Assistant Ward Executive Secretary can't view lds.org/leader

[rhsherman]

I'm a Stake Asst. Exec. Secretary and have limited access to the 'Leader and Clerk Resources'. My biggest issue is I don't have access to the emailing groups 'Members' and 'Ward Leaders'. This makes it impossible for me to email broadcast the stake membership as I've been assigned to do without going to the 'Classic' website.

[nathangg]

As a stake assistant executive secretary, can you export email addresses for the whole stake from MLS?

If you can get a CSV of all the email addresses in the stake, then you can do the following:

1. Get a CSV of membership that includes the following:
   1. Household Email (Column A)
   2. Head of House Individual Email (Column B)
   3. Spouse Individual email (Column C)
2. open the CSV
3. copy the contents of column B and paste it into the last row of Column A
4. copy the contents of column C and paste it into the last row of column A
5. You should now have one column of thousands of email addresses
6. Use excel to "Remove Duplicates"
7. Delete any extra data in Columns B and C (the row headers probably)
8. Save to CSV
9. Open in notepad
10. Paste the list into the "BCC" field of your email client (it works in gmail)

Anyhow, I'm not sure if that can be done, but I'd try that.

If you want to also take into account people's privacy settings, then you can go ward by ward and "Export Households" from lds.org/directory. The more wards you have, the longer it will be, but the process is the same.

Are there better ways to do this instead of manually doing it?

[aebrown]

If you want to also take into account people's privacy settings, then you can go ward by ward and "Export Households" from lds.org/directory. The more wards you have, the longer it will be, but the process is the same.

The only problem with this particular suggestion is that no one (and I mean no one -- not even the stake president) can export data from the new Directory on lds.org for any ward except his or her own ward.

[nathangg]

The only problem with this particular suggestion is that no one (and I mean no one -- not even the stake president) can export data from the new Directory on lds.org for any ward except his or her own ward.

I guess I never knew since I don't have a stake calling... sorry about suggesting something that isn't even possible.

[rhsherman]

Thanks for the suggestion. There are a couple of issues with extracting a stake email list, it doesn't take long for the list to get out dated and most internet email accounts limit the number of email addresses to a 100 or less. This can be painful if email broadcasts to the stake are sent out on any regular bases.

[nathangg]

Thanks for the suggestion. There are a couple of issues with extracting a stake email list, it doesn't take long for the list to get out dated and most internet email accounts limit the number of email addresses to a 100 or less. This can be painful if email broadcasts to the stake are sent out on any regular bases.

Yeah, that is kind of big issue you'll run into. (Although I've regularly sent emails to our entire ward with about 308 email addresses in the BCC field from a gmail account)

Perhaps it would be better to send an email to each ward and have them pass the information along (don't most wards or auxiliaries have email lists of their members? I know in our ward the RS has an email list, along with the HPG and EQ).

Thanks~!

[aebrown]

If you want to also take into account people's privacy settings, then you can go ward by ward and "Export Households" from lds.org/directory. The more wards you have, the longer it will be, but the process is the same.

The only problem with this particular suggestion is that no one (and I mean no one -- not even the stake president) can export data from the new Directory on lds.org for any ward except his or her own ward.

... and very shortly after I made this statement, it is now no longer true. See this post.

[scottcstewart]

Wow! I learn something new every day it seems... For the past 2.5 years I've been in wards where there has always been an "Assistant Executive Secretary" at the ward level... I guess I made the wrong assumption that this was a standard calling, when in fact it is not standard calling.

Oops!

I can totally see how the wiki has clarified this issue: the "Assistant Executive Secretary" calling is a stake calling (and thus the custom calling of "Assistant Exec. Sec." at the ward level will NOT have access to lds.org/leader.)

Thank you thank you thank you!

I ran into this situation with our ward's Assistant Executive Secretary. I changed his position to Ward Assistant Clerk, a standardized calling. A small issue with this is we have to manually change his calling when it's time for Ward Conference and we want his calling to be correctly read via the "Officers Sustained" list.

So, a suggestion is to add "Assistant Executive Secretary" to the list of standard callings and to the list of callings that can access the Leader and Clerk resources info in lds.org.

Or, maybe anyone that is in the "Bishopric" calling list is automatically able to access the Leader and Clerk resources in lds.org?

[nathangg]

A small issue with this is we have to manually change his calling when it's time for Ward Conference and we want his calling to be correctly read via the "Officers Sustained" list.

Hmm... I'm not sure you want to do this. Rather, last time I printed out the "Officers Sustained List" "Assistant Ward Executive Secretary" is not on the list, and there is a disclaimer when you print it out that says, "[A member of the stake presidency] should present only the officers listed on this form."

When our bishopric read that disclaimer, we made sure not to add the Assistant Ward Executive Secretary.

[scottcstewart]

Thanks. He is considered an assistant ward clerk, so there is no problem in reading in his calling as an assistant ward clerk. "Assistant Ward Executive Secretary" showed up on all previous Officers Sustained forms, so just because it is not an MLS standard calling, seems to not prevent reading this calling in. Sure would make it simpler if it was a standard calling.

What is funny is that since he is set up in MLS as an "assistant ward clerk" and not an "assistant executive secretary", when he called a sister new to our ward to have her give a talk, she looked him up online to see his calling and thought she was safe in calling him back, since he was not listed as an executive secretary. She gave a great talk.