The site looks very nice. I couldn't get the reports to work but I was
able to see how to enter in the visit information. Other than the
"security" issue you mentioned above about everyone seeing the comments,
the other concern I have is does this program encourage (indirectly) EQ
presidencies and HP group leaders to not talk with their companionships
about how the family is doing, instead relying on what is typed in the
comments field?
Tom
Greg Hart wrote:
Hi All-
I understand the Church may be planning to develop an official online
system for tracking/reporting Home and Visiting Teaching, integrated
into MLS and the local unit web sites? Below is a pointer to an
unofficial one that has been in use in my stake for a few years now.
It has proven itself simple but effective. I was not the original
developer of it, nor do I have his OK right now to offer the code. The
system was originally designed as a *temporary* solution until the
Church released an even better, official version, which we were told
was slated for late 2006 or 2007.
I'm sharing it here as a proof-of-concept, just to encourage
discussion from those of you who have also put your head around this
problem, have maybe seen an even better implementation, and may have
some "lessons learned" to share with any listening ears at the Church.
I work for a tech/entertainment company where developers are
constantly being reminded to involve the end-users early-on in the
specification and design of a tool, rather that just asking users for
their feedback after their done (or worse, releasing and not asking).
I think it's an invaluable lesson. I suspect, though maybe others can
confirmed, that not many ward and stake clerks were involved in the
design of MLS, which is unfortunate, though I am grateful for MLS for
what it is.
Here's a mock ward. Go ahead and submit reports and generate summaries.
1) Go to: http://www.queezy.com/ht/
2) Submit an bogus report for a companionship,
3) Lastly, go here: http://www.queezy.com/ht/admin/ and view your
comments you just submitted at "Generate a Report". The admin
password is
"LDSOSS". If you look at Septembers report, most of the comments are
copied and pasted from actual reports from my ward (of course,
changing the names to protect the innocent).
How it works:
Companionships and assignments are made in MLS, and exported once per
month via the standard "HomeTeaching.csv" and "VisitingTeaching.csv"
files. The CSV file is uploaded once per month to the system through
the admin page. Admin's can enable or disable reporting for each
month. Users have until the 10th of the month before the "default"
month switches to the current month (although you can still report for
any month that is "enabled"). It tracks visit history, very similar
to MLS, only leaders don't have to manually do it like in MLS. (The
demo only has two months of historical data!) The confidential
month-end report gets passed on to the Bishop.
I believe the strength of the system is the month-end report that you
can generate on the Admin page which includes home or visiting
teachers' comments. In addition, presidencies like it because
gathering reports is much less time consuming and the usefulness of
the reports is much higher.
It could sure use tighter integration into MLS and the ward web
sites. Because of the bottle-neck that the ward computer tends to be,
companionships and assignments should really be made editable via the
ward website in addition to MLS, sync'ed.
Also, right now the assignments are viewable to the entire
quorum/group. It would be better if the web site knew who you were
when you logged in and gave you access only to your assignment.
Unless that is, you've been given privilages to edit companionships
and assignments, but currently, levels of privilages based on one's
Church calling, is a concept missing from the ward websites.
Maybe others have ideas as well.
Let me know if this raises any questions or I can help explain
anything further,
-Greg
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