New icon colors

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Kenny Mazzanti said: With the change in temple ordinance icons it is difficult to know why some ordinances that are shared with the temple can be reserved while others cannot be reserved. Differentiating those would make the process simpler.

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Eric J. said: Agreed

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Jordi Kloosterboer said: I haven't come across that yet. Could you share an example of that?

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Jeff Wiseman said: I haven't played with this too much yet, but I do know that if an ordinance shared with the temple has been printed at a temple, no one else should be able to grab it at that point.

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Tom Huber said: Here is what happens when a shared name has been printed:

On the Temple Page:


Going to the person's ordinance page reveals this:


The person who has the reservation likely used Ordinance Ready to obtain the name (the expiration is due to the temples being closed for vicarious work and so is being pushed out).

The Temple Icon on the Temple page replaced the checkbox, so nothing can be done on the Temple page.

The Print, Share, and Unreserve buttons are grayed out, so they cannot be used on the person's ordinance page.

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Jeff Wiseman said: FS does seem to be making good efforts at providing the extra details now. The "shared with temple" red icon is not needed at the colored icon level because the color of the icon is just a general status and note the specifics of where it is in the status. A Blue icon just means it is "In Progress". That might mean that someone has reserved it, it is in the temple queue, it's been reserved through ordinances ready, or someone has printed the card for it. These are all "Ordinances In Progress" type conditions. You have to now think about the color differently and look to the text for the details if needed.

It looks to be an improvement, but we'll all have to get used to it first and see if there are any information "Holes" that need to be filled.

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Eric J. said: I've already found bugs, see my other thread

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JimGreene said: Ordinances that have been shared with the temple will either be blue, meaning that they are in someone's queue (it could be the temple's queue, meaning that the temple has printed it, and it will say that under the icon; or it could be in someone's personal queue or list, and it will give the contact name of that person); or they will be green, meaning that anyone can take them.

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Earl Garrett Morris said: Why change the existing colors to new ones. Requires users to get used to different colors that mean nothing different from the old colors. Seems the FS staff needs something to do so they make these changes to confuse the user population.

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Jeff Wiseman said: The original comment that kenny made was:

it is difficult to know why some ordinances that are shared with the temple can be reserved while others cannot be reserved

However, his suggestion for how to resolve this difficulty:

Differentiating those would make the process simpler

as he wrote it has already been implemented. If the icon is Green, you can reserve it. Period. "Differentiating between ordinances that are shared with the temple that can be reserved and others that cannot" is done by simply looking at the color of the icon. That was part of the intended "simplifications" recently added to the icon coloring. You don't have to understand WHY some are reservable and some are not in order to differentiate between them.

The only important thing to remember here is that there is an exception to this (perhaps oversimplified) rule. If you have shared the ordinance to the temple yourself, (i.e., it is Blue), but it has not been printed or reserved by someone else yet, you can Unshare that ordinance which will return it to the reserved state for yourself.

You have now reserved the record for yourself even though it was not green, but not so strange when you realize that you had already reserved it before in order to share it with the temple.

Now if what you were REALLY asking is for the ability to see and understand the reason why some ordinances that are shared with the temple can be reserved while others cannot, then that is a different subject suitable for a different topic thread.

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Jeff Wiseman said: The ability to reserve an ordinances for someone who has been shared with the temple by somebody else is a new, and VERY useful feature. If FS attempted to do this using the old meanings of the icon colors, they would have needed to add even MORE colors to represent all of the new states that ordinance could be in, and it would all be MUCH more confusing. By making slight changes to the meanings of one or two colors, they were able to reduce the total number of colors necessary, and simply things to a degree. This is not just a change in colors, it is support needed to allow the new features in ordinance handling that they've put in.

There are obviously some issues that still need adjusting, but I think the change in colors is an appropriate direction to take. I think that they just held onto the old meaning so long that the new paradigm will take a bit of getting used to.

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Eric J. said: Completely disagree, at most you'd only need to add 1 color, OR, make the old red a duel submitted to the temple/good for anyone to pull from them and go do themselves. This really isn't that complicated

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Jeff Wiseman said:

Requires users to get used to different colors that mean nothing different from the old colors

So before, Green meant that you can reserve it and print temple cards for it. Red meant that someone has submitted it to the temple where you can not reserve it or print temple cards for it.

With the new feature, when someone shares a name with the temple things are now DIFFERENT. You CAN reserve it and print temple cards for it. That has always been represented by a green icon! How has the meaning of that color changed? Red meant that you could not reserve an ordinance because it was shared with the temple. But that limitation in the system has now been REMOVED, so there is not value to red anymore, and leaving it in the system would only confuse people since it used to mean "can't reserve" so why is it not showing up as green now meaning it "can be reserved"? Well, that is one of the reason the change was made.

