Sharing of temple names

lfhall

I have reserved ordinances for my ancestral names in Sweden. Some of these names were previously already shared with the temple system. I reserved them to do as many were in my line and I have a family group of relatives who are interested in doing this temple work.

I have found however that this message appears under these names and that I cannot put them into my family group.

"Ordinances that were previously shared with the temple cannot be shared again."

I have many family members who would willingly do these ordinances. Can you please change the policy or the computer programing so that these names can be freely done.

Brent Allen Glad

Yes. I totally agree. It doesn't make sense that we cannot share them with our groups. There is a limited time to complete them (120 days), so I am left to try and do them myself when others in the groups would help. What is the reason for this rule?

Amy Archibald

@lfhall @Brent Allen Glad

When you get this message, this means that you have reserved an ordinance (for 120 days) that has been shared to the temple by another user. You cannot share it with another process (a group) since it is still shared with the temple and you have in essence just printed it from the shared with temple list. You can record that ID of that person and share the ID with others in your family group and let them know that they could reserve/print it from the shared temple list. Then you don't have to reserve it yourself if you can't complete it in 120 days.

Gordon Collett

This is such a common request, it does seem like the ability to move a 120 day reservation to a family group should be implemented.

Family Groups do seem to be most valuable for families where there are shared roles with some members primarily doing research and adding names to family tree, some members primarily harvesting green icons, and some members primarily going to the temple.

Allowing the shift of 120 day ordinances from one's personal reservation list to the family group reservation list would let the second and third groups each do what they do best.

Chas Howell

Right, I don't see why allowing sharing to the Group with the same 120 day time restriction would be a problem?

Alan E. Brown

Each ordinance can have at most one primary reserver (the user who originally reserved the ordinance, which generally expires in 2 years) and one secondary reserver (the user who picked up an ordinance shared with the temple, or a group -- expires in 120 days).

This suggestion, although it may seem reasonable on its face, would put a secondary reserver who wants to share in the role of a primary reserver. There would need to be two primary reservers (or two secondary reservers, depending on how you look at it). That's quite a complication that the system just can't handle now.

Of course it could be done, but it would require a significant overhaul of the data structure and the systems that support it. Most importantly, it would also complicate the user interface, and the ordinance reservation system is already the most complicated UI in FamilySearch. Is that worth it? Balancing feature benefits with development costs and user experience complexity is one of the thorniest questions a producer manager faces.

Gordon Collett

@Alan E. Brown The programmers have done some pretty amazing things. I'm confident that they could figure something out.

Based on:

• The frequency of the request on these boards for this feature which is something like three or four times a month and that is only by users who know about these boards.
• The vague impression that there is a very high number of people who seem to spend 90% of their time on Family Tree adding names and sharing them with the temple but can rarely if ever get to the temple.
• The vague impression that there is a very high number of people who seem to spend 90% of their time on Family Tree only working to find green temple icons but can rarely if ever get to the temple.
• The vague impression that there is a very high number of people who won't touch Family Tree with a ten foot pole and only take family names to the temple when someone else gives names to them but go to the temple very often and find it awkward to do five endowments a day using Ordinances Ready.
• The readily apparent frustration of the icon seeking group when they find so many green temple with clock icon ordinances for their family that they themselves cannot complete and that they cannot efficiently get to the temple-going group in their family.

It does seem worth the development costs. Particularly since the reservation system is so complex. I would not be surprised if taking a fresh look at the reservation system with the intent of making secondary sharing to a family group possible and working backwards to the very foundations of the reservation system that the software engineers would discover ways to simplify the entire system and make it work even better than it does now.