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Broadcast email question

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 7:16 pm
by natrx-p40
I have a question regarding recipients of broadcast email. For example, at the stake level, when we send a broadcast email to members of the Relief Society, it appears if the sister does not have an email address, that the broadcast email defaults to the husband if he has an email address.

Also, it appears if you send an email broadcast email to members of the Relief Society, it includes the priesthood leaders.

Can anyone else confirm this and let me know of the "recipient defaults" so I can pass word along to the stake presidency and executive secretary?

thank you
Nate Crocker
stake clerk

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 11:02 pm
by jdlessley
My understanding of the functionality of mailing lists in the LUWS is that the e-mail address provided by a registered user and the mailing lists selected in the notifications options of their profile as well as the calling(s) a registered user has as listed in the LUWS leadership directories determine who receives broadcast messages.

All the situations you describe tell me that people are receiving notices for groups they don't actually belong because they have checked groups such as Relief Society in the notification section of their user profile. This would be a logical choice for the sister who does not have an e-mail address. She either entered her husband's e-mail address in her user profile or her husband checked Relief Society in the notification section of his profile to get notices for his wife. A similar situation is most likely causing priesthood leaders to receive notices for Relief Society.

Checking to see if a registered user is using a spouses e-mail address can be checked by a web administrator. However, the notification lists a registered user has selected to be included in can only be viewed and changed by the user in their profile. So tracking down part of your situation may be more difficult and take time.

If the experience in your stake mirrors our stake then there are a significant number of LUWS registered users who have not updated their user profile since they first registered. They may not be aware of the user profile preferences they have made. Outdated e-mail addresses that cause bounced messages is one indicator of this situation.

Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 12:42 am
by russellhltn
jdlessley wrote:All the situations you describe tell me that people are receiving notices for groups they don't actually belong because they have checked groups such as Relief Society in the notification section of their user profile.
Which is why in the few times I've sent a broadcast, I've added as a footer something like this:

"You are receiving this message because you have indicated in your preferences that you wish to receive notices about Relief Society. If that is not the case or has changed, please log into the ward website and update your profile. The website administrators can not do this for you."


Well, we could, but we'd have to highjack their account. :p

Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 8:53 am
by natrx-p40
Excellent info! Thank you both for your help.

I have the same problem at work where people don't update their profiles and then can't figure out why they stop getting the e-newsletters and such.

We have a situation right now where a sister is showing up as herself and in the husbands spot on the LUWS. The husband was recently called as 2nd counselor in stake YMs but when we try to add him to the Stake Leadership, her name comes up. In MLS, everything is correct. I called tech support and they said it's probably because she set up the login account using her name but her husband's info.

I'm looking forward to more transparency between MLS and LUWS so some of these issues can be corrected at various levels rather than waiting on members.

thanks again for your insight,
Nate

Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 9:43 am
by aebrown
natrx wrote:We have a situation right now where a sister is showing up as herself and in the husbands spot on the LUWS. The husband was recently called as 2nd counselor in stake YMs but when we try to add him to the Stake Leadership, her name comes up. In MLS, everything is correct. I called tech support and they said it's probably because she set up the login account using her name but her husband's info.

When you assign people to leadership positions on the LUWS, you are choosing their name as it appears on their membership record. It has nothing to do with whether that person has ever registered to login to the LUWS, or registered with someone else's info. So you should be able to pick the brother just fine (which it sounds like you have done).

But then what appears in the leadership directory is the preferred name associated with that membership record number. It sounds like you have a case where John Doe's membership record number is associated in LUWS with Jane Doe's login name, preferred name, and e-mail address. So you would pick John Doe for the YM leadership position and have Jane Doe's name appear. It would also mean that any e-mail sent to John via LUWS would actually go to Jane.

The solution, of course, is to have Jane Doe login, and change her preferred name to be John, and specify John's e-mail address for this account, which is truly John's since it is tied to his record number. John should then set the password on that account to be one he is familiar with. Then Jane should use her membership record number and confirmation date to create a new login account that would be for her and have her preferred name and e-mail address.

