So close yet so far

Discussions about the Ward Directory and Map tool on churchofjesuschrist.org.
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wkadams
New Member
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2009 10:02 am
Location: Albuquerque, NM USA

So close yet so far

#1

Post by wkadams »

We are starting a Stake geocoding task. Our decision has been to enter a Stake geocode for each household in order to use the boundary realignment tools within MLS when it comes time to examine boundaries.

At first glance, I was excited to see the "maps" selection on LDS.org. It seemed like a great tool to assist the labor intensive task of assigning geocodes. Our intent was to display household location and then assign geocodes based on our defined areas. But working into the details has uncovered several issues such as:

1- We have several members whose location is not correct on the map according to the address. I know in some cases these are recent (within last year) move ins. It is easy to see those outside ward/stake boundaries, it is harder to detect those within the boundaries. We probably have in excess of 100 households in this category.
2- More than 98% of the addresses are unverified or unmapped.
3- We are not seeing all the Stake. The other day when I selected the entire stake, I saw locations for households of 2 units. My own ward and the last ward. We have 9 units in the Stake. Today I can see all the units except one. I don't have a good feel that within the Wards I am seeing all the members.

Unless someone can point to a quick solution to these issues, it seems just addressing all these issues will take a lot of time and involve a lot of people. I have used the 3 different major browsers with the same results in all.

This leads me to the conclusion that I need to display household location on some mapping program such as google earth. I found instructions on the WiKI of how to do this.

Does anyone have better suggestions for working around these problems. Also suggestions to our overall approach of populating Stake geocodes to take advantage of the boundary tools in MLS. Any suggestions will be welcome.
davesudweeks
Senior Member
Posts: 2637
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 9:16 pm
Location: Washington, USA

#2

Post by davesudweeks »

In our Stake, the Stake assigned geo codes based on a grid map. Then each Ward Clerk was tasked to enter the Geo Codes for everyone in his ward. One way to distribute the load as the information can be electronically transmitted to the Stake through MLS.

Individual members can verify their addresses. Barring that, Bishopric Members can do so as well. However, your mileage will vary (when I was ward clerk, almost all addresses were verified but my replacement has not chosen to take on that task so the accuracy of the Ward Map is degrading over time). Be aware that the Maps function does not update individuals who move within the ward - their pin in the map remains where it was until someone manually moves it to their new address.

I believe item 3 of your post is a known bug that has been discussed in other forum posts.
bdayley
New Member
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2010 3:23 pm
Location: United States, CA

#3

Post by bdayley »

davesudweeks wrote:I believe item 3 of your post is a known bug that has been discussed in other forum posts.
I've seen similar problems with the mapping.
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