Tech Forum

As Bishop, can I annotate a member record in Leader & Clerk Resources or do I have to go to MLS on the Clerk's PC? I looked but could not find a menu option on Leader Resources.

Thanks!

I looked for this once before and was unsuccessful in finding a place online to do it.

barryhill wrote:As Bishop, can I annotate a member record in Leader & Clerk Resources or do I have to go to MLS on the Clerk's PC? I looked but could not find a menu option on Leader Resources.

Thanks!

Local units can't annotate records directly in either LCR or MLS. Records can get annotated in one of two ways. If a disciplinary council was held and the result was disfellowshipment or excommunication then you need to submit a Report of Disciplinary Council. This can be done in Leader and Clerk Resources. Depending on the type of conduct the Office of the First Presidency will annotate the record in addition to recording the action of the council.

If you feel there should be an annotation but for some reason a disciplinary council is not being held or the result of the council was formal probation then you'll need to send a letter to the Office of the First Presidency detailing the situation. I'm pretty sure this letter must come from both you and the Stake President. The details are in Handbook 1 in the section on church discipline. I don't have access to Handbook 1 in my current calling so I can't give you an exact reference.

If you just need to put a block on a record to keep it in your ward rather than put an annotation for specific conduct, you can do that in Leader and Clerk Resources. There is a button for that in the upper part of the screen that shows the member's membership details (around the area of the name).

eblood66 wrote:If you feel there should be an annotation but for some reason a disciplinary council is not being held or the result of the council was formal probation then you'll need to send a letter to the Office of the First Presidency detailing the situation. I'm pretty sure this letter must come from both you and the Stake President. The details are in Handbook 1 in the section on church discipline. I don't have access to Handbook 1 in my current calling so I can't give you an exact reference.

The HB1 section is 6.13.4, and you're correct on both details: outside of normal disciplinary council procedures, the procedure for recording an annotation is that the stake president and bishop jointly recommend to the Office of the First Presidency that an annotation be added.

There is also a way to tag a membership record so that if it moves out of your ward, it comes with a note to "contact prior bishop." That may do what you want to do.

TinMan wrote:There is also a way to tag a membership record so that if it moves out of your ward, it comes with a note to "contact prior bishop." That may do what you want to do.

I know that can be done on a move-out, but does that work if someone else requests the record?

TinMan wrote:There is also a way to tag a membership record so that if it moves out of your ward, it comes with a note to "contact prior bishop."

Unless there has been a change, I thought that only worked when you send out the record. A not-so-good workaround is the "diligent clerk" method, where the bishop identifies certain records, and if the clerk sees that they have been moved out, notifies the bishop, who then makes the call to the new bishop. This is not a very robust solution, of course.

It would be really nice to place a tag on an existing record so that the "contact prior bishop" note would show up even if another unit pulled out the record.

TinMan wrote:There is also a way to tag a membership record so that if it moves out of your ward, it comes with a note to "contact prior bishop." That may do what you want to do.

I think you're confusing two different options.

• When you move a record out of your ward, you can add a note requesting that the new bishop contacts the prior bishop. That option is only available if you are moving the record out -- it has nothing to do with another ward requesting the record.
• You can put a Move Restriction on a record. Then if another ward requests the record, they will not receive the record, but will be informed of the restriction and be given contact information for the current bishop. Only the current bishop (or Church Headquarters) can remove the restriction. This is documented in Place or Remove a Move Restriction (visible only to people with appropriate callings).