Restore Prior MLS User?

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
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mrich382
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Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jul 27, 2014 7:08 am

Restore Prior MLS User?

#1

Post by mrich382 »

Our former Elders Quorum President was released a few months ago. At the time, we went into MLS and "Removed" him as an MLS account to set up the new Elders Quorum President.

That former Elders Quorum President was just called as an assistant Ward Clerk. We tried to set him up with an MLS login yesterday, but when we entered his information, MLS would not let us set him up because his name was still showing up under the Elders Quorum account, and it would not allow me to create a new account for him.

I can't imagine this is the first time someone who once had access to MLS then got a new calling that allowed them access again, so clearly I am doing something wrong to set up the new assistant clerk.

Any thoughts or suggestions?
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aebrown
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Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Draper, Utah

Re: Restore Prior MLS User?

#2

Post by aebrown »

mrich382 wrote:That former Elders Quorum President was just called as an assistant Ward Clerk. We tried to set him up with an MLS login yesterday, but when we entered his information, MLS would not let us set him up because his name was still showing up under the Elders Quorum account, and it would not allow me to create a new account for him.

I can't imagine this is the first time someone who once had access to MLS then got a new calling that allowed them access again, so clearly I am doing something wrong to set up the new assistant clerk.
You refer to "the Elders Quorum account", which seems to say that you set up MLS users by using calling names, rather than associating MLS users with individual people. This is a bad practice for many reasons, and you are starting to see some of them.

An MLS user is almost always associated with a person via that person's membership record number (MRN). A particular MRN can be associated with only one MLS user (and that is true whether the MLS user account is active or inactive).

The proper method is this: when a member is given a calling that requires MLS access, an MLS user account is created for that person with the appropriate permissions, and is associated with his or her MRN. When that person is released from that calling, the MLS user account is removed or deactivated. When that person is given a new calling that requires MLS access, the account is restored and given the permissions appropriate to the new calling. Following this procedure avoids all the problems you have described, and has the additional virtue of following policy, as described in item #4 in the RKATS article Maintain MLS User Access: "The user name should be the member’s preferred name, not a generic name such as “Ward Clerk.” This will assist in tracking which members have MLS user accounts."

If I understand your particular situation, you have an "Elders Quorum" user that is associated with the MRN of the person in question, whom I will call "John Doe." You are trying to create an MLS account for him, and MLS is refusing to do so because his MRN is already associated with an MLS user. Before you can create an account for him, you have to make sure that no MLS user account is associated with his MRN. In the case of your "Elders Quorum" account, you should rename that account to be associated with the name of the current EQ president (something like "James Smith" in place of "Elders Quorum") and then associate that MLS user with the MRN for James Smith.

That should free up John Doe's MRN to be associated with the new user account (which you should name something like "John Doe"). Note that a few years ago it was possible to have multiple MLS users associated with a single MRN, so it's possible that you could need to correct multiple MLS users associated with John Doe's MRN before you can create a new account for him.
mrich382
New Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jul 27, 2014 7:08 am

Re: Restore Prior MLS User?

#3

Post by mrich382 »

Thank you! You have described our situation PERFECTLY. We have an account that was set up before I was called as the Ward Clerk for "Elders Quorum" and that is the root of our problem.

Your answer has been perfectly helpful, and I really appreciate it.

Thanks again.
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