Tech Forum

We have some very exciting news to share with everyone. Since the beginning of the tech.lds.org Website, our goal has been to get the technology community involved with helping the Church define, develop, test, and deploy applications. We are please to announce that our first sponsored project is now ready for people to get involved. The first application that we will be developing with the community is a Home Teaching / Visiting Teaching application sponsored by the Priesthood department of the Church. We are in the very early stages of the defining of this application and we need your help. If you have not yet, log in to the Technology Wiki (https://tech.lds.org/wiki) and follow the link to the Home Teaching / Visiting Teaching article. This wiki page will be where you can collaborate on the design and specifications as well as where you can find out how to get involved.

As a basis for this application, we will be taking many of the ideas and features from Brad O.’s Return & Report program. We are grateful to him for his efforts in helping identify functional specifications and use cases. He has agreed to help where he can and to provide any technical or reference material that we may need in the development of this application.

The first challenge is for designers to submit wire frames and mock UI's (post these to the wiki) on how you would design the page(s) and interactions that will allow leaders to create and organize HT/VT districts and to create and make companionship and family assignments. To get involved, visit the Home Teaching / Visiting Teaching wiki article.

We are very excited and grateful that so many are willing to donate their time and efforts in order to help the Church. Your involvement will be much appreciated and you will be blessed for your efforts. We hope that this process will also be a rewarding one for you.

Thank you for your involvement.

Tom

Disclaimer: This first project is a trial for the Church in an effort to figure out how to most effectively leverage the talents of people worldwide in developing solutions for the Church. Although the intent is to build and deploy an application that will be available to members of the Church worldwide, there is no commitment that this will happen. In order for this application to be deployed as an official Church product, the application must meet the functional, quality and scalability standards of the Church.

Also, we have started some pages about guidelines for posting to the Wiki pages and their accompanying Talk Pages (discussion pages):

https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/Guidelines
https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/Dev ... Guidelines

Please be sure to read through these guidelines so that we can have consitency across the Wiki pages and discussions behind those pages. Also there is a Community Portal that will discuss the needs and available tasks for the wiki as a whole; it is located here:

https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/LDS ... ity_Portal



Two things I would really like to point out is that we want every comment on the Talk Pages to have a signature with it:

• By using 4 tildes ~~~~, the Wiki will insert your username and a timestamp at that place.
• Be sure to read through the discussions behind the Wiki pages to make sure that the comments and questions you have not already been asked and discussed.

Thanks, everyone.

So should this be considered a ground up effort? Using Brad's tech specs but not his project specifically?

Mr. M wrote:So should this be considered a ground up effort? Using Brad's tech specs but not his project specifically?

Correct. Chad Fullmer will "product manage" the project which means that he will represent the Priesthood department in making sure that the requirements are met and that we stay within the guidelines and bounds that the Church has for HT/VT.

Tom

Would it be acceptable to start a Project Thread in the Forums for the community to give their input on this project since the development sites have restricted access?

GarysTurn wrote:Would it be acceptable to start a Project Thread in the Forums for the community to give their input on this project since the development sites have restricted access?

I understand what you are trying to get at, but it would be best if it was all in one location (the Wiki).

I'm curious what Tom will say...

GarysTurn wrote:Would it be acceptable to start a Project Thread in the Forums for the community to give their input on this project since the development sites have restricted access?

It's not all that restricted -- all you need is an LDS Account. So yes, it is restricted to members of the Church, but I really doubt that anyone else is interested. So I agree with mkmurray that we should keep all the content in the wiki.

There is an additional requirement (Individual Contributors License Agreement) before you can touch the source in SVN, but any registered user can contribute to the wiki (and SVN isn't even set up yet, so that's not even an issue at this point).

Alan_Brown wrote:It's not all that restricted -- all you need is an LDS Account. So yes, it is restricted to members of the Church, but I really doubt that anyone else is interested. So I agree with mkmurray that we should keep all the content in the wiki.

There is an additional requirement (Individual Contributors License Agreement) before you can touch the source in SVN, but any registered user can contribute to the wiki (and SVN isn't even set up yet, so that's not even an issue at this point).

Correct - This also applies to the design comps that we are now asking graphic designers to work up for us (see the request in Tom W's original post on this thread).

Designers: Before you post your designs, we need you to sign the Individual Contributors License Agreement. We'll be looking for the strongest designers to help with the development of this application (aethetically, but also and more importantly, simple/intuitive/efficient interactions to accomplish the necessary tasks).

Again - a hearty thanks to everyone for your willingness to help move the work forward.

~~~~

GarysTurn wrote:Would it be acceptable to start a Project Thread in the Forums for the community to give their input on this project since the development sites have restricted access?

The reason I brought this subject up is for the non Tech people to be more inclined to participate. Elders Quorum Presidents, High Priests Group Leaders and Relief Society Presidents. Many of these people would like to have some input into this project but will not be participating in the design or programming. Posting to the Wiki is not hard for most of us, but for some of these people email is a major accomplishment. I think a forum thread would be a way to include them. Joel in his TechTalk did list the forums as part of the process of defining these projects. I have no problem using the Wiki, but I know my High Priests Group leader would not be comfortable posting there.

GarysTurn wrote:The reason I brought this subject up is for the non Tech people to be more inclined to participate. Elders Quorum Presidents, High Priests Group Leaders and Relief Society Presidents. Many of these people would like to have some input into this project but will not be participating in the design or programming. Posting to the Wiki is not hard for most of us, but for some of these people email is a major accomplishment.

I do agree with you Gary. I think the RAR application is a great starting point and its possible many of us techies have also served as Bishops/BP/EQP/HPGL/RSP etc but it would also help to have input from the non-techie's.

Maybe that is something to think about when there is a first draft of all the requirements ready.

Maybe there is also a need to find out what role and development experience we all have. Not for this to decide on the technology we should use but to establish what resources are available..

I do like the tone in what is currently there with focus on UI and keeping things simple.