temple icon color change.

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David Burns said: Please! Please! Please! change the color. I am disabled and unable to attend the temple but I want all my ancestors to be shared with the temple. Right now the way the colors are I cannot tell if the work is going to be done or not. I always use the descendancy view to decide if I need to do work on someone or send the name to the temple. It always worked before but no longer. Very frustrating.

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Dorothy Badger said: Julie's "hover" suggestion is what i have also suggested

the need to help everyone see the colors clearly would be a mute point if simply hovering over the ordinance could give complete information, no matter what the ordinance/color is - then we could go back to the colors that have always made sense ..... light gray, lime green, pale yellow, dark green, red ..... and those of us with no color distinguishing problems could continue being efficient with our time and not even have to "hover"

the policy of grabbing temple-reserved names would still be workable, if the red icon was enabled

it is interesting, reading these threads, to see how many different ways people have of looking for missing ordinances, and keeping track of them

thank you to all of the FS team who is trying to make it work for everyone

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JimGreene said: I would like for you all to know that we have heard you and your reasons for wanting us to go back to the prior colors. The reasons that make sense and blend in well to our future directions, we are doing those. We have changed the hue of the blue Icon indicating an ordinance is In Progress, so that it is not as close to the blue for hints. We are working on and will be releasing changes to the filtering and sorting of the reservation list so that printing of cards for those ordinances that you sort on will be easier. However, the green temple was never meant to be used as a way to sweep the tree and share names with the temple, it was intended originally to be a way to easily see ordinances that were ready that you could take to the temple. Ordinances that have been shared with the temple are now still available and ready to do until the time comes that the temple actually prints the card--something that may take years, depending on the ordinance. If it has been shared it is still available. I understand the argument that if a name has been shared then it gives you a feeling of completeness because it will be tracked until it is done, and you can rest easy. We developed Ordinances Ready to not only provide names for anyone going to the temple, but also to provide the feeling of completeness on any green temple. Each and every green temple icon will be done, sooner or later, and how soon depends on the number of people going to the temple performing ordinances, and on the number of people using Ordinances Ready.  Again, let me repeat. You can rest assured that if there is a green temple icon the work will be done, and over time much more quickly and efficiently--and done by family if at all possible. You now do not have to include reserving and sharing as steps in your workflow. We eliminated the need for those steps. And we allowed family members to find more family names through Ordinances Ready.  You can still go in and verify the information, complete the record, add sources and memories if they exist, merge duplicates if applicable--you can do all of those things, but you do not have to reserve and share.  A Green temple means it is available for temple work, and if you are not doing temple work yourself it means done, move on.  If you want a bigger challenge, look for Orange temple icons. Some of them are orange because they are restricted and the work cannot be done, but most of the orange temples mean that there is some piece of data missing so that they do not currently qualify to be green (cannot request), supply that missing data and they will be green and available.

Now some of you are saying, I want to find the green temples that need to be verified, and in so doing you are making the assumption that if they have already been shared then they have already been verified. Verified to whose standards? Your standards? The answer is most likely they are not verified. Verified to the temple qualification standard?  All green temples have been verified to the temple qualification standard. If you want to apply a higher standard you may, and the chances are that all green temples, whether previously shared or not, have not been qualified to your higher standard. So again, all green temples should be treated the same according to your workflow, just don't reserve and share at the end.

Thanks to all for sending in your feedback, please don't be discouraged, we are all on the same team.

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hthalljr said: The fact that FamilySearch patrons have been using the temple icons for purposes other than you intended might indicate that maybe you've been out of touch with your patrons. Surely a thorough field trial before going live with these sweeping changes would have alerted you to the coming disappointment.

I am very confident that very few people ever used the green icon to "sweep the tree and share names with the temple." We used it as the starting point for a thorough research effort.

And I do not share names with the temple just for a "feeling of completeness because it will be tracked until it is done, and you can rest easy." To me, "shared with the temple" has always meant "researched to the best of my ability," and I'm sure it's that way with most patrons. By taking away the red icon, you have taken the only way I have of signalling to others that a name has been thoroughly researched.

