daddy-o wrote:Mike, these are good suggestions. I have a few on my wish list too.
Thanks for adding your suggestions to the mix. It's great how we see so many good proposals from the community.
daddy-o wrote:1. Talent and Interest Form
I would like to see the ability to capture the information this form collects included in MLS so we can report on it.
The Custom Member Fields feature of MLS already does this. In my opinion it could be greatly improved in its usability, and there could be standard features for reporting on the information (right now you can only do a Custom Report), but the capability does exist.
- In MLS, go to Membership Records > View and Update > Custom Member Fields
- Select the member
- On the Talents and Interests screen, use the Add button to add whatever talents and interests apply to that member.
- Optionally, use the Custom Fields screen (accessible on the left side immediately below Talents and Interests) to add any customized talents or interests that are not in the default set.
- To add fields to additional members, you can easily go to the previous/next member or select a different member while still in the Talents and Interests screen by using the blue arrow and Find buttons in the upper right corner.
To report on these, create a Custom Report
- You may want to have a criterion such as "Talent or Interest | has a value".
- You can optionally select a particular talent or interest value, e.g. "Talent or Interest | is | Dance"
- On the Format screen, you probably want to select the "Talents or Interests" field
The formatting and selection options are limited, and could definitely be improved, but MLS does allow you to store and report on talents and interests.
daddy-o wrote:2. Home / Visit Teaching Notes
I would like to see the ability to collect actionable information recorded by Home and Visit Teaching programs so it is available to the Bishopric.
This implies an entire system for collecting this information, which is a big job. It is a great suggestion, however.
I would note that Brad O (who has made many valuable contributions to this forum, in addition to his software efforts) has created a HT/VT web application as a third-party application, which is described in
this thread. This application has the functionality you suggest. I won't go into the long story which is part of that thread, but Brad offered his application to the Church, but to date the Church has not taken him up on the offer.
daddy-o wrote:3. Custom Reports Improved
I would like to see custom reports improved so that column sizes and orientations are saved so we do not have to play with the formatting each time.
The column sizes are already saved with custom reports.
- Add (or Edit) a Custom Report
- Go to the Format screen
- Click the Select button in the Set Column Widths box
- Set the desired widths, then Close
- Remember to Save your changes
However, as Mikerowaved mentioned as well, the page orientation (and other page setup values) are not saved at this point. That would indeed be a helpful improvement.
daddy-o wrote:4. Primary / YM / YW Mailing Labels
Printing the rolls for the youth is great. However, we really need the ability to print mailing labels to the parents of primary / YM / YW also. What we have to do now is sift through the records and it is time better spent preaching the gospel.
This is already in MLS.
- Go to the class (Organizations > Primary/Laurels/Mia Maids/Beehives)
- Use the Show dropdown to show the desired class (in the case of Primary) and section (probably Members)
- From the main menu, choose File > Print Mailing Labels
- Check the box "Show Head of Household"
- Select the desired records (probably Select All)
- Print (or Preview) the labels