It's really nice to see the new "Activity Sharing" feature, and I'm wholly on board with its possibilities.
However, I think the real battle is getting local unit and stake leaders to fully and completely implement all the digital calendaring tools, many that have existed for some time. I became a Ward Website Administrator in 2007 and have carefully followed the development of these tools over the years. I've served in this position in many different units. Well, I should say I have TRIED to serve in this position in many different units. I've largely failed. I've not been able to get the stakes to do some very basic things, nor have I had any luck in training local unit leaders or getting them to support me in any significant way.
In 2022 and updated in 2023, I wrote a comprehensive series on the calendaring tools which is still relevant. Church guidance details how the tools are manipulated but does not address best practices or implementation, which I cover. See:
https://kristacook.blogspot.com/2022/11 ... -nots.html (Note: My blog is NOT monetized.)
Many problems in units could be solved if the tools were implemented and used properly. The most basic things stakes/units haven't done yet are the following:
1. Called and enabled a Building Scheduler. Building-only events could then be removed from stake/ward/branch websites including building cleaning and private events that involve only a few.
2. Customized the locations and rooms feature. If every room in a meetinghouse were able to be scheduled, building scheduling would be simplified and streamlined. The default list only includes the rooms that every meetinghouse shares. This list is horribly inadequate and most stakes/units are still stumbling along with it still.
3. Get meetings, especially leadership meetings, off of the public calendars and onto the private calendars feature. Ordinary members shouldn't have to read about Ward Council or High Councilman meetings. Only people they affect should have to see them on their calendars.
4. Use an abbreviation/acronym before each ward event to identify which unit the event belongs to.
5. Put all the details for events online. Brief descriptions with a handful of words and a bunch of abbreviations and acronyms are a holdover from the paper system when we had limited space.
All of this is covered in the instructions on the Help Center but few actually read it, they wing it instead. If the Church's guidelines were followed, people wouldn't be assaulted with a bunch of events that don't apply to them and have no relevance to them, cluttering up the calendars and making it difficult to figure out what is going on.
Okay, I'm off of my soapbox.
I don't have that link because it defaults to my home ward, of which I don't have a calling as I serve out of unit in the YSA bishopric (which is under another stake). Soo.. how do I change the ward that the 'My Home' landing page goes to? If there is a way I can swap that to the ward I am actually serving in, it would be interesting to see if the website link shows up.
Love this feature! Been waiting for something like this for a while.
Also, I didn’t know we could customize the Unit Description, Welcome Message, and even add video—super helpful. One minor thing: the meeting times default to "Gospel Study" for the second hour, which is solid, but maybe an option to show Elders Quorum or Relief Society on alternating weeks would be useful? And maybe even contact info for EQ/RS presidents (if we’re not getting too far in the weeds).