These days, hardly anybody who goes to the trouble of printing cards is doing "family names" for close relatives. We're lucky to find a name closer than a sixth cousin. Why not just practice what we preach, that everyone is our family, and let the temple handle most of our "family names?"

I just don't understand the emphasis on printing our own cards for anyone who is not a very close relative. Few people have card stock at hand, and a "card" printed on ordinary paper is floppy, hard to stuff in a pocket, and easily lost. Sure, it can be reprinted, provided you're aware that I've lost it. But the temple does a much more efficient job of printing cards and *not losing* them!

By introducing this intolerable ambiguity in the green icon, you are telling us that a name that is a possible opportunity, that may still need extensive research, is equal, in the eyes of FamilySearch, to a name that has undergone much painstaking research.

Haven't we been taught repeatedly, the importance, in setting goals, of measuring our progress? By taking away the red temple icon, you are taking away the important of monitoring our progress and are, indeed, taking away what ought to be a positive motivation.

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JimGreene said: Tracy, I really don't want to beat a dead horse, can I politely ask you to read all of the threads on this topic?  There are many, in fact very many, who say exactly that they search the tree for green temples to share with the temple. I'm not making that up.
Please also read the posts where I talk about genealogical standard and temple standard. Every single green icon means it has passed the temple standard and can have temple work done without any further data being added. If you or others choose to apply a higher standard that is your prerogative and you may do so, and chances are high that every green icon, and blue icon, and orange icon and even grey icon can have additional work done on it.
While it is important that we listen to our patrons and try to satisfy them, we also have a sacred charge to move the work forward in effective ways. These new changes are to do that. And there are more changes, many more changes to come.

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Samuel Ted Clement said: I completely agree, Tracy. When I share a name with the temple, it signifies that I've done all the research I can at this point on this name, and I feel confident they have not had temple work completed in the past. I never used the green icons to "sweep the tree" just to find names. I already have many more in my reserved list than I can complete anytime soon. The green icon was a good starting point, because, generally, if a person needed temple work, they usually didn't have a lot of sources attached. I am so frustrated that they have made it so much more difficult for the actual researchers to research the names quickly and efficiently.

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Jeff Wiseman said: Jim, Thanks for getting that summary back to us. In following all of the discussions on these topics, it does look (at least it does to me) like FS is providing some really good and eclectic improvements here!

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Eric J. said: Yep

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Eric J. said: I get what the intent is, but duplicate cards are going to go through the roof, along with duplicate names. I see all the time names that "have the green temple and are good to go"...until 20 seconds of research show that that person's stuff was already done, and there JUST wasn't enough info in both names for the duplicate function to pick them up. Please flag this comment for future reference, so you can thank me and tell me I was right in about 4-5 years after the stats prove how this could've been a way better "upgrade" than it was

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Tom Huber said: Ordinances ready will not pick up a name that has one or more possible duplicates. Neither will an attempt to reserve the ordinance if it was unreserved.

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David Burns said: Sorry to bother you about this topic again but I need to understand. If you do not want disabled people to click on "Share with temple" then why is the ability to do that still there? Also when this first started I did not under stand and continued to select that option but with those ordinances which someone else had done this it added my name as though I was not sharing it and it was difficult to remove me as some one who had reserved it. As I understand things now I will no longer ever click on "Share with Temple" I hope this is what you wanted or I still do not understand.

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JimGreene said: It is not a question of whether you are disabled or not, the ability to share an ordinance with the temple was provided for those who could not do all of the ordinances they had found. Sharing an ordinance with the Temple does no more to ensure it will be done than not sharing it. The purpose of the reservation list is to provide a way for patrons to organize the names and ordinances for those family members for whom they will be doing the work. The temple list was designed to be a fallback for those who want to attend the temple but do not have any family names. With the FamilySearch system we are devising ways to make it so that every member can come into the tree and find names whenever they want to go to the temple, in a sense we are trying to make it easy to find family names, and to prepare for the temple when you are going so that you know who you are going for before you go. It is our desire that over time the need for a temple list goes away. If you are unable to attend the temple personally there is no need to add names to the temple list, finding names that do not have ordinances that are ready to perform (green temple), and doing the work that is needed in order for the green temple to appear, is accomplishing a great thing and is helping your ancestors. Taking the extra step to share the ordinance with the temple is extraneous at this point. It simply does not need to be done. The ability to be able to share with the temple is still there because there are still people who have reserved more names than they can handle and like that option.  The temples still depend on having lists from sharing.

