Tech Forum

This morning when running MLS, I get a message indicating there is an urgent task to generate the temple recommend activation report. The what, I ask myself? Just prior to this in our Bishopric meeting, the bishop had read a letter from the First Presidency regarding changes with recommends, so I figure it has something to do with that. After selecting to generate the report, I got a message indicating I do not have privileges to view the report (I'm serving as Ward Clerk). After some discovery, I found what appeared to be some new privileges added to users to allow the generationg of the report.

My question -- did I miss some sort of communication from the stake or CHQ regarding this new feature in MLS? If not, is there a reason the change wouldn't be communicated before deploying it? Are there guidelines regarding who should be able to view the report?

ericb wrote:I got a message indicating I do not have privileges to view the report (I'm serving as Ward Clerk).

I think typically Ward Clerks are set up as MLS administrators. Is that the case in your ward or are you at some lower privilege?

RussellHltn wrote:I think typically Ward Clerks are set up as MLS administrators. Is that the case in your ward or are you at some lower privilege?

The 'view' and 'edit' recommend permissions appear to be new, exclusive of 'administrator'. It looks like 'edit' permissions are not available to users at the ward level, since this will be a function of the stake. Again, I'm making some assumptions here since there has been no information communicated.

What version of MLS are you on?

DJC wrote:What version of MLS are you on?

It is version 2.4.3 -- I think this is the same version number as before the update. I'm guessing the addition of the recommend activation component occured as part of a recent send/receive.

BTW, I contacted our stake clerk, who just found out about this whole thing today. He wasn't aware the ward's MLS had already been updated for the change.

ericb wrote:It looks like 'edit' permissions are not available to users at the ward level, since this will be a function of the stake.

I'd expect the MLS admin should be able to edit the permissions. As far as I know, MLS doesn't have a "stake level" user or admin. All users are local users. There may be a login for the stake, but they are still just local users. I've never seen where the stake MLS makes changes to the ward MLS.

Not unless MLS had undergone some major changes.

RussellHltn wrote:I'd expect the MLS admin should be able to edit the permissions. As far as I know, MLS doesn't have a "stake level" user or admin. All users are local users. There may be a login for the stake, but they are still just local users. I've never seen where the stake MLS makes changes to the ward MLS.

Not unless MLS had undergone some major changes.

I was informed by a church admin yesterday our area is part of a pilot program in regard to the topic mentioned. Hopefully, when this update to MLS is deployed in other areas, it will be preceded with better communication.

This is going to be an interesting time for temples. There seems to be two programs out there: New FamilySearch and the new barcoded recommends. As far as I can tell, they are being deployed separately.

The new feature of using temple recommends with a bar code that can be scanned at the temple is being implemented a few temple districts at a time. The communication is with the stake because they are expected to coordinate the implementation with their wards and because it is at the stake level that the new recommends will be activated. This involves recording the recommend in MLS, which later gets transferred to the Temple Entry data. Anyway, if you were taken by surprise, check with your stake clerk. See if he has received anything from headquarters.

RussellHltn wrote:This is going to be an interesting time for temples. There seems to be two programs out there: New FamilySearch and the new barcoded recommends. As far as I can tell, they are being deployed separately.

So they are barcoding the recommends again. So anyone know the reason behind this? Is is so you can just register the names you want done to you recommend in the NFS and then the temple scans your recommend prints out a card and you go on your way?