Tech Forum

I started creating some software for managing church meeting... something an exec. secretary could use to generate agendas, gather minutes, email, generate specific action items for mtg attendees, etc.
I haven't had much time to continue the project.
I am a Bishop. Lots of Bishoprics flounder because of lack of information and poor follow up on assignments. This kind of software would automate the now manual and tedious work that secretaries do (and often forget to do), and help the work move forward by getting key information on assignments and due dates in front of the ward leaders.

Is there some effort to create something like this, or would the church be willing to take the ideas and create a working product (or motivate me to complete the project )

http://sourceforge.net/projects/lds-meeting-mgr/

I would encourage the community to get behind this project. Can you give some specifics on the programming language, etc?

Tom

At the moment, this is a Java web start project based on the eclipse SWT UI framework. Under the covers is a local derby database which takes as an input, the CSV generated from MLS to seed the member/leader info. It needs its functionality to be complete, and email capability before it will be usable. Also I thought to design the db schema in such a way that the data could be hosted on a web server somewhere... so people could login and add agenda items or update their action items online. Then the Exec Sec can replicate the data before leadership meetings (if there is no internet connection at the church building) and have the most up to date info. If internet is available, just use the online version (vapourware).
The partially working version is available from my website: http://webbudget.homeip.net/mysite
but as mentioned above, its only partially working. Need time/help. Interested parties please email me.

I was an exec secretary for a year or so... this type of application would have been VERY useful and could have saved many hours. Possible integration with other reports, such as Bishop's Action List, and other reports (potential missionaries, etc...) would aggregate lots of this (currently disperate) information into a meeting agenda where it can be properly addressed.

Excellent. So for a next step, people should download and play with the product. Then we need a desired feature list and/or bugs that people can work on.

Tom

I ran it, The interface is fairly simple. I chose the date, I imported the CSV, but it seemed to have frozen up. Did I do something wrong?

It should be fairly straight forward, however its only been minimally tested. Try exiting the program and restarting it (should be an an icon on your desktop now). If the data is still not there, then something went wrong. I remember when I was actively developing this sometimes I had to exit the software after import... its still buggy. But I'd love to gather requirements and ideas. Is there anything you can see from the interface that can/should be added or changed? (Try creating a new meeting a put a hymn number in the opening hymn - then click the arrow beside.. if you are online, you have music for your meeting!)

As soon as I get some understanding of Java (working on it right now) I'll be glad to help with whatever grunt-programming there might be. It will probably take a while before I know it well enough to contribute anything of particular worth.

I'll keep an eye on the posts here to see what's going on in the developement, and I'll try to stay in the loop until I know more about the language and have something of a little more value to offer.

Are you currently accepting developers on your project? I have sent a developer request, I hope to be able to help.

thedqs wrote:Are you currently accepting developers on your project? I have sent a developer request, I hope to be able to help.

Yes I've added you to the sourceforge project and emails seperately. Anyone else interested, please sign up in sourceforge and send a request with your sourceforge id to get started.

epoulin wrote:Yes I've added you to the sourceforge project and emails seperately. Anyone else interested, please sign up in sourceforge and send a request with your sourceforge id to get started.

Just sent you a request to join. Hope I can help out.