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David Burns said: Thank you for the comprehensive response.

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Samuel Ted Clement said: Tom, I think the problem Eric is talking about is that there are many people with green icons in the tree that don't have any possible duplicates. After you add a little more information, lo and behold, a possible duplicate shows up that often has work done (in my experience, usually from extraction work). If people don't take the time to add any more information, they'll take that name to the temple, spend time completing ordinances, and then someone later actually does research to find out that those ordinances have already been done. According to President Eyring, when familysearch was created, "The first presidency had set a goal of reducing the duplication of ordinances" (April 2020 General Conference, Sat evening session, paragraph 34). I'm afraid that pushing that "green means go" will result in sloppy "research" and a lot of duplicate names. Sure, people will be taking their "own" names more often, but there will be a lot of duplication of temple work.

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Eric J. said: That's EXACTLY what I'm saying, thank you! I don't think I speak the same language Tom does apparently

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Tom Huber said: Green means that the name has sufficient information to reserve and take the ordinances for that person to the temple.

While it is true that taking the name without doing any research will result in some duplication of ordinances, it is a far cry from what happened before, when the same ordinances for the person were performed over and over. This happened when submissions were done via the old 8-1/2 x 14 family group sheets.

Over the years, new systems have been introduced and the rules are now coded as part of the software. This has reduced the number of duplicate ordinances performed.

As far as available records that have not been incorporated, yes, that is true. I don't know, but I believe that a profile with an existing hint can still be reserved. If the reservation has been made and shared, we've been told that those will continue to exist -- that FS will not be running a routine to unreserve those profiles for which hints now exist or duplicates have been discovered, but not resolved.

So yes, we will still see some duplicate ordinances, but not a lot and hopefully, not nearly as many bad merges.

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Jeff Wiseman said: Samuel, I also believe in these things that you are talking about. However, the quote that you gave is a bit out of context though. The paragraphs before and after shouldn't be ignored. That goal that President Eyring referred to was many years ago and was the basis for the formation of FS and the initial construction of some of the FT databases. In the paragraph following the one quoted, he states "the task was accomplished". From what has been told to us here in the forum by FS employees, that amount of duplicate ordinance work has been reduced very significantly.

And remember that the concern the brethren had was "being unable to know whether a person’s ordinances had already been performed". Today, because of the current system, anyone that doesn't want to do duplicate work can (with a bit of research in the system) "know whether a person’s ordinances have already been performed". That was not possible before. If people want to avoid duplicate work, in general, they can.

But there are also other things that are important and can cause trade-offs. More quotes from that same talk:
"make FamilySearch user-friendly for those who were not comfortable with computers"
"help people gain feelings of familiarity and even love for their ancestors"
"young people are becoming computer mentors to their parents and ward members. All have found great joy in this service."
"The desire to serve our ancestors and the bonding of parents and children are growing"
So there is a "package" of requirements that the Lord has given us, and we've not even seen all of them yet ("we open the door for further revelation for advancements at least equally important but not yet seen").

So the reduction of duplicate work has been significantly reduced from when the original mandates were given to FS, and obviously further reduction is always a positive. But President Eyring really summed that up in this final quote of his:

"Even today, FamilySearch is becoming what the Lord needs for part of His Restoration—and not just for avoiding duplication of ordinances" (emphasis added)

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JimGreene said: David, As I re-read my statement I want to be certain you also understand that if you feel joy by sharing your ancestor's names to the temple, please, please continuing doing so. I do not mean to imply that we need to immediately stop sharing names with the temple. The temples still need names on their lists, and if you feel personally inspired to do this please continue. I perhaps opened the long-term view too far, but felt I needed to in order to explain why we made these incremental changes.

