Tech Forum

What's the general expectation on changes made in MLS (addresses, phone numbers, etc.) being updated on the Ward site on lds.org?

geek wrote:What's the general expectation on changes made in MLS (addresses, phone numbers, etc.) being updated on the Ward site on lds.org?

This has been discussed in several other threads. I would not begin to be concerned until a week had gone by, although it is often much sooner.

There's been differing stories about when it happens, but by in large, it should be just a few days after the send/receive - if that. If you're waiting longer then that and not seeing a change, then it's time to ask some questions.

lajackson wrote:This has been discussed in several other threads. I would not begin to be concerned until a week had gone by, although it is often much sooner.

I did some browsing around previously and had came to the same conclusion.

This is one of the biggest excuses I've heard from members on being reluctant to use the Ward site -- that it's "not up to date".


Maybe someone from CHQ reading these fora could provide a more concrete answer as to the timings... A weekly batch? Twice-weekly?

geek wrote:This is one of the biggest excuses I've heard from members on being reluctant to use the Ward site -- that it's "not up to date".

It depends on what they are looking at. If it's the list of members, it's as up to date as the Ward Membership clerk is.

If it's the callings, news, calendar, etc, then it's as up to date as the website administrator is.

If the website isn't up to date, then steps need to be taken to make it up to date and not rely on manual record keeping methods to bypass it.

geek wrote:This is one of the biggest excuses I've heard from members on being reluctant to use the Ward site -- that it's "not up to date".

Are you saying that data may be a few days late because the synchronization is not immedate, and that causes people to complain that the ward web site is not usable because it's "not up to date"? I find it hard to believe that a mere few days of delay would even be noticed.

Other issues that could lead to legitimate claims of the site being out of date would be the result of procrastination or inaccuracy on the part of the ward site administrator or one of the ward clerks. That would be a procedural problem in your ward, not a technical problem with the web site.

Believe me -- when leaders forward address and phone changes to the ward clerk, are told that those changes have been completed, and then over a week later, it's still not updated on LUWS, it doesn't help LUWS credibility.

(And it's not an issue of the clerks being up to date. I'm currently "watching" for changes that were made in MLS 7 days ago. Maybe tomorrow...)

Again -- I'm curious as to what the expectation on synchronization should be. I work in IT -- I'm not naive enough to expect real-time or same-day synchronization (although, I have had to disabuse many ward members of that expectation). Can anyone in the know explain the timing? Or do we have some problem here? Is this a mystery of the Kingdom not to be divulged?

(Empirical observation suggests it's anywhere from 4 to 8 days typically, with our LUWS to get updated changes.)

geek wrote:Believe me -- when leaders forward address and phone changes to the ward clerk, are told that those changes have been completed, and then over a week later, it's still not updated on LUWS, it doesn't help LUWS credibility.

(And it's not an issue of the clerks being up to date. I'm currently "watching" for changes that were made in MLS 7 days ago. Maybe tomorrow...)

Again -- I'm curious as to what the expectation on synchronization should be. I work in IT -- I'm not naive enough to expect real-time or same-day synchronization (although, I have had to disabuse many ward members of that expectation). Can anyone in the know explain the timing? Or do we have some problem here? Is this a mystery of the Kingdom not to be divulged?

(Empirical observation suggests it's anywhere from 4 to 8 days typically, with our LUWS to get updated changes.)

Yes I would agree there is most definitely a problem if it goes longer than 8 days. I've noticed changes to LUWS within 1 - 4 days on average from my own experience, and that's the typical answer I hear from many other wards' experiences as well.

As RussellHltn noted, changes to leadership is unfortunately manual in LUWS, so take that into account as well.

One other thing that may already be obvious to you (but some reading this may not be aware of) is that you have to do a Send/Receive in order for the changes to get transmitted to Salt Lake's databases at Headquarters, where the LUWS web servers get updated as a result. Some clerks don't like to sit through a modem dialing and connecting just to send a few changes, so they wait until there are a lot of items queued up that need to be sent to Church Headquarters before doing a Send/Receive. If you want the change in LUWS to happen as soon as possible, a Send/Receive must be performed that day.

Stupid question - is the membership clerk doing a send/receive promptly after doing the updates? Otherwise it may just sit there until the donations are processed the following Sunday.

Just wanting to make sure the problem is all on SLC's end.

geek wrote:changes have been completed, and then over a week later . . .
changes that were made in MLS 7 days ago.

I'm curious as to what the expectation on synchronization should be. . . .
Can anyone in the know explain the timing?
(Empirical observation suggests it's anywhere from 4 to 8 days typically, . . .

If you have confirmed that the MLS S/R was successful, and it has been a week, it might be worth a call to CHQ. You may be the first person in the entire universe that they tell what their schedule is.

And it is also worth knowing what actually transfers from MLS to the LUWS. Some things do not.

My empirical observation is the same as yours. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it seems that there is a certain day each week when our information updates. But the day seems to be different for each of the units in our stake.

And hopefully we are not talking about updates to the meeting times. [grimace]