The one remaining problem is that she may have picked a login name for his record number that is related to her (maybe Jane_Doe, for example). That would mean that John would have to login as Jane_Doe for the rest of his life. There is presently no way for a user to change the login name. A stake administrator can beg the Church's LUWS support people to make a change, if you can make a good argument. But first you should do all the above steps so that it is all sorted out except for the husband's login name.

I do hear rumblings that the upcoming upgrade to LUWS will be using the new LDS Account login credentials. If so, it may not be worth worrying about at this point, as all LUWS users would have to get new login names anyway. But this last paragraph is rumor and supposition on my part.

Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:18 am
by jdlessley
This is similar to what happened in a ward in my stake. There was a situation that caused the LUWS to display the husband's name. The husband had registered at the LUWS using his wife's member number and confirmation date. He had entered a preferred name. The wife had not yet retistered. Now when the wife was selected for a calling in a LUWS directory the husbands name using his preferred first name appeared in the directory even though her name had been selected. Also the LUWS ward directory of members showed the husband with his given full name and his wife as her husband using his preferred name.

The other part of the situation was that the user name the husband used to register was now assigned to his wife. That user name was the last name appended with his first initial. Of course the husband wanted that user name and the wife wanted a different user name when she registered. Of course changing user names requires SLC to make the change and they will not without a very compelling reason.
Alan_Brown wrote:It sounds like you have a case where John Doe's membership record number is associated in LUWS with Jane Doe's login name, preferred name, and e-mail address. So you would pick John Doe for the YM leadership position and have Jane Doe's name appear. It would also mean that any e-mail sent to John via LUWS would actually go to Jane.

The solution, of course, is to have Jane Doe login, and change her preferred name to be John, and specify John's e-mail address for this account, which is truly John's since it is tied to his record number. John should then set the password on that account to be one he is familiar with. Then Jane should use her membership record number and confirmation date to create a new login account that would be for her and have her preferred name and e-mail address.
I have another suggestion for John and Jane Doe. It is to have Jane Doe hand over her account to John Doe since it is using John's member number and confirmation date. The loggin user name may not be what John wants but the registration is really his. If John Doe had been registered using Jane's member number and confirmation date then he should likewise hand over his account to Jane. Jane and John can then enter the correct preferred name and e-mail address in their profile. The only frustrating issue remaining would be the user names.

Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 2:19 pm
by russellhltn
jdlessley wrote:The only frustrating issue remaining would be the user names.
Which is only a minor issue since it only appears to the person during login. It's not used on the web site anywhere except where the administrators see who is registered.

If I remember right, the admin can change the preferred name. However the user will have to fix any problem with the email address.

Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 5:29 pm
by lajackson
RussellHltn wrote:If I remember right, the admin can change the preferred name.
Yes. From the Admin screen of the ward in which the member lives, call up the family in the membership directory and change the preferred name so that it is correct. We had some members change the husband's name to something like "John and Sally", which worked out Ok until he became a high councilor.

As the Admin, I fixed that right away. [grin]

Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 6:57 pm
by aebrown
jdlessley wrote:I have another suggestion for John and Jane Doe. It is to have Jane Doe hand over her account to John Doe since it is using John's member number and confirmation date. The loggin user name may not be what John wants but the registration is really his. If John Doe had been registered using Jane's member number and confirmation date then he should likewise hand over his account to Jane. Jane and John can then enter the correct preferred name and e-mail address in their profile. The only frustrating issue remaining would be the user names.

That's exactly what I already proposed (and what you quoted :)).

Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 7:33 pm
by jdlessley
Alan_Brown wrote:That's exactly what I already proposed (and what you quoted :)).
Sorry Alan. I had to read and reread your solution several times to see what you were saying. My first thought was you were suggesting Jane masquerade as John and John as Jane. My fault.