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R Greg Leininger said: i dont know what we have resolved here, other than some changes jim has indicated. Just to clarify my perspective, I am NOT going thru ancestral and descendancy lines, JUST TO FIND GREEN and then claim and share w temple, just to "meet a quota or get some numbers." Far from it.

but i do like to know from a glance if the green means they need work and are unreserved vs a diff green saying that they need work done but are shared w the temple already for anyone to claim.

I spend many hours daily going thru family lines, and most green ones are now shared w temple. My interest is not there. There is too many of them to research to try to see if the prior person (who shared that name w the temple), did a good verification.

There are still several names that are unreserved who, in my experience, tend to have many record sources to link that may modify that person;s vital statistics or lead to a merge. I find this less common w the ones that are now green but shared w temple.

I am just trying to find quickly (at a glance) ones that I am more likely to be able to contribute something meaningful that may lead to opening up the possibility for that poerson to get B/C/I/E or sealing work done.

In my experience the "shared w temple" persons, usually have fewer records still needing attachment. So I WOULD prefer knowing at a glance if a person is unreserved or shared w temple.

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Eric J. said: ESPECIALLY for those family trees of families who have been members since the early 1800s, and you can spend endless hours trying to find just 1 name. Finding a place to start in those trees is exponentially more difficult now that everything is green. There were several individuals that I would have liked to have train, but now not anymore

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hthalljr said: As long as "green means go," we will continue to have much needless duplication. I encounter a green record that turns into a duplicate about once a day.
Often FamilySearch discovers the duplicate automatically after I attach suggested sources that bring in correct dates, places, and relationships. (You do have to be careful not just to attach a source, but to go in and manually edit information that is corrected by the source.)
Interestingly, I receive occasional emails from FamilySearch that suggest a source that could be attached to a relative. Why not add this suggestion at the checkout counter? It would change the meaning of "green means go" to "green means proceed carefully."
How about a message like this?
"At least one additional source has been suggested for this individual. Sources can sometimes reveal duplicates. Are you sure you wish to proceed?"

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R Greg Leininger said: Jim: HELP!!!!!
You mentioned that you were asking the engineers to look at going back to two cclors, one for names that can be requested and are unreserved, and the other being one for names that are shared w temple but can be requested.

I was disappointed to see that the "new update" shows a dark green/aquamarine color for names to share w temple, but they have reverted back to making it so that no one else can request them. Why did they do this? All names that are shared w temple should be able to be "picked off" and claimed by anyone else.

Have I missed something here, because that is what it looks like to me. so a step backward in my mind. Can we get that fixed? You dont want to go back to the old system of having to send an email to someone asking them to release the name to yourself. HELP
PS I came back to this forum because I am concerned about this "update."

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Melissa L -dl- said: The new system that has green temples even though some one else has already reserved the work and shared it with the temple is very frustrating. I am wasting a lot of my limited research time going to peoples ordinance pages only to find the work is already reserved and shared with the temple. It was much better when shared with the temple was a different color so I could tell without going to the ordinance page for each individual in a family whether the work was reserved and shared. If we can not have it be a separate color then it at least needs to say "can request - shared with temple" when you hoover over the ordinances on the person thumbnails so that we don't waste valuable time going to each ordinance page and so we don't miss someone who wasn't already shared with the temple.

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Melissa L -dl- said: The new system that has green temples even though some one else has already reserved the work and shared it with the temple is very frustrating. I am wasting a lot of my limited research time going to peoples ordinance pages only to find the work is already reserved and shared with the temple. It was much better when shared with the temple was a different color so I could tell without going to the ordinance page for each individual in a family whether the work was reserved and shared. If we can not have it be a separate color then it at least needs to say "can request - shared with temple" when you hoover over the ordinances on the person thumbnails so that we don't waste valuable time going to each ordinance page and so we don't miss someone who wasn't already shared with the temple.

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Roger C. Nilsson said: Dear Brother Greene, I understand the change that has been made concerning the green icon and the need to clear the back log of reserved ordinances.

