Temple Entry System Usability suggestions

[brenthale]

Hi,

I am the Stake Clerk and prefer to use the online temple entry system rather than MLS's. Even so there are some small usability changes I would like to see that would significantly speed up the process.

By the way...I use Firefox as my browser.

1) Automatically set the focus to the "Recommend Number" component after pressing the "New/Renew" link on the front page. This use to be the case when I first started using the system. Then, after one of the update, I have to either hit the Tab key 3 times or use the mouse to get focus there. This really slows down the entry of recommends.

2) Issue Date: Several Ideas:
2a) Default the month to the current month
2b) Use 12 radio buttons instead of the combo box. Then it's only one mouse click versus two. There is plenty of real estate for 12 radio buttons.
2c) Use 5 radio buttons for the available years. On my system the "2008" does not fully show as part of it is clipped off. Keep it defaulting to the current year.

3) After "Saving" a newly entered recommend you are take back to the "Search by Membership Number" screen. Again, because the focus is somewhere else, it takes 3 Tabs to get the focus into the membership number screen. Please set the focus to the first component and auto-high lite it so that when the user starts entering a new number it erases the previous numbers. It seems odd then when "000" is high lited and I start entering numbers that it jumps to the second component and begins over-writing the numbers there. That is not the way type-over is suppose to work. Since the first three digits rarely get modified, have the auto-focus be on the middle four digits.

4) It would be helpful to show the current recommend number and expiration date in the search result list. When trying to decide if something has already been entered or not, this would be very helpful. Replace the "Birth Day" field if you're looking for real estate.

5) When entering a new recommend number and you are entering a new one, it might be helpful to show the current recommend information on that screen to compare against the one you are entering. This suggestion might be confusing...I'd need to think about it some more.

6) Often I go into the "Edit" screen to determine if a recommend has been entered or not (to compare the recommend number). It would be helpful to have a "Renew" link on that page to take me directly to that screen rather than Canceling and then hitting Renew.

Thanks,
Brent

[willisbp-p40]

Thanks Brent. I've recently been assigned to the Temple Entry System. As the Interaction Designer, I love feedback from users.

You gave some great feedback. I'm checking with Program & Project Managers to see where we squeeze in some minor enhancements. Most of your request should be technically fairly easy.

Right now we're working on Internationalization.

I'll try to keep the thread posted.

[mamadsen]

This may be as good a place to post this as it does relate to usability/functionality.

I am wondering if there is an unintended lack of functionality between what can be done when activating a recommend in MLS versus the online Temple Entry System (TES)? The issue deals with being able to override a system check of no MP when trying to activate a recommend.

As has been noted in other threads, often, a young man has just been ordained an elder and issued a living ordinance recommend (own endowment or marriage) but the ordination has not been updated in MLS.

MLS will allow you to override this situation with stake president approval. However, the TES does not allow this type of override. I had an occasion not too long a go with the issue I just described. The stake president asked me to to activate the recommend using the TES to make sure it was done in a timely manner. TES would not allow it. I had to activate it in MLS to use the override function. Fortunately, the timing did not become an issue.

Would it be possible to allow the TES the same functionality as MLS?

[jander04]

If a vote counts, I agree with everything Brent said. The TES is not very user friendly and require far too much mouse to keyboard jumping.

In addition, if we select the member by membership number, I question why we have to enter the number again later.

Jerry