Beta Testers

Confused about where to start?  Let’s break it down.

What to test, and how.

Beta Testing Mission

The purposes for beta testing of this site:

1. Get user feedback on usability
2. Find errors
3. Ensure that required functions are included
4. Optimize how things are done

Usability:

We want to hear if something is hard to use, or does not function as intended.  Using the Issue/Request Feedback form, you can help us with your feedback.  You can use this form to also request features that do not exist (or maybe you have just not found yet!).  If you want to leave some general feedback on the site of on the project you can use the General Feedback Form.

Find Errors

If there are features that do not work, or do not work as intended, please let us know.  If this is specific to a feature on the Feature Test List, it is preferred to use the Feature Test Result Form.  Otherwise you can use the Issue/Request Feedback Form.

Ensure Inclusion of Required Functions

We have tried to think through the process of setting up schedules and all that it entails.  We might have missed something.  If you feel that to be the case, let us know what you think would be the best way to do it.  We welcome your thoughts.  We will use this input to either adapt an existing functionality in the site or create a new one that addresses the gap identified.

Optimize How Things are Done

We want to make the job of setting up schedules as easy as possible.  Optimization of the number of clicks, scrolls, page changes, and data entry is important to achieve this.  While there may be reasons some extra clicks are necessary, we want to hear your thoughts of where things could be streamlined as well as any ideas you might have on how this could be done better.

Some Relevant Details in Approach to Beta Testing

Notifications

We are trying together to make sure things work.  Receiving notifications for a given function are one way to verify the test of that function.  For example, when creating a new Service Appointment and submitting it, a pastor will get a notification of the service request.  Seeing that this notification got sent and that the information contained it is correct is an important verification and is needed to ensure that testing is complete.

There are 5 Test User accounts set up for pastors, DGMDs, SGMDs (Section Global Missions Directors), and missionaries.  These are intended to help capture the notifications by forwarding them to the development team.  If you would like to test a function like this, we can do one of two things:

1. Forward the email notification to you.  The best way to do this is to put your email address in the “Description” field of the service.  Otherwise we may not know to whom to send the email.
2. Let us know you want to do testing, and we can set you up to be included in the mail forwarding for that user.  For example, we could add your email to “Test Pastor4” and whenever notifications come to that pastor, you will receive a copy of that notification.  Note that you would also get notifications incurred by other users sending them that pastor account.

When you receive the notifications you know the function is working.

You can also simply use the users (for example, and preferably) in your district to do testing. This would mean that these pastors would receive the notifications.  They currently look like (Jan 2024):

… so that they know that this is for testing.  Of course, as you might already appreciate, this may be OK to do once or twice, but doing it 10x per day might be a little annoying.  Therefore, for frequent testing of a function, the above methods of forwarding the notifications would be better.

For missionaries, the same idea applies.  It may be less critical, as there will usually be less missionaries involved in the overall scheme of things than pastors.  Therefore, macro schedules can be set up with Test User missionary users in most cases.

There will be a time when beta testing is in full-swing and a majority of the issues are resolved, where these notification emails can actually be used for promotional purposes, just to let people know what is going on.

Ideas or comments?  Please leave them below in the comments section.

What is a Church in GMDeputation.com?

We do not delineate between Autonomous churches and Daughter Works – both of these are able and encouraged to support missionaries.  However, it is not very common for Preaching Points to be part of the deputation process.  If a DGMD and pastor agree to include a preaching point, however, it is possible to include it also.  Any church that is included in the GMDeputation.com system for scheduling services should be in the position to give an offering to the deputizing missionary and to take on PIMs and to support missionaries on an on-going basis.

All appointments are created with CHURCHES and not with individual pastors, in the way GMDeputation is set up.  The address of the church is therefore defined as the physical location of the church building where services are held, where the missionary should arrive.  Any PO Box delivery addresses can be included under the Mailing Address in the church add/edit screen.

The primary way to connect a Pastor to a Church is through the USER EDIT screen.  A consideration is being weighed on being able to do this from the CHURCH EDIT screen as well.  If you think this is a good idea, please let us know!

Big Picture – Creating Deputation Schedules

Just getting started?  Looking for something and not finding it?

Getting a Overview

Where to I start?