However, given the number of complaints you have received (including my own) about not being able to tell if the ordinance work has been previously reserved or shared with the temple I encourage you to reconsider adding a different color back or indicating the status some other way so users can quickly see if the work has not already been reserved or shared.

A couple of other points you might not have considered are:

1. I am retired and in my seventies and, not knowing how much longer I will be alive, it gives me great comfort to know that if I share ordinance work with the temple it is permanently saved until the work is done. I do not care if it is 5, 10, 15 or more years before the work is completed.

2. I am the only one in my family who is a member of the church, doing genealogy work and attending the temple. I have no one I can share the ordinance work with.

3. I live some distance away from a temple so, although I would love to, it would be impossible for me to do all of the work for my ancestors that needs to be done.

Thank you for all that you and others do to move this work forward.

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Tom Huber said: On the color. A number of days ago, someone suggested two tones of green -- one to indicate that there was at least one unreserved ordinance, the other to indicate that all ordinances were reserved and shared.

I am a lot like you -- first convert to the Church, but what I found is that as I go further back in time, the descendants of my ancestors have already submitted many names to the temple, going back some 80 years.

When you share ordinances with the temple, they are then available for anyone to do through the new system. That is the backlog that Brother Greene said needs to be done.

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Tom Huber said: The two-tone green color has been passed up to the council that makes the decisions regarding temple-related portions of FamilySearch. I am hoping that they adopt a two-toned approach, one that alerts us when one or more ordinances are ready, but have not been reserved and shared with the temple.

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Cassie Roundy said: Brothers Nilsson and Huber,
I cannot agree with you more. I truly hope they make two colors of green for the two types of ancestors.

I'd like to make the following observations that may or may not influence the decision: that there are basically 3 types of patrons using FS and the temple:
1. Those who do not do FS and just want a family name to take to the temple. The new system of making all Shared names available on FS with the green icon is great for them.
2. Those who use FS in Descendency mode and do as many ordinances in the temples that they can and submit the rest to the Temple System. This is very much like Brother Nilsson.
3. Those who only use FS to find names and Share them all with the Temple System and do none of the work themselves.

(Actually, we are all in type 3 at this time since the temples are closed.)

I don't think that making green mean two things will have much of an effect on motivating more people to be in group 1. We either attend the temple or we don't, and making it more difficult to find names of ancestors who have never been found will not motivate us to have more temple attendance.

I myself am in type 2. I currently have over 5000 names printed that I accumulated after the temples were closed and before the advent of green means 2 things. I attend the temple 8 to 12 hours per day, 5 days a week.

I like to do 100 to 150 baptisms at a time, which I could do during the hours that other patrons were not arriving, and the temple workers were idle. So, I can probably get my baptisms done in a month of so.

Then I usually do 3 to 4 endowments per day, 5 days per week, to prepare people so that they have their sealings done in order.

I also like to go to a temple where I can spend 50% or more of my time in the sealing rooms doing my sealings. Thus I can get 500 or so done in 2 to 3, 12 hour days, from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. That will get my sealings done in a few months. (Once I have the endowments done.)

I don't want to focus on orange icons. I am 81 years old and am not a genealogist. I also don't want to be a type 1 person because finding the names of lost ancestors and taking them from baptism to SS is highly motivating to me, much more motivating than reserving Shared names and finishing the work for them, which will eventually be done anyway,.

Green means 2 things has greatly inhibited finding new names that have never been submitted to the temples. Having 2 colors of green would greatly accelerate finding new names.

