Email Broadcast - adapting to changes

I've searched the forums but so far haven't come across anything that specifically answers this, so here goes:

-Background-
In my YSA stake, all of the wards used to have a person that was the "ward communications specialist" who sent out e-mails, added calendar items, etc. They would use the email broadcast function of LUWS to reach most of the ward (excluding opt-outs, bad email addresses, etc). This type of functionality has been moved to the Leader Resources portal, with limitations on which callings can send to which groups.

-Our issue-
The ward communications specialists have been turned into ward website administrators to give them access to calendar and directory items, but there is no way to send out email broadcasts via official channels. They don't have access to Leader Resources.

-Questions-
Is there something under development that would directly address this situation and allow ward website administrators (or a similar non-leadership calling) to send email broadcasts to the entire ward?
If there is not something under development, do you have a best practice you recommend?

-Possible solutions-
If we just need to change the way we do things in the stake, I can think of three solutions:
1. The wards can have the communications specialist/website admin create emails and have a secretary or clerk approve and send them out. This assumes the secretary or clerk can send to the entire ward.
2. Have the executive secretary or clerk take over the communications responsibility. Again, this assumes the secretary or clerk can send to the entire ward.
3. Handle communication differently, and send out fewer things to the entire ward. Auxiliaries would only communicate with their own group. This assumes that the respective presidencies (EQ/RS/SS) have access to e-mail their groups through this portal, and I don't know if this is the case.

Answers, other solutions, suggestions? Thanks!

schristiaens wrote: -Questions-
Is there something under development...

Welcome to the forum! I guess you know that many of us here are just community members like yourself, and we are not privy to what is in development, other than whats been told to us here. Don't be surprised if nobody here can give you any insight into the future development of email broadcasting features.

For now, you may wish to forward your emails to your clerk or exec. secretary, as that wouldn't take much of their time. I believe they can send to the entire ward, but it may have changed since I was a ward clerk. You may consider creating new positions that would actually be your communications specialist, such as assistant exec. secretaries which specialize in communications, so not to overburden your Executive secretary or clerk. Check that such a calling also has access to email broadcasting in the tools first!

schristiaens wrote:Is there something under development that would directly address this situation and allow ward website administrators (or a similar non-leadership calling) to send email broadcasts to the entire ward?

The email capabilities are still under development. Unless a developer responds, which is remote, we do not know what the road-map entails. So for now we have to use a work-around.

schristiaens wrote:If there is not something under development, do you have a best practice you recommend?

The possible solutions you mentioned, with adjustments sound reasonable. But since I do not have a calling with access to Leader Tools or Clerk Tools then someone else will have to describe what is possible.

There is email functionality within the leader/clerk tools. This is what the interface looks like:
There are groups which you can email that are listed on the right. You cannot mix the groups. If you select one group it populates the TO: filed. Select another group, it clears the previous and populates the TO: again. If I wanted to email the Ward Young Women Presidency and the Ward Primary Presidency, I would have to send two separate messages. The most glaring omission is that there is no "Ward Members" group which would allow you to send a message out to ward members with lds.org accounts.

Again, this is only found within the leader/clerk tools. It would be nice if it was somehow integrated into the ward directory where your MLS calling provided the appropriate level of access to emailing groups.

Hope that helps in someway...

dshepher wrote:There is email functionality within the leader/clerk tools. This is what the interface looks like:



There are groups which you can email that are listed on the right. You cannot mix the groups. If you select one group it populates the TO: filed. Select another group, it clears the previous and populates the TO: again. If I wanted to email the Ward Young Women Presidency and the Ward Primary Presidency, I would have to send two separate messages. The most glaring omission is that there is no "Ward Members" group which would allow you to send a message out to ward members with lds.org accounts.

Again, this is only found within the leader/clerk tools. It would be nice if it was somehow integrated into the ward directory where your MLS calling provided the appropriate level of access to emailing groups.

Hope that helps in someway...

I'm not sure what your calling is but as ward clerk I have options to send to all members, all adult members and many other sub-sets of the general ward membership including priesthood quorums, relief society members and young women classes. Of course, it will only email to those who have email addresses entered into MLS or the lds.org Directory application.

My screen looks similar to your screenshot but there is an additional 'Members' entry under the 'Leaders' entry on the right. Clicking on that link opens up a list of these various groups of members.

I can also see membership. Also, I'm able to add groups just by selecting them and it doesn't remove the names already in the to list.

Hmmm...I am an assistant ward clerk. Maybe I don't have all the proper permissions to send to all member. My bad!

Also, I see now that if I expand the TO: box to view all, it does add the other members to the message. Sorry again for the bad information.

I have recently been called as an assistant stake clerk. One of my responsibilities is to send email broadcasts to the entire stake membership as I have done with the classic LUWS, but I can only send to the leaders. Is there any way I can send to all the members in the new site? Am I missing something?

zaneclark wrote:I have recently been called as an assistant stake clerk. One of my responsibilities is to send email broadcasts to the entire stake membership as I have done with the classic LUWS, but I can only send to the leaders. Is there any way I can send to all the members in the new site? Am I missing something?

Yes, I've also noted that as Assistant Stake Clerk, we are limited to sending only to stake leaders, or by selecting individual wards, to ward leaders of an individual ward. Last night a power outage required a stake bishopric training to be moved to another ward, but I had no way to easily select all ward bishoprics to send one email! Why? I see no reason why this should be so restrictive, because many times I need greater latitude in our emails.

All Clerks (Clerk and assistant Clerks) on stake level need the ability to select:

• all ward bishops
• all ward bishoprics
• all ward clerks
• all stake members
• all stake Adult members
• all stake RS members
• All Stake High Priests
• all youth
• etc

Or am I missing something as well? When I can, I'll compare my ability to email with my Stake Clerk's ability. Each of us need to send feedback to get this functionality added on the stake level for all clerks.

As a Bishop - I can send to the following:

Leaders
Stake Presidency
Stake High Council
Stake Patriarch(s)
Stake Relief Society Presidency
Stake Young Men Presidency
Stake Young Women Presidency
Stake Primary Presidency
Stake Sunday School Presidency
Ward Bishopric
Ward PEC
Ward Council
Ward Relief Society Presidency
Ward Young Men Presidency
Ward Young Women Presidency
Ward Primary Presidency
Ward Sunday School Presidency
Ward Elders Quorum Presidencies
Ward High Priests Group Leadership
Ward Mission
Ward Aaronic Priesthood Committee
Ward Bishop's Youth Committee
Priest Quorum Presidency
Teachers Quorum Presidency
Deacons Quorum Presidency
Boy Scouts
Laurel Class Presidency
Mia-Maid Class Presidency
Beehive Class Presidency

Members
All adult members
All members
Relief Society Members
Young Single Adults
Single Adults
Elders
High Priests
Prospective Elders
All Melchizedek Priesthood Holders and Prospective Elders
Priests
Teachers
Deacons
All Young Men
All Men
All Priesthood Holders
Laurels
Mia-Maids
Beehives
All Young Women
All Primary Children

so given the discussion in this parallel thread https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.p ... -Broadcast it seems like it would be very helpful for the programmers to provide the hierarchy of sending rights for various callings in the access table (or at least make a similar one for email messaging). it would save so many people a lot of random experimentation trying to figure out how the system works. come to think of it, a messaging help file might also be a good start... (since there is one for the new directory and for the new calendar).