Preferred names not showing in directory in Europe?

Discussions about the Ward Directory and Map tool on churchofjesuschrist.org.
jeffevannelson
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Re: Preferred names not showing in directory in Europe?

#11

Post by jeffevannelson »

Currently there is no way to store a Household Preferred name. One of the other issues is many people have no "preferred name" It does show the preferred name when you click on an individual but yes when you generate the PDF it uses the household name.

One option might be to generate the PDF but click individual Details. I am trying to figure out if that changes the name we pull It might not. Just a thought I just had.
simonawright
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Re: Preferred names not showing in directory in Europe?

#12

Post by simonawright »

Currently there is no way to store a Household Preferred name. One of the other issues is many people have no "preferred name" It does show the preferred name when you click on an individual but yes when you generate the PDF it uses the household name.
I am sorry if this is a stupid question but why is it an issue for some locations and not others? I thought the format for the records was the same wherever you live.
russellhltn
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Re: Preferred names not showing in directory in Europe?

#13

Post by russellhltn »

simonawright wrote:I am sorry if this is a stupid question but why is it an issue for some locations and not others? I thought the format for the records was the same wherever you live.
Privacy laws are different depending on where you live. As such, the directory's actions (opt-out vs. opt-in) is different. Why there's a difference on preferred names, I'm not sure.

Then again, it may have to do with the area office. For the Americas, the "area office" is CHQ. As having done some software work myself, I know that it's all too easy for a bug to slip though testing and only show up in odd ways.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
simonawright
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Re: Preferred names not showing in directory in Europe?

#14

Post by simonawright »

Privacy laws are different depending on where you live. As such, the directory's actions (opt-out vs. opt-in) is different
In my simple world the privacy laws would only affect whether you could see a record, not what was displayed.

Of course in my simple world everyone would be a member of the church, its a pity that things don't work out how we would like them.
jeffevannelson
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Re: Preferred names not showing in directory in Europe?

#15

Post by jeffevannelson »

Household Preferred name does not equal Individual Preferred Name
Individuals do not always have preferred names

So since Household Preferred name is not stored.
We would have to concatenate the Individuals preferred names.
This doesn’t always work everywhere in the world.

At least this is my understanding of the problem currently. Will it change maybe One thing I can think of is to allow the print out to be households by individual name.
mevans
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Re: Preferred names not showing in directory in Europe?

#16

Post by mevans »

jeffevannelson wrote:We would have to concatenate the Individuals preferred names.
This doesn’t always work everywhere in the world.
I'm glad someone at the church is paying attention to things like this. Historically, a lot of software that stores peoples names tends to be US-centric with First Name / Last Name and maybe Middle Name or initial and there is a specific format to put them together.

I remember a work project where we "fixed" everyones names in Active Directory who were in one country. Some people there were known by their last name, others by their first name or another given name or a nickname. There was no real formula we could come up with, so we ended up telling them how how the last and first name fields would display in email, etc. and asked them what information they wanted in the first name and last name fields. That worked for our needs, but the church has a different and more difficult problem in that it needs to maintain the given names as well as the preferred names and figure out when to use which name.

I'm encouraged by jeffevannelson's response. It makes me think we'll eventually get a correct solution, but it might take a little longer.
vlott
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Re: Preferred names not showing in directory in Europe?

#17

Post by vlott »

Hi all,
We've shipped a major directory release in the last few weeks which includes new uses of preferredName and localized householdFormattedName. Could you check this again and advise as to if the situation has improved or changed for you?

Thanks,
-Vard Lott
Local Unit Apps Development
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Biggles
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Location: Watford, England

Re: Preferred names not showing in directory in Europe?

#18

Post by Biggles »

vlott wrote:Hi all,
We've shipped a major directory release in the last few weeks which includes new uses of preferredName and localized householdFormattedName. Could you check this again and advise as to if the situation has improved or changed for you?

Thanks,
-Vard Lott
Local Unit Apps Development
Unfortunately no change for me, still showing Full name in the Directory listing and my first 2 names in the individual section!
simonawright
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Location: UK, Leicester

Re: Preferred names not showing in directory in Europe?

#19

Post by simonawright »

Same for me, Directory is still showing full name, clerk resources is showing preferred name.
vlott
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Re: Preferred names not showing in directory in Europe?

#20

Post by vlott »

Just checking in on this issue again. We are not seeing exactly where names are displayed incorrectly. Here is how names are displayed:

2nd column in household listing: <Localized Formatted Couple Name as stored in the Church Membership Database> - in most standard alphabet countries this is represented as <Surname>, <Preferred HofH first name(s)> & <Preferred Spouse first name(s)>
Example for John Paul Smith and his wife Jessica Ann Smith: Smith, Paul & Jessica

Ward Leaders and Ward Organizations: <Preferred name including surname>
Example: Paul Smith

Household Detail Family Name: <Surname>
Individuals on household detail page: <Surname>, <Individual's Preferred first name(s)>
Example: Smith, Jessica

Keep in mind that all name formatting is subject to the localization rules of each user's local unit. There is actually a lot of logic behind the scenes to represent all names localized to the user's correct locale and language.

If you feel this is in error, please reply via private message with specific examples/screenshots. In that case we will likely request some additional identifying information in order to research your specific case.
Last edited by vlott on Tue Apr 29, 2014 4:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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