ysa-lds.org
Ward Management System is software for the leaders of a congregation. It keeps track of who is in the ward and how to reach them, what needs doing and who is doing it, and — through Ward Appointments — when members are meeting with their bishop.
This site is public. Nothing on it requires a login. If you are reviewing our text messaging programme, the whole consent experience — the wording, the unticked boxes, screenshots of both screens — is set out at how people agree to texts.
A bishopric runs a congregation of a few hundred people, most of whom move in and out over a year or two. Ward Management System is where that information lives: the roster and where people live, the callings and who holds them, the Sunday meeting schedule, attendance, and the reports leaders need to notice who has stopped coming.
The application is used by the leaders of a ward, who sign in with Google: a ward is set up for its bishopric, and only email addresses that ward has recorded can open it. This website is not part of that. Everything here — what the business does, what it sends by text, and exactly how somebody agrees to receive it — is public and needs no account, no password and no sign-in of any kind.
Ward Appointments is the part of the system that lets a member book a short meeting with their bishop instead of trading messages to find a time. A bishopric sets out the hours they are willing to meet and the kinds of appointment they offer; a member opens their ward's website, confirms who they are with a code, and picks from the times that are genuinely open.
So that it does not offer a time the bishop is not free, and so that a booked appointment appears on his calendar without anyone retyping it.
Exactly what is requested, what is done with it, and how long anything is kept is set out in the privacy notice.
Ward Appointments can send a few text messages around an appointment. It is a small, entirely transactional programme — there is no marketing, no promotion, and nobody is texted who has not asked to be.
By ticking a box that starts unticked. A member ticks it on the booking page of their own ward's website; the executive secretary ticks it on a consent screen inside the ward's leader app. Neither is required: a member who leaves it unticked still books online and gets their code and reminder by email instead, and a secretary who does not agree receives the check-in by email.
Both of those pages sit behind a ward's own access question, because they are for the members of one congregation rather than the public. So the whole consent experience — the wording, the unticked box, both screens — is set out in full on the consent flow page.
The full terms are in the SMS terms, and what is collected and kept is in the privacy notice.
Questions about the application, or about information it holds, go to support@ysa-lds.org.