Kindoo - Best Practices & things to avoid

[dbhull1]

Our stake is new to Kindoo and going through implementation pains. I've spoken to individuals in several stake and am finding the some things are just a challenge and I am not hearing much in the way of solutions - folks are trying to figure things out.

I've read comments in other posts that some stakes have developed their own guides (I assume for specific procedures). I would love to know if anyone has developed or can share feedback on:

1) Best practices - including processes for handling temp. license requests, building lockup, emergency requests requiring someone to meet the requester at the building, pushing management to the ward level, etc...
2) Things to avoid - practices/procedures that just don't work well; situations you found yourself in that were painful and you've found a way to avoid now.

Thanks!

[swigginton]

I would love to know if anyone has developed or can share feedback on:
1) Best practices - including processes for handling temp. license requests, building lockup, emergency requests requiring someone to meet the requester at the building, pushing management to the ward level, etc...
2) Things to avoid - practices/procedures that just don't work well; situations you found yourself in that were painful and you've found a way to avoid now.

I’ve worked with several stakes in their Kindoo installations. Here are common things I see.
Temp Licenses - there are a few different types:

• Private events (wedding receptions, etc.) - If these are infrequent, the meetinghouse scheduler forwards the temp access request to the stake Kindoo manager. If they get a lot of requests, the meetinghouse scheduler can be added as a Kindoo manager to enter those. That’s what we do in our stake. We have 4 buildings and 2 schedulers. Those schedulers only add temporary users for their buildings. They don't add any permanent users.
• For lockup/security, wards in the meetinghouse typically rotate responsibility on a monthly basis and have 1 or 2 people who do the nightly checks. They are added as permanent Kindoo users.
• For emergency requests (extremely rare), they can be given temp access by the Kindoo manager on the fly. Access approval should be given by someone with proper authority. Kindoo managers don’t provide access without that request coming through proper channels.

For callings not automatically synchronized with Sentry, requests are sent from the bishoprics or stake presidency to the stake Kindoo manager. We require the request to include, name, email address, calling and the name of the person being released.
Pushing Kindoo management to the ward level is not recommended. Kindoo is configured by stake. Anyone with manager rights has access to all users for the stake, so not a good idea to give that to wards.
You didn’t mention it, but full-time missionaries should only be added using their area email address. That email address is linked to their service area. By doing that, you don’t need to change users in Kindoo at transfer time. The incoming missionaries simply log into Kindoo using the area email address and the license is transferred to the new phone.
I hope that helps. We have other specific training we give to stake Kindoo managers, but the info above is generic to the stake as a whole.

[MurdockM]

"Church Access Automation" keeps changing access permissions given to a Bishop by a human.

1) In my stake the Bishops travel to (a different from their own meeting house) Stake Center for PPIs with the Stake President.

Tonight is the 3rd month now that my wards Bishop has discovered his access to the Stake Center revoked, apparently by "Church Access Automation". So far he has texted me (Ward Clerk) and I've gone in, (while he waits outside the Stake Center Door), and re-assign him access to the Stake Center door.


2) My ward also has a few Kindoo entries that I set up when it was first rolled out, and now those people have been released however the system won't let me remove them. I see that "Church Access Automation" has taken over the entries I entered and that's why I can't remove those users. Thus, "seats" are unnecessarily being used by people who have been released and can't be removed from Kindoo!

3) And, "Church Access Automation" has added a <ward> (Relief Society President) calling with a weird and not valid email address. So another "seat" unnecessarily used up there as well.

How can these issues be fixed? Kindoo seems like a good system and automatic sync sounds like a good idea.

Best Practices?
Is there a syntax that the 'system' understands, so that when callings are entered by a human the auto-sync will correctly update that calling in the future?
Do we delete our manually entered callings, and let the system automatically reenter them over night?

[MurdockM]

Also, I noticed this morning that some people have more than one entry/record in the Kindoo user database, each one (for the same person) has a different email address. So multiple seats are being used for the same individual?

PS: As a ward clerk I'm only a lowly Kindoo "manager".

[jnpetersen]

There is a way to look at reports and find who assigned the license to that user. If someone is requesting multiple so they can have it on multiple devices, that should be a concern that should be brought up. I understand someone people have multiple devices and want it on whatever they have with them, but that shouldn't require additional licenses to be used.

It could be that they created multiple to be used on older devices that can be used for building lock up, that was something I was hearing from a few STS's around my area that they were considering and ultimately it came down to just checking the perimeter doors and if you can't get in from the outside, then your building lock up is done. If lights are on, they will just need to stay that way for the night.

I'm the STS and Stake Kindoo Manager and I created a google form that I placed on all the desktops of the clerk computers, plus provided a link to them by text as well so they can submit a request for someone. I use a notification platform called ntfy.sh (I run a local version at home that I use for this) to send me an alert when a request is made. On the form, I gave an option for Calling someone or Releasing someone. Within the Calling someone, they specify if they are replacing someone else so I know to look for that specific person to remove before adding the new one. The Releasing someone just asks for who they are releasing if they don't have someone yet to replace. Oh yeah, and one for Remove access, because they find that they requested but then find they've never used it and are trying to save licenses for those who actually need it. We do this because we are limited on the number of licenses we have.

I created a second google form that I provided to our building schedulers who submit temporary requests. It has worked out great!

Being who I am, I created a google sheet that I took it a step further and I am able to download specific reports from Kindoo, copy and paste the data into two different tabs, then I have a separate sheet for each Ward that displays who has been assigned, plus their access times so they can determine if someone is using it or not.

I utilize this data as well to determine if someone has been issued a license, but haven't even accepted the invitation and after 3 months, I remove their access and wait to see if someone complains. This was something our Stake decided on as we have 1 ward who thinks everyone should have access, and only a handful actually ever use it.

I would love the automatic assignments as long as it actually works properly, but it doesn't appear we have that option.

[swigginton]

1)...my wards Bishop has discovered his access to the Stake Center revoked, apparently by "Church Access Automation".

You probably need to have your FM manager remove Bishops from Sentry automation. You can then configure them manually with additional access to the stake center.

2) My ward also has a few Kindoo entries that I set up when it was first rolled out, and now those people have been released however the system won't let me remove them.

Sentry may have reconfigured those users. Your FM manager needs to change your site's Kindoo setting, "Allow managers to edit guests that are invited by admins" so you are able to delete those users. It's a simple toggle in the Kindoo app.

3) And, "Church Access Automation" has added a <ward> (Relief Society President) calling with a weird and not valid email address. So another "seat" unnecessarily used up there as well.

Have you checked LCR to see if that weird email address is in that member's record? That's where Sentry pulls it's information. If the email address is correct in LCR, but wrong in Kindoo, you probably need to contact Global Services, since it sounds like a potential issue with Sentry.

Also, I noticed this morning that some people have more than one entry/record in the Kindoo user database, each one (for the same person) has a different email address. So multiple seats are being used for the same individual?

This can be caused by someone logging into Kindoo with one email address, but then logging in at the Church's signon screen using a different church account. Kindoo will then pull the user's name from the membership record associated with the Church signon account, not the Kindoo email address. You may have multiple family members who have been given Kindoo access, but are logging in with the same person's church account. That is probably worth investigating to see who those email addresses are assigned to and if there is a common connection.