mls 3.5

[simonawright]

I am thankful we have a good local office as they have notified the stake clerks of what was happening and we have been able to let our units know that the planned release date is the 12th.

[ffrsqpilot]

I have to echo JohnShaw's comment about "I don't believe in.......Zion Communities." When CUB's was rolled out there were several messages sent out giving specific directions about what clerks were supposed to do on or prior to the 17 October lock out of finances. For the clerks that followed those directions it was somewhat easier to reconstruct their finances after they were altered. For those who did not take the proper steps (i.e. printing out finance reports) it became a major nightmare trying to reconstruct what existed before and then make sense of it after the next weekends disaster. For several of those units I had to go back and reinstall a backup and an earlier MLS version in order to figure out what they had so I could have something to work with.

As I mentioned in an earlier post above - I plan on emailing and calling all our clerks during the week prior to the 12th so they can go in and make the copies that they have been instructed to do. This time however, if they didn't follow directions I will not take my time to help them reconstruct their organizations as I think it will be much easier to put everything in order than what we had to go through with CUB's. I learned my lesson with CUB's the hard way. I thought all the clerks would take the proper actions but that isn't always the case.

[gregwanderson]

...but,

The reports we were told to print before the CUBS rollout contained only a part of what was forever lost in the rollout. So the instructions weren't complete and even if someone did print everything they were told to print they still had headaches.

I think I'll spend some time printing out (to PDF printer files rather than paper) everything I can possibly print this week. Like you, I learned my lesson with CUBS the hard way and I don't trust the instructions this time.

[giffordrb]

We are releasing to an expanded beta group this weekend, and unless anything major comes up we will pull the trigger on the final release next week. We don't expect a lot of traffic this weekend but still anticipate valuable feedback. As far as the upgrade process goes you can have confidence in the instructions that were sent out. It was created as part of the testing process. The biggest things to take note of: 1. Print out the reports identified. This will help you recreate any custom primary and sunday school classes that will be reset during the upgrade. 2. Do multiple send/receives after the upgrade over the period of time specific in the instructions. This gives cubs and cdol time to generate the files needed to unlock finance and membership functionality.

If you are interested here are some technical details of what is sent/received after upgrading:
1. MLS tells cdol etc that it is now running 3.5 for your unit. This might take two send receives after the upgrade is complete.
2. MLS downloads new translation, position, and organization files from cdol. These are generic files and not the unit refresh. You will see these as zip files in the send/receive status window. If all three don't come down at the same time then MLS will try again on the next send/receive. These should come down before the CDOL refresh file. If not MLS will request them all again, as well as another refresh file. Hopefully no one sees this.
3. CDOL will stage the refresh request and MLS will then pull it down on another send/receive. When this file is processed a message will tell you that organization functionality is now unlocked.
4. CUBS will send a sync file to MLS and finance functionality will then be unlocked. MLS will automatically log out when this happens. This might happen before or at the same time as the CDOL refresh file.
5. Once organizations are unlocked on the next send/receive MLS sends confirmation to cdol and also sends all of the class assignments for individuals in your unit to CMIS (membership database). Storing class assignments is new to CMIS in preparation for this data to be available outside of MLS.

As you can see, it's hard to say exactly how many send/receives it will take to get fully upgraded. Most units should only take two, with a third to send the new data to cmis.

[Gary_Miller]

I don't believe in "so sad to bad, it stinks to be you" in Zion Communities - think about it 17000 congregations * 90 minutes = 25500 volunteer hours potentially affected - Why not wait a week?

John the point I was trying to get across the importance of following the directions when the came down. It won't matter when is pushed as you can bet someone did not read the instructions, and for those who did not read the instructions. Well its really hard to have pity on them types.

I also don't think the stake clerk should have to notify the other clerks as they all got the message.

This all may sound hard but I don't believe in shirking responsibilities, that goes for volunteers as well. When you are asked to do a job (Calling) and you say yes its now your responsibility to do it properly. If you can't or decide you don't want to then you have a responsibility to ask for a release so someone else can be assigned the responsibility.

I guess it could be the 22yrs in the military that has me thinking this way but for the most part its just the right thing to do.

[russellhltn]

It won't matter when is pushed as you can bet someone did not read the instructions, and for those who did not read the instructions.

Unless something has changed, there's just one "mailbox" with multiple people reading it. The person who read it might not be the person who needs to read it. Once anyone reads it, then it's no longer marked as "new". IOW, there's a number of ways that someone who is trying to be diligent can miss the message.

[ffrsqpilot]

30 Years in the military here! Thought I could trust and expect folks to fulfill their callings also. I expected all the clerks to follow the instructions that were sent out prior to the CUB's lockout on the 17th of October.....silly me. Had I known that some folks didn't see the messages, or weren't going to follow them I would have personally driven to each unit and done the printouts myself....would have saved me hours and hours (not to mention weeks and weeks) of trying to repair that mess.

Having learned from that experience I see no reason not to be a good steward and call all the unit clerks and give them a heads up that MLS 3.5 is scheduled for download on the 12th. Should I have to.....probably not. Do I want to save myself headaches....think so. I'll call!

By the way - thats a HC-130P aircraft in my avatar. 30 years of flying it for the Air Force. Loved every minute of it.

[lajackson]

Unless something has changed, there's just one "mailbox" with multiple people reading it. The person who read it might not be the person who needs to read it. Once anyone reads it, then it's no longer marked as "new". IOW, there's a number of ways that someone who is trying to be diligent can miss the message.

Another way to miss the message is to have general conference this weekend, stake conference next weekend, and MLS 3.5 the following weekend when the computers are needed again.

However, our stake clerk did receive the message Wednesday, so hopefully any units working on activity night also received it.

[wonko]

John the point I was trying to get across the importance of following the directions when the came down. It won't matter when is pushed as you can bet someone did not read the instructions, and for those who did not read the instructions. Well its really hard to have pity on them types.

I also don't think the stake clerk should have to notify the other clerks as they all got the message.

This all may sound hard but I don't believe in shirking responsibilities, that goes for volunteers as well. When you are asked to do a job (Calling) and you say yes its now your responsibility to do it properly. If you can't or decide you don't want to then you have a responsibility to ask for a release so someone else can be assigned the responsibility.

I guess it could be the 22yrs in the military that has me thinking this way but for the most part its just the right thing to do.

I would agree with you if all clerks were experts in what they are doing, and had significant technical expertise. In reality this calling can be a huge stretch for some people, and when it comes to some of the technical things they are very much out of their element.

Personally, I printed out the reports as a safety due to the vague nature of the announcement, knowing I would reprint prior to the upgrade. I get this stuff. Others just don't think that way because they haven't had the life experience and/or training to know better. Hopefully we can help them learn by example rather than hard experience.

I have emailed my Stake Clerk so he can notify the individual Ward Clerks as to the information and warn them.

If nothing else, it keeps Sunday from becoming a fiasco when trying to do tithing and you end up with a 90 minute update instead. It isn't just the clerk who will be effected then.

[gregwanderson]

Any idea exactly what time MLS 3.5 will be pushed out? I have some time to go to the office on October 12. But do I have to wait until "after" October 12, as in the 13th?