). Great, I thought, I know that the distribution centre have spoken about online ordering coming soon, so I made the two orders. Today (Tuesday) I received two emails both stating that the order item is out of stock and it is on back order. Now is this because they are out of stock or because the orders didn't go straight to the England distribution centre or just because it's a beta site?

techgy wrote:I'm thinking that their mail server may be blocking the domain that I used for my Email (Gmail). At least that's one of the possibilities.

This happened to me too with my Gmail address. I didn't think of trying a different email address.

Considering that the church is moving some of their email systems to gmail, that seems surprising.

I wonder if something is getting confused between regular gmail and internal mail hosted on gmail.

oregonmatt wrote:This happened to me too with my Gmail address. I didn't think of trying a different email address.

I've tried two different Email addresses and both returned my feedback. One address was a Gmail account and the other was a business account. Maybe they just didn't like my feedback:rolleyes:

techgy wrote:I've tried two different Email addresses and both returned my feedback. One address was a Gmail account and the other was a business account. Maybe they just didn't like my feedback:rolleyes:

I wonder if the problem is a recent problem with all email. I submitted feedback earlier than oregonmatt or techgy using my gmail account, and it went through just fine. So it doesn't seem like a gmail account, but rather a matter of timing.

Alan_Brown wrote:I wonder if the problem is a recent problem with all email. I submitted feedback earlier than oregonmatt or techgy using my gmail account, and it went through just fine. So it doesn't seem like a gmail account, but rather a matter of timing.

Are you sure yours went through? You might check spam folders, etc, for bounce messages. The message I got from gmail was

The recipient server did not accept our requests to connect. Learn more at http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answ ... nswer=7720
[store.lds.org (1): Connection timed out]

It doesn't look like a problem with the MX record, as a dig mx of store.lds.org returns smtp.gmhwh.org. This is the same smtp server pointed to by ldschurch.org, which is the email domain that church employees use. Knowing this, I'd bet that the smtp server hasn't been modified to accept the new email domain of store.lds.org.

Now the problem remains - how to notify somebody to fix it.

oregonmatt wrote:Are you sure yours went through? You might check spam folders, etc, for bounce messages.

Yes, I'm certain my message did not bounce, but my memory was bad on a critical point. I did not send my message through my normal gmail account, but rather from my work account -- which happens to be from a Church mail server. So it really wasn't a very helpful test for the rest of you who have reported problems. Sorry about the misleading info.

The new site is a significant improvement. I was able to navigate, cart and purchase without any problems. Or at least that's how it appears Once the DVD I ordered shows up, then the trial will be complete :rolleyes:

It looks nicer, but it's still missing something important as far as I can see. The only reason I call the Distribution Center is to get foreign language material that's not listed in the database. Sometimes they suggest to just search for the item number and order it like that, however, that has never worked for me.

Cra-Z wrote:It looks nicer, but it's still missing something important as far as I can see. The only reason I call the Distribution Center is to get foreign language material that's not listed in the database. Sometimes they suggest to just search for the item number and order it like that, however, that has never worked for me.

The new site has changed the way it handles foreign language materials. You just search for the item you want (by item number, by title, or by browsing). Once you find the item, there will be a language field. It may just say "Language: English" (as in this item) or more commonly it will have a dropdown for language (as in this item). Once you have selected the desired language, you'll see if the item is in stock or available for backorder.

But it does appear that the database for the new store is not fully loaded. For example, I can search for item 53330 in the current ldscatalog.com and find French and Spanish versions, but that item doesn't appear at all in the new store.

I am the stake clerk and I was only able to log in with my personal credentials, using the stake id and password was invalid. I was able to go into the Administrative section but did not see anything we needed.

I was interested in ordering some of the new Duty To God booklets (even though they are on backorder) but when it came to pay, my only option was a credit card.

How do we provide feed back?

RWoodmansee wrote:I am the stake clerk and I was only able to log in with my personal credentials, using the stake id and password was invalid. I was able to go into the Administrative section but did not see anything we needed.

It is by design that the old ldscatalog.com stake id and password no longer work on the new store.lds.org site. In keeping with the design of all new Church websites, you use LDS Account to login, and what you see is dependent on your particular calling. However, I would think that a stake clerk would be able to see more in the Administrative Materials area.

RWoodmansee wrote:I was interested in ordering some of the new Duty To God booklets (even though they are on backorder) but when it came to pay, my only option was a credit card.

How do we provide feed back?

There is a feedback link on every page of the store. The feedback mechanism is simply an email address: feedback@store.lds.org.

Alan_Brown wrote:The new site has changed the way it handles foreign language materials. You just search for the item you want (by item number, by title, or by browsing). Once you find the item, there will be a language field. It may just say "Language: English" (as in this item) or more commonly it will have a dropdown for language (as in this item). Once you have selected the desired language, you'll see if the item is in stock or available for backorder.

But it does appear that the database for the new store is not fully loaded. For example, I can search for item 53330 in the current ldscatalog.com and find French and Spanish versions, but that item doesn't appear at all in the new store.

It's almost more complicated in a way especially in instances like where the Book of Mormon doesn't exist in soft-cover in many languages. Are the language lists still available on there?

Alan_Brown wrote:....There is a feedback link on every page of the store. The feedback mechanism is simply an email address: feedback@store.lds.org.

Alan,

Since you are able to get feedback through (w/ an LDS account) how about returning a note that users are having problems giving feedback via Email if it's an Email domain outside of the church. At least that appears to be the situation.

techgy wrote:Alan,

Since you are able to get feedback through (w/ an LDS account) how about returning a note that users are having problems giving feedback via Email if it's an Email domain outside of the church. At least that appears to be the situation.

Good idea. I have done this.

cottrells wrote:On Saturday I ordered two items. A unit order on n/c forms that we need and a personal item which I paid using my VISA card. When I first logged on to the site I selected England as my country. While I was browsing the site all prices were in GBP (£). Great, I thought, I know that the distribution centre have spoken about online ordering coming soon, so I made the two orders. Today (Tuesday) I received two emails both stating that the order item is out of stock and it is on back order. Now is this because they are out of stock or because the orders didn't go straight to the England distribution centre or just because it's a beta site?

I didn't get any further emails about items being back in stock or being shipped, but all the items that I ordered, both personal and unit orders, have now arrived

On the emails problem, is it possible that the Gmail client the Church uses eventually passes the email off to a mailserver using the local Church domain name? If that happens to be the case, then maybe the SPF framework implementation, if the Church email servers use one, is screwed up.

We had a separate discussion on the forum over a year ago over getting some email from the Church at a comcast.net account, and it was determined there was no SPF lines in the headers, and Comcast was bouncing or otherwise diverting them due to problems they were having at the time with unrelated spam issues.

'SPF' is 'Sender Policy Framework'.