In October of last year, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ran a media campaign right in the heart of New York City, in Manhattan, to raise awareness of Mormonism and encourage those who were curious to visit Mormon.org. What the Church found was quite interesting.

“Because our advertising ran entirely in out of home placements, we noticed that a significant number of Mormon.org visitors were viewing the site on mobile devices,” said Ron Wilson, senior manager of Internet and advertising in the Missionary Department. “This information was used to present a plan to the Missionary Executive Council who approved the development of an engaging mobile solution.”

The engaging mobile solution that ICS and Bonneville Communications came up with redirected mobile users to a new Mormon.org website. But when they realized it wasn’t optimized to fulfill the need they were looking for, ICS recommended responsive design for the best user experience.

Responsive design is an approach to web design in which a site is crafted to provide an optimal viewing experience – such as easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling – across a wide range of devices from desktop computer monitors to tablets to mobile phones.

“Mormon.org’s ultimate goal is to provide content to everyone, everywhere, regardless of the device they may be using,” said Katrina Kennedy Archibald, a front-end developer of the website. “We want people to have the best experience possible when they are accessing our website content. We found the best way to do that was through responsive design.”

Left – Mormon.org on the desktop; Right – Mormon.org on a mobile device. There’s just one site, but responsive design allows the site to display in optimal ways according to the device. Note that the responsive design shown here is not live yet -- it will be released in October. 

LDS.org calendar version 2.2 was recently released. Version 2.2 includes a host of new features, including the following:

• Agenda view
• New Settings button and interface
• Churchwide calendars
• Overview canvas 
• Private calendars on Initial Setup
• Unit information on events
• Primary contact information for building schedulers

For a full list of the release notes for 2.2, see the Release Notes in the calendar help.

If you desire to serve a Church-service mission, you can become a missionary for LDSTech.

LDSTech missions are ideal for people who work or have worked in the IT industry. You may be a young (or young-at-heart) tech expert who is worthy to serve a proselyting mission but cannot. You may also be retired or on a leave of absence and looking for an opportunity to serve a mission. LDSTech is a welcome place to serve for people from all backgrounds and ages.

Church Service Missionary Listings

The latest Church service missionary opportunities are listed on http://servicemission.ldschurch.org. In the Select an Interest dropdown box, select Information Technology and Computer Science.

Needs for Testers

Right now we have a strong need for testers. Testers work with project teams to test applications for bugs, defects, and other issues. Testers need to be thorough and creative as they check applications against requirements, functionality specifications, prototype designs, and other standards.

Entries that young women record in the Personal Progress application are now integrated with Notes and Journal (formerly called “My Study Notebook”).

Both Personal Progress and Notes and Journal are LDS.org applications. Young women use Personal Progress to complete and track value experiences as part of the Young Women program. As young women complete experiences for each value, they record journal entries about the experiences.

Notes and Journal allows members to annotate and record notes and journal entries about scriptures, magazine articles, and other content that they read on LDS.org.

The integration of these two applications gives you a more unified experience on LDS.org. When you record journal entries in Personal Progress, they sync to Notes and Journal. The sync is two-way: If you update the entry in Notes and Journal, the entry in Personal Progress is also updated.

LDS.org has a new menu in place. The Menu and Tools menus have been replaced with four new navigation options: Scriptures, Teachings, Resources, and News.

These new menus are designed to help members easily find the most used content on the site, such as scriptures, General Conference, magazines and manuals, First Presidency messages, ordering church materials, and more.

Straightforward Naming

As you explore the menus, you’ll notice that names are more straightforward and plain than in the past. Rather than “Church Media Library,” the option is now “Video, Audio, and Images.” Rather than “My Study Notebook,” the option is “Notes and Journal.” Rather than “Online Store,” the option is “Order Church Materials.”

The next LDSTech broadcast, scheduled for Friday, August 3, at 12:00pm MDT, will focus on Personal Video Conferencing (PVC) and Meetinghouse Webcast.

You can attend the broadcast either online during the live stream or in person at the Riverton Office Building. Kurt Olsen and Rod Hyde, meetinghouse technology product managers in ICS, will give the broadcast.

