"Send a Message" Function on LCR

[davesudweeks]

Member Tools is the mobile app where you are able to make a list and then use your own personal email to send to them.

For clarification, there are no pre-built lists in Member Tools. You must make your own lists and you must manage your own lists. It doesn't have the options that LCR has to let you send a message to, for example, "Ward Council" without first manually setting up a list of ward council members in Member Tools. I think you will probably have to manually adjust the list when changes occur, but cannot verify that - I have never gone to the trouble to set up a manual list on Member tools.

While many have reported recent issues with the Send A Message tool, I have not had any issues using it. I have had a few undelivered but those appear to be valid (member likely changed their email address or their email address was edited by our ward clerk to prevent delivery of the message because they had requested no contact). It may be broken in some specific cases or regions, but I don't believe it is broken for everyone everywhere. I have my own personal opinions about possible reasons (I'm not in an IT field so they are just guesses), but my opinions on this are unpopular with some who claim this is a church problem that they don't care to fix so I'm now just keeping those opinions to myself.

[lajackson]

I think you will probably have to manually adjust the list when changes occur, but cannot verify that - I have never gone to the trouble to set up a manual list on Member tools.

While many have reported recent issues with the Send A Message tool, I have not had any issues using it.

If a member moves out of the unit, their name will drop off of a list you have built in Member Tools. Otherwise, everything needs to be manually adjusted for new callings and releases.

Send a Message works well for me most of the time, also, except for sending to certain domains.

[garystroble]

Member Tools is the mobile app where you are able to make a list and then use your own personal email to send to them.

For clarification, there are no pre-built lists in Member Tools. You must make your own lists and you must manage your own lists. It doesn't have the options that LCR has to let you send a message to, for example, "Ward Council" without first manually setting up a list of ward council members in Member Tools. I think you will probably have to manually adjust the list when changes occur, but cannot verify that - I have never gone to the trouble to set up a manual list on Member tools.

While many have reported recent issues with the Send A Message tool, I have not had any issues using it. I have had a few undelivered but those appear to be valid (member likely changed their email address or their email address was edited by our ward clerk to prevent delivery of the message because they had requested no contact). It may be broken in some specific cases or regions, but I don't believe it is broken for everyone everywhere. I have my own personal opinions about possible reasons (I'm not in an IT field so they are just guesses), but my opinions on this are unpopular with some who claim this is a church problem that they don't care to fix so I'm now just keeping those opinions to myself.

I just spoke to the GSC about another matter and also mentioned the email problem. The representative confirmed it is a church system issue (he also used the phrase "it is a pain") and the developers are supposed to be working on it. Hope that clarifies it for all here.

[sebastian.buck]

Developers have been supposed to work on this issue for years. And they very well might have been working on this issue for years. But this problem exists for such a long time that apparently the experts are either unable or unwilling to fix it.

[Hilohi]

I've also been having this issue with my emails from LCR not going through to some of our ward members. In my case, it's been happening with yahoo and gmail email addresses. We've had this issue before and it appears to randomly occur. As someone before me mentioned, it also appears to randomly fix itself. However, in my experience, when it does fix itself, the fix doesn't appear to apply to all of the email addresses that were affected. Hopefully, this issue can be fixed completely and permanently.

[cgiddley]

Bless you, Gary Stroble. I finally had to change my email address in the ward directory from a Yahoo address to a temporary Outlook address so I could even SEND an email via LCR. An agent at Yahoo told me that Yahoo was not blocking Church emails from being sent or received, as some in the forum suggested. I really didn't want to change my email address, but I couldn't delay meeting the obligations of my calling any longer. About a year ago, the same problem occurred with Yahoo and Hotmail email addresses, if I remember correctly -- at exactly the same time -- and the Church IT people finally fixed it because the issue was on their end, not on the end of the email providers. This time, the problem appears to be with all Yahoo, AOL and Comcast addresses -- once again, at exactly the same time. Once the Church IT people fix it again, I'll put my Yahoo address back in the directory. But I feel bad for all of the members who are missing out on the ward bulletin and all of the other important things that are sent via LCR. For some who are homebound or less active, these are the only communications they receive from their ward.

[chrispremo]

Not sure if it possible, but why not have the LCR system enable the "Send a Message" function to use the Current President and Bishopric positions in LCR to send mail. That way no matter when releases occur, you would always be sending to the current President/Bishopric member. After all, it is a permanent data field/position title. It all has to do with programming the process correctly. Shouldn't be that cumbersome/complicated.

[peachy727]

I send out a monthly newsletter to the Relief Society Sisters. In the past, after I send the email, I usually receive a "message confirmation" email to see if any emails were rejected, I also receive a copy of the email that I am sending out to everyone. I noticed as I sent my email on August 1st, I did not receive the confirmation nor the original email. I tried sending from my phone as well as in a computer. I also, logged out of all devices and restarted, but still nothing. Some people received multiple emails, while others, including myself, did not get any. I checked my spam folder as well. So I was just wondering if there were any issues that you had heard about? Please let ,me know. Thanks. I tried sending another email and same thing, the message was sent but I DID NOT receive myself.

[russellhltn]

So I was just wondering if there were any issues that you had heard about? Please let ,me know. Thanks.

You may want to read Yahoo inbox not receiving church emails.

[fredbloem]

Have you all stopped using the "Send a Message" function because it is so unreliable? We are considering using Google Groups instead. Any other solutions or workarounds?