Tech Forum

Hello All,

I was asked by the Elders Quorum 2nd Counselor to create a specific report that I had some difficulty trying to create. I have a few questions, however.

1. In order to grant someone the privileges to create custom reports, do you need to give them "Edit Membership" privileges? I think by default we give non-bishopric/clerk/executive secretary users only "View Membership" privileges.

2. Related to the first question, is there an official document or communication from the Church on what the privileges should be given to specific callings? (I know this is part of the membership audit.)

3. How do you create a report that lists a home teaching companionship and the families/family members they home teach AND the visiting teachers for those same family members? This is essentially an addition onto the home teaching assignments that you print out and distribute to home teachers. They would like the same for visiting teachers (i.e., the visiting teaching assignments list the sisters' home teachers).

This is so home teachers and visiting teachers can coordinate and communicate with one another concerning the families/individuals they are assigned to home/visit teach.


You help is definitely appreciated! Thanks!

kelchenk wrote:Hello All,

I was asked by the Elders Quorum 2nd Counselor to create a specific report that I had some difficulty trying to create. I have a few questions, however.

1. In order to grant someone the privileges to create custom reports, do you need to give them "Edit Membership" privileges? I think by default we give non-bishopric/clerk/executive secretary users only "View Membership" privileges.

As far as I can tell, anyone can create a custom report. Viewing a custom report requires sufficient privileges to view in the information in the report. If the report does not have any confidential information then someone with Organization privileges can view it. If it has birth date, ordinance information or the like then View Membership privileges will be required.

We generally grant auxiliary and quorum leaders just Organization privileges. View Membership privileges allows the user to print a membership record which should never be given to anyone but the bishop or a clerk. As such it seems inappropriate to me to give auxiliary and quorum leaders this privilege.

kelchenk wrote:2. Related to the first question, is there an official document or communication from the Church on what the privileges should be given to specific callings? (I know this is part of the membership audit.)

The only official documentation that I know of is the MLS manual which says "An MLS user should receive only those rights needed to perform his or her calling." (page 40).

kelchenk wrote:3. How do you create a report that lists a home teaching companionship and the families/family members they home teach AND the visiting teachers for those same family members? This is essentially an addition onto the home teaching assignments that you print out and distribute to home teachers. They would like the same for visiting teachers (i.e., the visiting teaching assignments list the sisters' home teachers).

This is so home teachers and visiting teachers can coordinate and communicate with one another concerning the families/individuals they are assigned to home/visit teach.

The test installation of MLS doesn't have home teaching and visiting teaching assignments pre-built so I couldn't test it but seemed pretty easy to create a report that listed the HTs and VTs for each family but I don't know of a way to group families by home teachers using the custom report facility.

However, you could create a report of HTs and VTs by family and then save the report to a CSV file. You could then load that CSV into Excel or Access and then group by HTs or VTs.

eblood66 wrote: As far as I can tell, anyone can create a custom report. Viewing a custom report requires sufficient privileges to view in the information in the report. If the report does not have any confidential information then someone with Organization privileges can view it. If it has birth date, ordinance information or the like then View Membership privileges will be required.

We generally grant auxiliary and quorum leaders just Organization privileges. View Membership privileges allows the user to print a membership record which should never be given to anyone but the bishop or a clerk. As such it seems inappropriate to me to give auxiliary and quorum leaders this privilege.

Ah, yes--we grant Organization privileges by default--not View Membership. I failed to remember it correctly because I'm at home so I didn't have MLS in front of me.

Thanks for your prompt response in helping to answer my questions!