Unless you want to eliminate the ability for anyone to reserve a temple shared name (red icon) that used to be impossible in the old system. We've been waiting for years to have this capability.

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Eric J. said: Are you not reading any of the other comments?!
If i'm looking at a family, and it's partially done, and they have 10 kids...unless I have a crazy amazing memory, it's nearly impossible to remember where I've been working and where I haven't been. THUS, if I keep clicking on individual's names to double check and make sure all ordinances have been accounted for and all I keep seeing is green everywhere, I'm going to go absolutely crazy double/triple/quadruple checking names over and over again. IF it's ANY OTHER color than green, and/or when I hover over (even if it is green) it and it tells me it's submitted to the temple by someone else, obviously I can move on.
PS. Enough with the condescension Jeff, I'm not a 10 year old on my first day at this

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Jeff Wiseman said: I recognize the problem that you are bringing up relative to early discerning items submitted to the temple from the icon colors. But that was not the exact subject of this topic.

I do not have the types of issues that you are talking about because I use a to-do list and research notes to keep track of where I have been working. I don't need to rely on reminders and flags in FS to keep me aware of where I was.

I also do not need the icon colors from the temple department to make assumptions about what the quality of person records are, because they aren't reliable anyway. I've seen far too many records where they were dumped in from a GEDCOM file that had nothing more than the name and a birthplace with no sources then shared with the temple. Even if the record is shared with the temple, I will not bypass it as it could very easily (and almost always) needs attention.

The point being is that I don't have those same issues because I'm using a different research workflow that doesn't depend on the color of icons to work effectively. If you explore some other approaches to this, you might find some easy ways to get around these new limitations. But I do believe that the changes made were necessary to support important new features. Although FS seems to have occasionally been guilty of making some changes that have been just cosmetic in nature, I don't believe that is the case here at all.

Please note that I have not intended to be condescending with any of my responses here. If I've come across that way, please forgive me. I've only been addressing comments that (at least to me) appear to be incorrect, illogical, or in conflict with themselves.

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Eric J. said: The key right there being "at least to me", you are you, you're not me, you're not a good dozen other people on here, and good for you. You have your ways that work for you, cool, everyone else has their ways that work for them, and something this minor blew that all up.

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Tom Huber said: Since a person has to go to the ordinance page to reserve ordinances, a quick glance for me makes it apparent if an ordinance is available to reserve only or shared/available to take to the temple.

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Kenny Mazzanti said: "Request" is obvious. But the one directly above that is shared with the temple is the question? Those ordinances that are shared, but not printed, can be reserved from the temple system for 90 days without asking the person who reserved and shared them to release them. But, if they have been printed by the temple then they are not available as it could lead to duplication of the ordinance. One does not know if they have been printed or not with the new coding?

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Gordon Collett said: If an ordinance has been printed by the temple or taken/printed by someone, the display looks like this:



Since it has been printed or at least requested by someone, the ordinance is now "In Process" and cannot be reprinted.

If you shared the ordinance, when you look at your shared list you will see this:



The checkbox that lets you retrieve that ordinance from the shared list and print it yourself is gone so that you can no longer take it back and print it.

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Jeff Wiseman said: Gordon answers this below quite well.

But the bottom line is that if ordinances are NOT available for you to reserve and take to the temple, there will be NO green icon. The absence of a green icon has always meant this. This has not changed with the recent updates.

BTW, previous to the updates, you could actually see the exact same color coding as in Tom's example (with the text) from Ordinances Ready, because from Ordinances Ready you could request a name that was previously shared with the temple. Now you can do it from the desktop directly from the ordinance tab as well.

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Earl Garrett Morris said: My simplistic point is I am a very simple-minded person using FS and have used it tor the past 30 years. Consideration should be given by the FS managers that not all of us are still young and up to date. Your insulting tone is a prime example. I am just an 80 year old man attempting to still use the system

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R Greg Leininger said: I posted a similar ? on a diff post titled as below. I hope Jim Greene can respond to my ? or suggestion:

title: "Persons shared w temple and persons ready to be claimed BOTH have green icons. Can we make them different colors?" See below

why are some icons green and shared w temple and others green but not shared

I know Family Tree has switched to a new color "icon" system, but i have a ? or a recommendation:

I find a lot of new names to do temple work for, but more than i can do by myself. So I share w the temple: i find their work gets done quicker than if i leave them "green" as a unreserved person.

