Tech Forum

Are there Church apps that can replace the Sign-UpGenius.com and surveymonkey.com apps that church leaders are wont to utilize? I truly dislike having to sign up with these sites that send so much spam email and collect data in order to interact with the sisters in my ward's Relief Society. Thank you!

theaccompanist1 wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2024 7:24 am Are there Church apps that can replace the Sign-UpGenius.com and surveymonkey.com apps that church leaders are wont to utilize? I truly dislike having to sign up with these sites that send so much spam email and collect data in order to interact with the sisters in my ward's Relief Society. Thank you!

This has been a recurring topic in the Forum, and my perspective is that the Church is unlikely to provide any official app for members/leaders to use for this purpose. That said, we're not connected to the Church's planning or implementation teams, so Forum members are on the outside of any official information about this.

So we're in the same boat as you, having a need for online signups, but limited to what's available online. And freeware will almost always come with ads. Additionally, as you're likely aware, there's real privacy concerns with placing member information in 3rd-party sites (even if I don't think that sharing a name and email is a big deal, there may be other ward members who are very against that).

Perhaps another Forum member can point to a less-intrusive online signup app that meets your needs.

Thank you!

The tools available supplied by the Church are:

"Send a Message" in LCR, but some domains reject it's emails.

There's also "circles" in Gospel Living. But it requires members to have a compatible smart phone and can't include non-members.

I think there's also SMS within the Member Tools app, but due to limitations from the phone company, there tends to be a limit as to how many you can send a message to at one time.

russellhltn wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2024 1:40 pm "Send a Message" in LCR, but some domains reject it's emails.

Are there still domains rejecting those emails? I thought that had been fixed.

jonesrk wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 2:08 pm Are there still domains rejecting those emails? I thought that had been fixed.

I hadn't heard any announcement that it was fixed.

The complaints have died down. But I don't know if it's been fixed or because everyone affected knows about it already.

But I also have the feeling that the problem might have been unit or sender specific. A number of people complained that gmail didn't work, and yet I had no problems receiving message on my gmail.

That said, I haven't seen a message for some time. Now I'm starting to wonder. I wish there was a way I could see what all was broadcast to me so I could verify if I'm missing anything. I pointed out to my bishop a event that required individuals to respond by next Sunday and suggested he might want to do a Send a Message. he did respond to my email, but I haven't seen any "broadcast" messages. (I do have "Local Leader" checked on my subscriptions.)

jonesrk wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 2:08 pm

russellhltn wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2024 1:40 pm "Send a Message" in LCR, but some domains reject it's emails.

Are there still domains rejecting those emails? I thought that had been fixed.

It's been supposedly fixed more than once and yet still has some non-delivery issues.

The new thing I saw in our ward quite recently is a number of email addresses were all inexplicably marked unsubscribed en mass one day, my guess is by the developers. This is besides the ones which had already personally opted out of emails from leaders.

Doing analysis on these new opt outs, it points to them not opening their Church emails as most of them are less active. So I suppose the Church got nasty-grams from the ISP's about emails sent regularly but never opened.

garystroble wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 2:41 pm Doing analysis on these new opt outs, it points to them not opening their Church emails as most of them are less active. So I suppose the Church got nasty-grams from the ISP's about emails sent regularly but never opened.

Alternative theory - they didn't go into their subscriptions and select "Local Leader". I know when that option appeared for me, it was unchecked. I'm not sure how the default was determined.

I've never heard of ISPs complaining about emails that aren't opened.

russellhltn wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 3:22 pm

garystroble wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 2:41 pm Doing analysis on these new opt outs, it points to them not opening their Church emails as most of them are less active. So I suppose the Church got nasty-grams from the ISP's about emails sent regularly but never opened.

Alternative theory - they didn't go into their subscriptions and select "Local Leader". I know when that option appeared for me, it was unchecked. I'm not sure how the default was determined.

I've never heard of ISPs complaining about emails that aren't opened.

Possibly, though I doubt all of our active members have checked the local leader box. But with either theory, it happened without any notice or explanation from the IT department. And of course they have it now that nobody but the members can go in and enter a new email address without the flag going up that leaders' emails are not subscribed to. Even the Global Service Center folks were surprised by that one. The data privacy department won that discussion I was told by the GSC/D.