Tech Forum

We are trying to find a way that we can send reminder messages to members for their upcomming interviews. On MLS you can view which members have expired temple recommends and who is approcahing the expiry date. Can the program have the functionality to input the scheduled interview and then send reminders 1-2 days before?

shashirajah wrote:We are trying to find a way that we can send reminder messages to members for their upcomming interviews. On MLS you can view which members have expired temple recommends and who is approcahing the expiry date. Can the program have the functionality to input the scheduled interview and then send reminders 1-2 days before?

The Member Focus feature of the Leader and Clerk Resources on lds.org has the beginnings of this functionality. Unit leaders can keep track of the last interview they had with a person, and can send a message to that member to request an interview, or send a message to the executive secretary to ask him to set up an interview.

At this point, there is no way to set a date for an upcoming interview or to have a reminder sent automatically. But I think your idea has merit; you could submit your suggestion by using the Submit Feedback link on lds.org.

I doubt that the desktop application MLS will ever add this functionality, since it has no connection to email systems.

A related question is, "Should we even do it at all?" For something as personal as a Temple Recommend interview, I would not recommend trying to schedule via e-mail (but then, I'm a bit old-fashoned sometimes).

On the first day of each month, I print lists of members whose recommends are expired less than 1 month and those who expire in the current month and provide them to the Counselors in the bishopric. They coordinate with the Bishop, then personally contact members for interviews. If you keep up with it, there aren't very many and the bishop then has the opportunity to stop an awkward situation where an e-mail is sent to someone who is currently working through some issues.