I hope this is not too long to be of any value.
Thanks,
Carlos B. Roundy

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JimGreene said: Brother Nilsson, first, thank you for your kind manner in presenting your points, I truly appreciate that. Second, please know that when I present a contrary viewpoint it is not because what you wrote was without merit, it is simply an attempt to explain why we did what we did and how it might fit into what we are still planning on doing but are not at liberty to discuss yet.  I can tell you that we have heard the feedback from everyone, and whether to have 2 shades of green has not been decided yet. Since I do not know the final decision I am going to reply as if it is not to have 2, but there is still a chance that the decision could go in favor of 2.
1. Your point one does not contain the full story. I fear you are drawing your conclusions from partial facts. The fact is that once a person has been entered into the Family Tree, with enough information that we turn their temple ordinance icons green, that is every bit as much of a guarantee that the work will be done as it is to put it on the temple list.  I cannot give you time frames, because they will be different for every person and every family. But having it out there in the tree, qualified for temple work is enough, you do not have to share it with the temple to get that assurance.  That is why we have temple icons, that is why we have green icons that mean "Available to take to the temple."  you are right, it may take 5, 10 or 15 years, or more, but it will happen.
2. There are many people who feel they are the only member of the church, my own wife used to fall into that category, until just recently we found other distant relatives who we would never have known otherwise, whose life's journey also let them to the gospel, and to the Family Tree. If you have ever been in a large meeting and used the Relatives Around Me app on your phone, you would recognize that who you know and who exists are very different things. If you are finding green temples that have already been shared, then it proves there are others in your line also doing the work. Again, why I say, the temple work will be done.
3. There are still many folks who live too distant from the temple to do all the work themselves. That is why we are writing the program the way we are. Share it with family. No family? share it with your ward, or you stake family. (These features are coming). Reserve what you can do, and let others do what they can do. It will get done.

And thank you for all you are doing to get this great work done. We have been asked to plan for exponential growth, so we are looking for ways to keep it easy and to keep it moving.

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R Greg Leininger said: Roger and Cassie, I agree with you both fully. You both make good cases for why MANY of us want to have different colors for names ALREADY shared w the temple and names of persons who are unreserved.

Jim you make a statement that I still do not fully understand. You said "The fact is that once a person has been entered into the Family Tree, with enough information that we turn their temple ordinance icons green, that is every bit as much of a guarantee that the work will be done as it is to put it on the temple list. I cannot give you time frames, because they will be different for every person and every family. But having it out there in the tree, qualified for temple work is enough, you do not have to share it with the temple to get that assurance. "

You imply that once a name is in the system w a green icon, that their work will get done, the same as another person whose name is shared w the temple. How is that? I have seen names w green icons as unreserved persons who have been there for years. Yes it is true that names shared w the temple may also take years. But I feel that at least their B/C and initiatory work will get done way faster if shared w the temple as opposed to just being left as unreserved. If they at least get their B/C work done, then, as one Fam Search online chat helper shared w me her personal opinion, that w their B/C work done, "they now get out of spiritual prison!" Nice thought right? So let's speed that up a bit.

I dont see how an unreserved name w a green icon will get their B/C work done quicker than a name that is green but shared w the temple. How is that? Below I have copied and pasted my post from 3 weeks ago, of an experiment that I carried out w about 120 names that I watched for over 8 months. For all readers, please see below. Jim, as you and others read this, I ask you: Has anyone else done this type of experiment to either support what I believe or contradicts it?

"...some of us find names from census record links but have too many to take to the temple ourselves. You can do one of two things:
1. you share that name w temple, or
2. you unreserve the name and hope that someone else will come along who has the time to do it NOW.

I did an "experiment" for about 8 months, where I had 10 male/female names for each ordinance and shared w temple. I kept them in one pouch to monitor.

I then took a similar number of male/female names for each ordinance, and unreserved them as green icons for anyone to reserve. But I kept them in another pouch to montior later.

8 months later, about 60% of the "shared w temple" persons had their baptisms and confirmations done by then, yet only 1 of the "unreserved" group had been claimed and had their baptism/confirmation done in the same time period.

so it appeared better to me to share all my names w the temple, assuming they would get done sooner. So it is helpful to me if the green icon is for names shared w temple OR unreserved names, not both.

If already reserved w the temple, i dont want to open up that profile, but if it is unreserved, then i will, in order to correct any potential errors, link any new records and then share w temple. I think their work will get done sooner than leaving them unreserved.

So a diff color icon to tell between shared w temple and unreserved helps, so i dont "waste my time" opening up the names of 8 kids in a family, only to see that they have already been shared w the temple...."