What Is Personal Video Conferencing?

Personal Video Conferencing (PVC) provides local Church leaders and members of the Church workforce the ability to personally interact with one another, regardless of their location, using just a personal computer.

PVC is a telecommunication technology that allows for two-way video and audio transmissions. The Church provides PVC to local leaders and employees worldwide for the purpose of reducing travel while still accomplishing face-to-face communications for meetings, interviews, trainings, and other purposes. You can use PVC for one-on-one meetings and for small groups.

All users who have access to JIRA, an application used for software defect tracking and project management on many LDSTech projects, may have noticed some important changes in the most recent update to JIRA.

In JIRA 5.10.6, you can now use Scrum Rapid Boards to manage the agile workflow, customize the Create Issue fields to hide fields that aren't relevant, include "mentions" to notify specific team members about updates, and more. Together these new features help improve collaboration and workflow on project teams.

Scrum Rapid Boards

Scrum Rapid Boards are a new tool in JIRA to help streamline and improve the agile workflow. Ray Maxwell, an application systems engineer over JIRA on the Application Lifecycle Management team, says, "JIRA Rapid Boards provide a flexible way to view, manage, and report work in progress. In this update, both Kanban and Scrum Agile methodologies are supported. The Scrum Board supports planning, prioritizing, sprinting, and reporting."

The best way to understand Rapid Boards is to create one for your project. To create a Rapid Board, go to your JIRA project page, and then click Agile > Getting Started. Click the Scrum tab, and then follow the on-screen steps to create a new Rapid Board.

A new app for Android and iOS called “The Book of Mormon” is now available for beta testing. Intended for missionary efforts, this app provides a simple, footnote-free digital copy of the Book of Mormon in a variety of languages.

Instead of giving tangible copies of the Book of Mormon, missionaries (both full-time and members) can give out cards with QR codes directing investigators to the new app.

A QR code operates on a graphic that consists of black modules (square dots) arranged in a square pattern on a white background. This QR code, after being scanned by an iOS or Android device, opens a site where investigators can download the app. 

The following screens show the Book of Mormon app on Android and iOS.

Screens from the Book of Mormon app for Android. Reading the Book of Mormon (left) and listening to the audio narration (right).

Through Newsletter, a new tool on the LDS.org Tools menu, local unit leaders can publish news and messages to members in their wards and stakes. Newsletter gives you an online alternative to the paper or e-mail newsletters that organizations typically create.

Screenshot showing a sample newsletter home page (fictitious ward and data)

One advantage to using the newsletter is that it is always accessible on LDS.org, available to any member of your ward or stake who can sign in with an LDS Account, regardless of whether the member is on your e-mail list, in attendance on Sunday, or even active. The newsletter gives members an opportunity to get inspirational updates, news, messages, and other information from their local unit leaders at any time.

LDS Tools for Android version 1.5 is now available for beta testing. The new features to test in this beta release include the following:

Calendar integration. The LDS.org calendar is integrated into LDS Tools. The events appear in a list sorted by day, with the calendar color shown beside the event. When you click an event name, more details appear.

Photo upload. You can update your LDS.org directory photo directly from LDS Tools (rather than updating it from the directory on LDS.org). If you’re an administrator, you can also update other member photos in your ward or branch as well. To update your photo, browse to your profile and click your photo. Then click the camera icon that appears in the corner. (Once you upload the photo, note that an administrator in your ward or branch must approve the photo before it appears to others.)

New interface. The app's interface has been modernized with a new look and feel to match the latest versions of Android. For example, the app now has a navigation ribbon to navigate from one screen to another, and it uses the new Android Action Bar to access system menus and perform application actions (such as Search or Select Unit).

Improved tablet support. If you have a Galaxy Tab, Xoom, Kindle, Nexus 7, or other tablet device that runs Android, LDS Tools features a dual-pane display. For example, on the Callings screen, you can browse organizations on the left and see details on the right. The dual-pane makes the navigation experience more similar to the desktop version of the directory on LDS.org.