Tech Forum

Has anyone else had the experience where MLS is dropping information off of the personal records of their ward members? Specifically who the baptism was performed by and their info such as birthday and record number. I know it was there before and now it's not. Only some members are affected. Any help would be appreciated.

The name and details about the person who performed a member's baptism is not a part of the membership record, and so it is not permanently recorded (and never has been, at least as long as the MLS system has been around).

So this is not a matter of the information being dropped, or being missing.

Why is there an inconsistency with the records then? Some show this information and some do not.

It probably depends on who entered the information. If it was a child of record, then the baptism was entered by the ward and will be in MLS until the member moves to a new ward (or perhaps a unit refresh).

Anything else, and the information did not move in with the record.

At least that's my guess.

Same thing with blessings.

MLS has that information only to support making certificates. It's not part of CMIS (the church's back end that MLS talks to)

jimatherton wrote:Why is there an inconsistency with the records then? Some show this information and some do not.

You'll only ever have information on who performed a baptism for those who were baptized in your ward (unless someone re-enters the information for some reason).

But even for those baptized in your ward the information would be removed if the record was ever moved out, even accidentally.

And I think you may also lose that information if you request a unit data refresh (but I'm not sure about that one). That process replaces your existing membership information with a copy from CHQ and very likely will lose the information that is not stored in CMIS.

Thank you all very much, this will really help. I will let my clerks know about this so there is no more confusion.