Here is an overview of the process with links to the respective articles for detail:

1. DGMD: Create a Macro Schedule and Approve it.  Macro Schedules are generally created by Headquarters, and will most times be imported from the Globalmissions.com website on a monthly basis.  Then you would just need to approve it.
2. Create Missionary Services within the Macro Schedule
3. The Pastor approves the Services.
4. Look for confirmations from the respective pastors for each service.
5. Look up the Missionary Service List and verify the status on the right of each line
6. Follow up with Pastors to make sure they approve the services at their respective churches.
7. A pastor may elect to have you approve the service for him.  When contacting a pastor, if it seems there may be difficulties or delays in approving services, this may be a practical way to get the schedules finalized.

From here there are other processes related to changes that may occur to Missionary Deputation Schedules, cancellations, etc.  See below for a quick overview and als search for “Schedule Changes” in the help site for more.

Here is a quick video overview of the process from start to finish.

Creating Appointments (Services)

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Start at the Beginning

What is an Appointment?

An Appointment is a single service in a Missionary Deputation schedule.  It is contained within a Macro Schedule, and specifies the following:

• Church
• Date
• Time (Service time)
• Notes

Creating an Appointment

A DGMD creates these appointments by selecting the Macro Schedule in which to plan it.  Here are the steps:

1. Go to the Missionary Services within the Appointment menu.
2. Click on Add New
3. Determine whether you want to schedule a Service or an Offering Only (which can also be an informal meeting with the missionary).
4. Find the Macro Schedule by filtering the list, typing in part of the description.
5. Enter the date of the service to be scheduled.  Note that the available dates in the Macro Schedule show in black, with other dates outside this range showing in gray.
6. View the pins on the map, and select one or select the name of the church in the “Church ” field or click on one of the green pins to view the name and other details of the church.  Red pins denote churches that do not have a service on the selected date.
    
7. Select the service on that day.
8. Enter a short description in the description field.
9. From here either Save or you can add more services into the Macro Schedule – on different times on the same day, or different days.Essentially this should be the full schedule of the missionary for that time period in the district.
10. When saved, a confirmation should display.
11. Now you should be able to look up the entered appointment(s) in the list, using the filter function:
12. With each of these appointments, a notification is automatically sent to the pastor of the associated churches.  Once he confirms it, a notification will be sent back to you, the DGMD, and also to the missionary.

Macro Schedules

Just getting started?  Looking for something and not finding it?

Start at the Beginning

What is a Macro Schedule?

A Macro Schedule is a single line of a Missionary Deputation Schedule.  It contains the following information:

• Missionary
• District
• Start Date
• End Date
• Notes

This is a direct output of the deputation schedule that UPCI Headquarters, Global Missions Division generates.  Essentially, when a missionary goes on deputation, he has a Deputation Schedule, and a series of Macro Schedules.

Macro Schedules can be IMPORTED by the GMDeputation admins.  These are generally taken from the GlobalMissions.com website or from the Global Missions Division in some other fashion and then imported using an Excel file.  However, it may be necessary for a DGMD to create new macro schedules for missionaries deputizing in his district.

Creating a Macro Schedule

Here are the steps involved in creating a new Macro Schedule:

1. Make sure the Missionary is in the User Database by looking him or her up in the User
2. Go to the Appointment menu
3. Click on Missionaries in District
4. Click Add New at the top menu
5. Enter all of the information required as indicated with the Arrows, and then click Save.
6. Verify that the record was added by looking it up (a good reason to give a good description when creating a Macro Schedule!)
7. Now your Macro Schedule is ready to receive appointments!

Have a look at the whole process with some tips:

From here you can go to the instructions for Creating Appointments.

Conclusion

User Info

Just getting started?  Looking for something and not finding it?

Start at the Beginning

Getting Started

The user information is found using the user menu/icon on the left navigation menu.

From here, click on “List of Users” in the menu.

Then, search for a record by either filtering by district (note that the user list is usually pre-filtered for just the User’s district) or by searching for ANY text within the data – Name, Church, City, District, etc.  Then click on the blue pen icon on the right of the given user.

Notice that there is a user information area and a church information area in the form.  Here user information can be update and churches can be associated with the user.

And here is a video tour of the User form: