MLS 3.1 Phone/Email changes

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
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aebrown
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#31

Post by aebrown »

geek wrote:SLC could just have saved their time by assigning the secondary phone number to one of the spouses during the upgrade. There's probably a decent chance it would have been the right spouse. There's a small probability that the secondary family number belonged to a child, particularly one under 18.

The logic of "we don't know what to do with it, so we'll just throw it away, when we've just created data structures that would logically contain it" is appalling.

At least in my ward's case, simply assigning the secondary to the personal number of either the husband or wife would have been yielded about a 40% success rate in either case.
Given your assumptions, I still think the MLS developers did the right thing. You are saying that 40% of the numbers would have been correct, had the secondary numbers been arbitrarily assigned to the husband. But that means that a full 60% of the numbers would have been incorrect. Is it worth saving a little time on re-entering the 40% of good numbers, at the cost of having 60% bad numbers, some of which won't be detected for quite some time? I think not; 40% blank data is better than 60% wrong data.

You may have a different opinion, but really, what's the point of this whole discussion? The deed is done. Whether it was done thoughtfully (as I believe), or with appalling disregard (as you seem to believe), neither of our opinions will change that fact. In any case, we have a great new capability for storing individual information, so let's move forward with gathering and verifying that information.
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mkmurray
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#32

Post by mkmurray »

Alan_Brown wrote:You may have a different opinion, but really, what's the point of this whole discussion? The deed is done. Whether it was done thoughtfully (as I believe), or with appalling disregard (as you seem to believe), neither of our opinions will change that fact. In any case, we have a great new capability for storing individual information, so let's move forward with gathering and verifying that information.
I suppose we could make an argument that perhaps next time around, it would be nice to choose from a few options, other than the default assumption of dropping the data.

For instance, in our ward, I probably could have depended on the secondary phone numbers being the sisters in the ward with about 70% accuracy (as I had tried to enforce that as much as possible for consistency).
Acludlow-p40
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#33

Post by Acludlow-p40 »

The new household number works only if you are using a land line. The household email will only go to one person and not the other. Some spouses are not good at relaying information or answering their cell phone.

It would seem more appropriate to list both spouses phone numbers and email addresses if you truly are trying to communicate with ward members. That should be the default. In our ward, if you are under 40 years old, the odds are that both spouses have cell phones with no land line and both have separate email addresses. I realize that it would take up more space on the directories, but it is important for the ward members to be calling or emailing the right person. The purpose of phone numbers and email addresses is for communication, not to be hidden in the MLS program and kept a secret from those that need to use them (leaders are not the only ones needing the information).

If someone does not want their cell phone or email address listed, they don't have to give it to the clerk. Anytime a report or printout includes both spouses, both numbers and email addresses should be printed out. Children under 18 years old is a different issue and should be kept more confidential.

I love that MLS is finally getting more relevant information for todays society. These updates are great! Keep up the good work.:):):)

Allen
Orem, UT
kisaac
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Didn't get the message...

#34

Post by kisaac »

mkmurray wrote: The MLS message that everyone should have received a few weeks before the upgrade stated that if you wanted to save the secondary household numbers to be put in individual phone number fields, you would have to print out or export that data before the upgrade...
Am I the only clerk church-wide that didn't get that message before the "critical" date? Yes, one of the assistant clerks was prompted to make the upgrade, and did, not understanding the ramifications, before I printed off the report.

I was surprised that such an action happened without a little more obvious "warning" on data loss of secondary phone numbers on the upgrade. Not a real big deal for us, as I agree that most people should now decide which cell phone to designate as the household contact. Yes we could restore from back-up, but for us "not-so-techie" clerks, we think we'll just make due.

We are happy with the change, for the most part.
lajackson
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#35

Post by lajackson »

kisaac wrote:Am I the only clerk church-wide that didn't get that message before the "critical" date?

No, but communicating is one of the areas I personally feel has room for lots of improvement. At least they did send a message. And most units did receive it.

A unit needs to decide how to handle any message that comes with an MLS download. I hesitate to print them all out, but that seems to be one of the best ways to get the word out to other MLS users.

Responsible users can usually figure out which messages are the "important" ones. But, as soon as I say that, someone who works with finances will not realize the critical nature of a membership related message, and vice versa.

And we are back again where we started.
mwainwright-p40
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Individual phone numbers

#36

Post by mwainwright-p40 »

During Tithing Settlement, we've been asking for individual phone numbers. Most are willing to give their cell phone numbers, but many have stated a preference that their home phone continue to be the "primary" number that is called to reach them, especially in the evening when they are at home. (Yes, we are an "older" ward, and people still have home phones.) Based on this feedback, we are not entering the cell numbers on MLS since these would be the only numbers to print on organization lists showing individuals.

Would it be possible in a future version to give the option of designating the individual phone number as "Primary" or "Secondary" (and possibly even adding a third designation for "Emergency only" - since a few have made this request) and modifying the individual lists accordingly so that both the home phone number and the individual (cell) number will appear on the list, but the order that they appear would be based on the designation?
crisa
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#37

Post by crisa »

One thing I didn't see mentioned here is what to do when there is a single sister who has both a home phone and a cell phone? On the directory, it will print the home phone, but on the Relief Society reports, it will print the cell phone information. If for some reason she only wanted her home number to print on everything, what would we do about keeping her cell phone? Is there something in the works to possible address this situation or others like it? I am very glad that a ward directory which lists secondary numbers is on its way! It is much needed in our ward.
jdlessley
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#38

Post by jdlessley »

crisa wrote:One thing I didn't see mentioned here is what to do when there is a single sister who has both a home phone and a cell phone? On the directory, it will print the home phone, but on the Relief Society reports, it will print the cell phone information. If for some reason she only wanted her home number to print on everything, what would we do about keeping her cell phone?
If the sister only wants her home phone number listed and her cell phone kept private then do not enter the cell phone number in the Phone Number field for the Individual Contact Information. The Household Contact Information Phone Number will then be the default for all directories and lists.

If her cell number is needed for limited contact by ward leadership but not on any list I cannot think of any way of including it in MLS without it showing up on any directory or list. It would be nice to have the cell number included in MLS but have an option to not include it in any directories/lists or only custom reports.
JD Lessley
Have you tried finding your answer on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org Help Center or Tech Wiki?
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aebrown
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#39

Post by aebrown »

jdlessley wrote:If her cell number is needed for limited contact by ward leadership but not on any list I cannot think of any way of including it in MLS without it showing up on any directory or list. It would be nice to have the cell number included in MLS but have an option to not include it in any directories/lists or only custom reports.
If the ward leadership needs to store a phone number in MLS that should not appear on any directories or lists, you could certainly create a Custom Field called something like "Private Phone Number"; a Custom Report could then be written to list all these private phone numbers.
tw.lbean
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#40

Post by tw.lbean »

Alan_Brown wrote:Is it worth saving a little time on re-entering
Copying and pasting is much easier than typing it in.
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