MLS 3.0 Issue: Temple recommend name search

[lajackson]

The TES software.

Temple Entry System (TES) in a web based online system for activating (and deactivating) temple recommends. MLS is normally used to activate recommends, but TES has always been available to stake presidencies to update recommend status.

When recommends first had barcodes, only the stake president or one of his counselors could access TES. The stake clerk did not have access.

I do not know if this has changed. The last time he tried, our stake clerk could not.

Because the three members of our stake presidency live 70, 65, and 35 miles away from the stake center, our presidency almost always uses TES. Many members interviewed have already attended the temple with their new recommends long before the next time the presidency meets at the stake center.

When our stake presidency does conduct temple recommend interviews before or after presidency meetings during the week at the stake center, the clerk usually activates them using MLS that evening before we leave.

When a member of the presidency gets a phone call at home that a recommend has been lost, they can immediately deactivate the recommend using TES, rather than waiting up to a week to get to the stake MLS computer.

Until MLS 3.0 it was easier to activate a recommend using MLS (except for waiting around for the Send/Receive). It appears that has temporarily changed. My guess is that it will be fixed before the final 3.0 release.

[mkmurray]

When recommends first had barcodes, only the stake president or one of his counselors could access TES. The stake clerk did not have access.

I do not know if this has changed. The last time he tried, our stake clerk could not.

This particular question of privileges based on calling is addressed in the wiki article I linked to below:

https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/Tem ... _.28TES.29

Alan_Brown did make some updates this morning to this part of the article (which appears to reflect somewhat recent changes from your assumptions).

[lajackson]

Alan_Brown did make some updates this morning to this part of the article (which appears to reflect somewhat recent changes from your assumptions).

It has been about two months since our clerk tried. I would not be surprised if he could access TES now, with all I have read about CDOL lately. And it would make sense if he could, except that he would only need to if he could not successfully use MLS to activate recommends for some reason.

Then, he could go home and do it, rather than give them back to the presidency for them to do it when they got home later that night.

[ffrsqpilot]

I learned about "tes" during a phone conversation with one of the MLS guru's at Salt Lake late last year. I don't believe the "tes" system was very well known among the stake leaders (at least it wasn't in our stake). None of our stake presidency was aware of tes until I mentioned it during one of our stake presidency meetings.

Our stake president is very good about updating the Stake Leadership so I was already listed in the CDOL. I initially was only using the internet to fill in medical data for missionary recommends, but since I already had a name and password, I gained access to tes as well (apparently same church controlled site or program).

If I have a choice I prefer activating recommends via MLS, but with the problems we are now encountering with 3.0, it is nice to have a backup means of getting the recommends in.

As a side note - having access to tes does come in handy when a member waits to the last moment getting a temple recommend before going to the temple. Either the stake presidency member can go to tes and enter it and it immediately shows up in the temple, or in our case, they give me the data and I enter it from home. It saves having to drive down to the stake center late at night to enter the recommend.

Jim

[aebrown]

I learned about "tes" during a phone conversation with one of the MLS guru's at Salt Lake late last year. I don't believe the "tes" system was very known among the stake leaders (at least it wasn't in our stake). None of our stake presidency was aware of tes until I mentioned it during one of our stake presidency meetings.

TES is documented in the instructions that were sent describing the new temple recommend activation system and the scanner. The TES instructions are at the end of the document, so perhaps people didn't read all the way to the end. That same document is available under MLS Help.

[ffrsqpilot]

I would be willing to bet (if I were a betting person) that 99.9% of us never read to the end of the instructions as we were all involved with trying how to set the bar code up.

It would be a nice feature, or idea, if in one of the next messages sent out via MLS if there was a reminder that there is another system for inputting recommends. Perhaps the clerks would get the message and pass it on to the Stake Presidency.... hint hint!

Thanks Alan for pointing out where the information can be found.

Jim

[lajackson]

I would be willing to bet (if I were a betting person) that 99.9% of us never read to the end of the instructions as we were all involved with trying how to set the bar code up.

I did. [grin]

The instructions were to promptly update recommend status. As I mentioned earlier, the presidency lives many miles from the stake center and needed a way to do it. As we read through the materials, we discussed overnighting recommends to the stake clerk and a number of other methods. The discussion ended when we got to the part on TES.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that I was not surprised when the TES instructions were located in the printed package from CHQ. I had already rummaged through the MLS file system and read everything in the TES subdirectory.

One of my problems is that I usually read all of the instructions. One of the highlights (some say lowlights) of my interface with the MLS help desk occurred in 2004 when they chewed me out for not following the printed instructions before calling them about a problem. I pointed out to them that I had followed the instructions exactly as they were printed. They said that the instructions were backwards and that I should have figured that out on my own. I asked if they had any plans to send out a correction to the instructions. They said no. They would just tell them when they called the help desk. I hung up without saying another word.

[aebrown]

There is no resolution at this moment, but the Church is aware of the problem and is working to fix it very soon. See this post for more details.

Hooray! In the final release of MLS 3.0.0, the temple recommend activation name search is fixed. It appears that the developers backed off and so we have the simple name search again. It just goes to the name that starts with the letters that have been typed in the name search field, rather than searching anywhere in the name.

But it works properly, works quickly, and best of all, after you activate a recommend, you only have to wait a couple of seconds before you can enter a new one, which is much faster than even MLS 2.9.

[ffrsqpilot]

Haven't had the chance to update the stake computer yet as I was up in Vernal all day yesterday. I'll be in on the stake computer this morning before a ward conference which is in the same building. Looking forward to getting back to the "old" system of entering recommends. Even if nothing other than speed of getting to the next recommend is altered with the final version, that alone is a good thing!!!

Sorry that the planned search function didn't work out. Maybe with a little more tweaking it can be fixed but for now I'm happy with the old system.

Jim

[stanstrad]

How do you activate a recommend from home? The only way I know of would be to have a copy of the MLS software installed and using a copy of the actual stake database, which is definitely against policy. The clerk would also need the recommend scanner. :rolleyes:

Using TES...Definitely don't use MLS outside stake building. If you don't have access to TES, you ought to look into it. Very nice when stake presidency needs to rush activate a Temple reccommend. And typing in number, without scanner, is still quicker than the bug now in 3.0