When i am looking at names in the Fam Tree, I wish they would have one green color for those you can request who are not reserved by anyone, and a diff color for those you can request but that are already shared w the temple. That way I can quickly tell if i want to open up that person's file to claim them or not. if it is a green icon but they are already shared with the temple by someone else, then I don't want to open that one up. so it would help if they were different colored icons

example:

Byron L harrington GMYW 1TL GREEN BUT SHARED AND
HIS GPA JOSEPH HARRINGTON GQ41 8ZX green but you can reserve.

Can we make these colors different so you know whether you want to open up that person's profile to claim it or not? thanks

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Jeff Wiseman said: Earl, as I pointed out to Eric, I really apologize for any insulting tones that you may have felt from my communication. I do not work for FS but I am greatly concerned about the direction their tools are moving in. Hence my involvement here. When I see the frustrations of folks like yourselves here that could have been avoided if certain things in the tool had been done differently, it really bothers me. And when I see the tool moving in a direction that I KNOW will create problems for others in the future, it frustrates me and gets me passionate about things :-)

I definitely agree with your comment about the system needing to be understandable and easy to use by everyone, including all those who are not real computer savvy or are just new to the family history realm and are just learning the research techniques. In fact, I'm pretty such such a mandate has been given to FS to accomplish this.

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Tom Huber said: Since it did not come up in this discussion (it has been raised in other discussions), there are some significant problems with using the same color for a normal (two-year) reservation of an unreserved ordinance, and reserving a shared ordinance. Both an unreserved ordinance and shared ordinance are being reserved. The icon color matches the function.

Unfortunately, my illustration of a person's ordinance page is not the only place a person can reserve an ordinance. They can also do it from a pedigree view by clicking on the green temple icon.

The problem is there is no differentiation between an unreserved and shared reservation, unless you see it on the person's ordinance page.

The Recommended tasks does not have this problem because when I click on the green temple icon, I get the ordinance(s) and a More Details button. At least there, I can dismiss the task.

Clicking on the ordinance icon in a person's summary card takes me to that person's ordinance page where the details are the same as you see in my screen shot above.

Jim Greene's two major posts are in the https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea... discussion from June 12th, 2020, and the https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea... discussion from the weekend of June 13th-14th, 2020.

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JimGreene said: I think I have replied to this indirectly in the other posts I have put up. If I have not to your satisfaction, Greg, please start a new thread and restate the question.  Thanks!

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Tom Huber said: Green indicates that the ordinance can be pulled (or reserved if currently unreserved) and taken to the temple. See Jim's response in the https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea... discussion. In there, he stated the following

We are no longer in a position where we need names submitted to the temple. We need to have the ordinances performed for the names that the temples already have. Therefore, we are changing the emphasis and changing the meaning of the green temple. It now means "This ordinance is available for temple work to be performed." It does not mean "This ordinance is ready to be requested/reserved or submitted/shared with the temple."

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Tom Huber said: R Greg, I have the same problem with the single color, but do not use the icon to find those profiles that need to be reserved. I use a local family tree management program for my work on my ancestral lines. Once I complete the work for a person, I will then look to see if any ordinances need to be reseerved. I do this from the temple page of the person.

I was unaware that a person could reserve ordinances from the tree views. That is where the problem exists, because the ordinance page has everything spelled out.

The new system allows me to pull the waiting ordinances and take them to the temple to complete. I don't have to have reserved the names either by contacting the person who reserved them (and hoping they'll transfer them to me) or by contacting support to have them release the ordinances. I can now immediately pull the ordinances as long as another user has shared them with the temple.

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Tom Huber said: The problem that exists is there is no indication that I have taken care of all data problems and finished "fleshing out" a profile, subsequently reserved the ordinances and then shared them with the temple system. It doesn't matter that much to me, but for others, that lack of indicator that there are unreserved ordinances that need to be reserved is a problem. Even if they click on the green temple icon in a pedigree view, they still have to jump to the person's ordinance page to see if any unreserved ordinances exist.

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JimGreene said: That statement I made is defective, it needs to be re-written a little to clarify: 
We are no longer in a position where names submitted to the temple is more important than to have the ordinances performed. Therefore, while not changing the meaning we are changing the emphasis of the green temple. We need to think of it as "This ordinance is available for temple work to be performed." It does not mean "This ordinance is ready to be requested/reserved or submitted/shared with the temple."

Please quote this new clarification not the original one.

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Tom Huber said: Thanks for the clarification, Jim. I have replaced the original statement with your rewritten one.

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Denise Marie Sorensen said: Jim, there are currently two blue icons. One, as you stated, that ordinances are currently shared with the temple in some way. The other blue icon is for "hints." This is very confusing when you are looking at the screen. One of these colors should be changed to make it easier to recognize what is a hint or temple reservation.