Tech Forum

Does anyone know of a procedural or policy reason why Unit Leadership (Callings) don't post to the Leadership Directories on the Local Unit Web Sites?

Since, LUWS pull meeting time, location and member lists, I am sure the technology exists.

I ask this question at the request of more than one ward clerk in our stake who must change the same information concerning leadership callings twice. Once in MLS and again on the LUWS.

Don't know of any policy why, but in our Stake
there is usually a web admin called for each
ward, so at least the duplication of effort is
by different people.

Also, a lot of times with so much that a clerk
has to do, updating callings and releases in
MLS is often the last item of an unfinished list.

Callings are currently not transmitted to CHQ
with MLS either, so until that is worked out
(there may be bandwidth-issues), I don't
see any auto-populating of callings happening
anytime soon.

If the church were to auto-populate the callings
on the unit websites from MLS, I personally would
prefer that the web admin have the ability to review
it before it being put on the ward website. I've
seen a few clerks that enter callings into MLS
prior to the individual being sustained, so a
review step may be helpful to avoid "leaking"
info.

- Atticus Ewig

Thanks...

Your answer lets me know there are both technology issues (bandwidth) and policy issues (posting positions before sustaining) that I hadn't thought if. Not insumountable, by I can now see why this feature didn't make it to the priority list.

I don't know of any policy but I suspect there are several factors in play as you mentioned. It will take time to get all things lined up but it is something that the Church is concerned about.

Tom

Our unit recently experienced a situation where it was pointed out to me (blush) that the leadership directory information entered manually a year ago was almost all out of date. In terms of magnifying my calling, this was not my finest hour. In fact, the data was so stale that I was advised to delete all of it in the hopes that MLS might start updating the information automatically like they do with the other data.

So hypothetically speaking, lets say there's a ward clerk somewhere in the world who for whatever reason slips up temporarily and doesn't keep calling information 100% up to date in MLS. The data on the website would still be more useful than if that same ward clerk was expected to update MLS and also get that information to the ward website administrator out of band. And if any ward member saw incorrect information on the ward website and wanted it updated, it could be fixed by the ward clerk in one place.

The cost/benefit of maintaining it all separately by two different people who have to come up with some ad-hoc system of regularly communicating what can be weekly changes to each other seems too high for us. We're hoping MLS will automatically populate this data in the near future.

I have been maintaining the ward website for 5-6 years now and it is a challenge to keep everything updated. It would be nice to have it automatically updated. I really can't think of any of the sections where I wouldn't want it to be automatically updated other than the "Other" section. The thing that ward members complain about the most is the leadership list.

I believe they are working on this as part of LUWS 2.0.

Is that for sure?

Also, does anyone have a time line for LUWS 2.0?

enriquer wrote:Is that for sure?

Also, does anyone have a time line for LUWS 2.0?

No time line has been publicly announced at this time.

Tom

We have settled on trying to keep MLS completely updated, and just putting key leaders at the LUWS. For example, a unit might show only the organization presidency, or even just the organization president.

This at least provides a major position contact for members who are using the site.

Larry Jackson