Early Latter-day Saints contributed their time and talents to build temples or work on Church farms, often when they were beset by harsh trials of their own. Today we have a similar opportunity to build the kingdom through our consecrated time and talent, but rather than chiseling stone for temples or toiling in the field, we can help build software applications for the Church. Even contributing a few hours a week can have a tremendous effect when the effort is multiplied by thousands of volunteers.
Regardless of your background, you can contribute to the technological work of the Church through the LDSTech community. If you have experience with software development, quality assurance and testing, interaction design, technical writing, usability, project management, database engineering, web design, or another skill, you can help build applications that will move the work forward. Nearly every tech-savvy member can contribute to a project. If you have IT skills and you want to volunteer to help build the kingdom, the LDSTech community needs your help.
What’s the experience like?
In the LDSTech community, volunteers work on teams. Teams can consist of as few as 5 members to 35 people or more. Each team is led by one or more project managers, who divide up the work based on team members’ skills and strengths.
The team members use virtual tools such as Skype or Internet Relay Chat (IRC) as they work together to solve problems, write code, test, design, engineer, prototype, and do everything else that’s needed to complete the application or product. Monthly LDSTech Service Days let volunteers work closely with their ICS counterparts in central locations.
How do I get started?
To get started on a community project, follow these steps:
Sign up for an LDS Account. Your LDS Account allows you to log in to Church websites, including LDSTech, with a single user name and password. Most likely you already have an LDS Account. If you don’t, go to https://ldsaccount.lds.org and register for one.
Sign in to LDSTech. Go to https://tech.lds.org, sign in with your LDS Account, and click Projects. The Projects tab has all the information about LDSTech community projects. This is where you can browse project descriptions, see team activity, and more.
Sign the Individual Contributors License. You'll be prompted to sign this agreement before you can view the list of projects. This agreement allows the Church to use the work you contribute. The license does not prohibit you from using your contributions for purposes separate from the project.
Complete the Profile and Skills submenus. Your profile and skills helps other team members get to know your skills and experience. The fields marked with a red asterisk (*) are required.
Join a project. After you sign the Individual Contributors License Agreement and complete your profile, you can browse and join community projects. To view the list of projects, click the Projects submenu. All projects are listed with brief descriptions. Click the project name to view more details about the project. To join a project, click Join on the project's detail page.
Contact the project manager. Don't wait for someone to contact you after you join a project. Introduce yourself to the project manager. The project manager's e-mail address is listed on the project page. Let the project manager know you've joined the project, describe your skills and desire to help out, and ask what tasks he or she would like you to work on.
A non member with a boy in our scout troop opperates a booth at the county fair. As a fundraiser for our troop they asked that we staff the booth and all proceeds from the booth would be donated from their company to our troop. The problem is the church accounting does not seem to be set up to handle these types of transactions and provide any tax deduction to those making the contribution for our annual fundraiser. If anyone knows how this can and should be handled I would appreciate it.
Robert, it would be more appropriate to ask this question in the forum at tech.lds.org/forum. I don't know the answer to the question, but many financial clerks participate in the forum and could help you out.
Meg: sorry I didn't see this earlier. Are you still having issues? We had a small network outage last Friday. There may have been a similar issue back when you posted your comment.
I purchased istake about 2 years ago. I loved it! NOW THE CHURCH IS NOT ALLOWING IT TO COMMUNICATE WITH STAKE/WARD CALENDARS!!!! Instead I am being forced to use LDS TOOLS!!! Why??? There is no integration with ANYTHING!!! What is it with the church and technology???? Are we really afraid that some non-member is going to see our calendar??? It takes hours to type all the ward and stake activities into a real product like INFORMANT. Also the ability to copy a record to my contacts in my phone is now gone!!! WHY ARE WE GOING BACKWARDS???
Russell, the best place to post feedback like this is in the LDSTech forum. But I can respond briefly. While I understand the frustration, there is a privacy consideration for calendar data just as there is with membership information. Calendars contain many details about primary, youth, and other activities that should be restricted to only those in the ward or stake who can log in with their LDS Account.
To protect the confidentiality of this information, the Church restricts access based on LDS Account. LDS Tools, a free app from the Church, allows you to log in with your LDS Account and access member or calendar information.
There is also an API being created to allow third-party apps to leverage gospel content. (See [URL="https://tech.lds.org/wiki/Third-party_API_for_gospel_content"]Third-party API for gospel content[/URL].)
Two weeks ago, I could add reservations to the Jonesboro Building in Jonesboro, Georgia of the Conyers Stake. As of a week ago Sunday, the Add Reservation button never ever works. It has shut down on me. I feel a need to go back to a paper calendar in a loose-leaf binder.
George, can you post your issue in the LDSTech Forum instead? Just click the Forum button on the top navigation bar. I'm not sure why the reservation button isn't working on the calendar, but no engineers or volunteers monitor threads here.
I hate this I have been looking for phone number and address and have not been able to get to them and also other sights, I get every were but the sights I am looking for It's so Easy, lyre I come in less and less. Bishop and Clerk say you can find every thing Lyer Family History and other sighs are not easy to get around in I will be coming in les and Less!!!!!!!!!
Hello, I'd like to know how I can find a member's e-mail or contact from France. I need to contact somebody in there. I entered to the web site and called to the numbers that appear there, but I didn't received any answer. Would you please tell me how it works? Thanks.
Please add American Samoa as a country to the list because we are on opposite sides of the dateline with Samoa, with different days and times. I am not sure why it was not changed when Samoa went to the change this Jan 2012. This affects all our times in the MLS update 3.5 and I can't fill out the forms Thanks Wallace
I love the study journal but am very frustrated with the way the notebooks are filed by date rather than alphabetical.Could we have a choice. I am an alphabetical person. I do not file by date and spend so much time trying to find my notebook I just quit and won't use this when it is such a wonderful program.
Comments
Russ French
805-944-7613
To protect the confidentiality of this information, the Church restricts access based on LDS Account. LDS Tools, a free app from the Church, allows you to log in with your LDS Account and access member or calendar information.
There is also an API being created to allow third-party apps to leverage gospel content. (See [URL="https://tech.lds.org/wiki/Third-party_API_for_g ospel_content"]Third-party API for gospel content[/URL].)
gvpeterson@emai l.com
Thanks
Wallace
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