Tech Forum

I have been asked to put together an overview of the tools available online through the new websites and I got to wondering if someone else has already assembled together some information that they wouldn't mind sharing. If so, please let me know.

Also, I was wondering if anyone had a breakdown of what "Tools for your calling" tools were available to what users (or will be in the future). I would like to show off those tools even if they are not currently available, but soon may be.

Any hep would be appreciated.

That would be of great benefit to all of us. The church has been resistant to face-2-face training. As a new (and relatively uninitated) stake clerk with at least 6 of my 10 ward clerks as new as I am, I have specifically asked for someone to make the 1.2 mile trip from church HQ to our stake center for an hour of training specifically to help with all of the new online tools! It doesn't look like it will happen. If it doesn't happen (or even if it does), perhaps I can suggest that we can make our own manual. It would be daunting for one person to write about everything, but if we pool the combined talent and expertise of the forum, have one person pick one web tool and write what they know about it (how to use it, what tricks/tips they know about it, hidden problems), I'd be happy to compile it!

From new.lds.org, if you click on Menu and then Serving the Church, the resulting page currently provides a link to here.

From there, for example, you could then navigate to Melchizedek Priesthood > Clerk and Technology Support > Training, or any other links for training, tools, and tips for performing the service that pertains to a given calling.

Other informative links include:
http://new.lds.org/pages/learn-about
https://beta.lds.org/youth
https://beta.lds.org/young-women/personal-progress
http://DutytoGod.lds.org

I doubt the CHQ wants to come out and do one-on-one instructions because the websites, handbooks, and manuals should be self explanatory by design.

For MLS training, MLS contain training and help files within itself. This forum and its companion wiki are also an approved and valuable resource for helping clerks perform their calling.

ptitus wrote:... perhaps I can suggest that we can make our own manual. It would be daunting for one person to write about everything, but if we pool the combined talent and expertise of the forum, have one person pick one web tool and write what they know about it (how to use it, what tricks/tips they know about it, hidden problems), I'd be happy to compile it!

That sounds like a wonderful idea except that would be a major duplication of the effort that has already been put into this, and this, and this, just to name a few.

It would also be a bit early to write about tips, tricks, and hidden problems when using the new online directory and calendar tools when those tools are still in the process of being refined and features rolled out.

sean.whittier wrote:I have been asked to put together an overview of the tools available online through the new websites and I got to wondering if someone else has already assembled together some information that they wouldn't mind sharing. If so, please let me know.

Also, I was wondering if anyone had a breakdown of what "Tools for your calling" tools were available to what users (or will be in the future). I would like to show off those tools even if they are not currently available, but soon may be.

The best current source of documentation for the calendar, directory, and leader tools is at Help Materials for LDS.org Applications; your question about which callings have what rights are answered in those pages for the Calendar (see Administrators); the Directory documentation is still under development.

The maps have their own help page at LDS Maps help.

ptitus wrote:perhaps I can suggest that we can make our own manual.

If the documentation I linked to above is insufficient, the only place I could recommend for assembling additional documentation is the LDSTech wiki; the structure is already in place for collaboration.

The *many* links are helpful only to the point where someone is able to spend many hours trying to find them. If a new clerk doesn't have the foggiest idea where to start, how would it be possible, even if he had the spare time, to find them? What I'm suggesting is a short training session on web applications, how to find them, what they do, and how to access the help groups. We should be able to provide that information to them when they get their callings. Heck, someone should have been able to provide ME with that information when I got my stake clerk calling. Keep in mind that MOST of them are not as technically savvy as you might like them to be!

ptitus wrote:The *many* links are helpful only to the point where someone is able to spend many hours trying to find them. If a new clerk doesn't have the foggiest idea where to start, how would it be possible, even if he had the spare time, to find them? What I'm suggesting is a short training session on web applications, how to find them, what they do, and how to access the help groups. We should be able to provide that information to them when they get their callings. Heck, someone should have been able to provide ME with that information when I got my stake clerk calling. Keep in mind that MOST of them are not as technically savvy as you might like them to be!

I guess I should have been more clear; most of the links I provided are already built into the web applications. You click the Help button, and you get the help. That seems pretty simple to me.

I could see some value in providing a simple wiki page on the LDSTech wiki that simply lists the web applications, where to find them, and how to get help. You provide one link to that wiki page and you are done.

But such a page is pretty simple: Where do you find the web applications? You can answer that in one sentence: They are on the Tools menu when you sign in to new.lds.org. What do they do? The Tools menu has descriptions.

P.S. If it's any comfort, I don't speak Bachi either -- I have no clue what it even is.

Alan_Brown wrote:P.S. If it's any comfort, I don't speak Bachi either -- I have no clue what it even is.

The answer to where to find most things is at lds.org and now at new.lds.org where, as Alan mentions, there are links to almost everything I use in my leadership calling and have bookmarked at some time in the past in my browser. new.lds.org is a phenomenal resource.

On the other hand, Bocce (pronounced "bachi") is an interplanetary trade language used often by pilots to obtain fleet services and supplies in Star Wars. It is one of the many (700+?) languages C3PO speaks. I would need him to interpret Bocce, since it is not a phenomenal resource at all for me. [grin]