Membership Address Issue (Suggestion)

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
ggllbb
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#11

Post by ggllbb »

I like the ideas about the address customize options. About 2/3 of out members have a PO box mailing address as well as a physical address. It would be nice to consolidate those in a member list.

davesudweeks wrote:The Speaker History has to be exported to allow me to populate the last date an individual spoke.


Where do you 'keep' the speak hstory that you export?
kisaac
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#12

Post by kisaac »

I wish we had more ability to control the output of MLS regular and custom reports. As suggested, Exporting to Spreadsheet is an option for generating your own custom phone or address list. However, don't forget there is hidden power in MLS, if you figure out "custom fields" and using them with"custom reports." You could use "custom fields" to store very detailed address information if needed, and then make a custom report to print it.
davesudweeks wrote: The Speaker History has to be exported to allow me to populate the last date an individual spoke. I use formulas to copy the previous data to the new fields when I update it (about monthly). By the way, our youth are amazed that the Bishopric can remember the last time they spoke... we just keep the "how" our little secret. :-)
About exporting and manipulating on other programs:

We used to maintain both our speakers history and Fast offering routes on a spreadsheet.
With a high turn-over in ward members, the updating took way too much time. We tried using "custom fields" to store this information, and it really works well. Now, even more "amazing" talk reports are available to us, because it can now be integrated with the other MLS data via custom reports.

This, of course is another thread...
davesudweeks
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#13

Post by davesudweeks »

ggllbb wrote:Where do you 'keep' the speak hstory that you export?

Our Membership clerk keeps minutes of every Sacrament meeting, recording calling sustainings, attendance, speakers, songs, prayers, etc. This is not required by church policy, but has been done in this ward since before I was called as clerk in 2005. (Back in those days, our Stake President wanted the quarterly report data provided to him each month). We keep the minutes in a binder that holds about 2 years worth - when it gets full, we shred the oldest. We do not keep speaking topics, but that could be handy.

Each month-or-so, I Export new data from MLS and update the most recent dates since the last update. We have a separate list for adults (over 18) and youth (12-18). We keep the spreadsheet on the computer at the church - it only has name, age, telephone, Last date spoken. Only the Bishopric receive copies.

Send me a private message if you would like soft copies of any of our spreadsheets or reports. I can alro provide the MLS query data if you are interested.

Dave Sudweeks
Elm Creek Ward Clerk
Daryl1
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#14

Post by Daryl1 »

Can we add this to the Clerk Wiki? :rolleyes:

There is no work around and no option under the custom reports format section to draw mailing addresses street 1 or street 2 from the data base. Also there is no option for this under the abbreviated directory customize section. Currently the only way to see the mailing address is to look at the membership record in MLS or to print out the mailing labels.

Membership records have the following

Residential Address:
Street 1
Street 2

Mailing Address:
Street 1
Street 2

Many members in the unit have a physical residential address along with a mailing address. This would bless the leaders to be able to create a custom report by adding mailing address street 1, and street 2 to the custom report format and or under the abbreviated directory customize section.

The programmers did put a check box for residential street 2 address under the abbreviated directory customize section but forgot the mailing address fields.
RossEvans
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#15

Post by RossEvans »

daryl1 wrote: There is no work around and no option under the custom reports format section to draw mailing addresses street 1 or street 2 from the data base. Also there is no option for this under the abbreviated directory customize section. Currently the only way to see the mailing address is to look at the membership record in MLS or to print out the mailing labels.

You have good suggestions about adding the mailing address as an option in the abbreviated directory and custom reports.

Meanwhile, one more workaround is to export the Membership.csv file from File -> Export. That file contains this particular detail and more. This function does require Administrator privilege because it contains several other elements that are confidential. But the ward clerk should be able to get it.

I do most of our customized mailing functions using the standard export files.
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aebrown
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#16

Post by aebrown »

daryl1 wrote:Can we add this to the Clerk Wiki? :rolleyes:

What exactly are you referring to? The wiki is a big place. Do you mean adding it to the MLS: Feedback and Suggestions page?

If so, I could do that, but I'm not convinced that anyone is looking at that anymore. A much better way is to do what I suggested in my previous reply to you -- send your suggestion in to MLS support. Have you done that?
daryl1 wrote:Currently the only way to see the mailing address is to look at the membership record in MLS or to print out the mailing labels.

You say the only current option is to "look at the membership record in MLS" (obviously impractical) or "to print out the mailing labels" (no flexibility in formatting). But have you tried the other option I mentioned in my previous reply to you? That way you can have an electronic version of the mailing addresses and merge or do whatever else you want with the mailing addresses. Since you didn't mention that option, I can't tell if you've tried that.
daryl1 wrote:Many members in the unit have a physical residential address along with a mailing address. This would bless the leaders to be able to create a custom report by adding mailing address street 1, and street 2 to the custom report format and or under the abbreviated directory customize section.

The programmers did put a check box for residential street 2 address under the abbreviated directory customize section but forgot the mailing address fields.
I agree that these fields should be selectable through custom reports. It does seem like it would be an easy addition, and very helpful.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
RossEvans
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#17

Post by RossEvans »

aebrown wrote:You say the only current option is to "look at the membership record in MLS" (obviously impractical) or "to print out the mailing labels" (no flexibility in formatting). But have you tried the other option I mentioned in my previous reply to you? That way you can have an electronic version of the mailing addresses and merge or do whatever else you want with the mailing addresses. Since you didn't mention that option, I can't tell if you've tried that.

I still don't understand how this would satisfy daryl1's needs. He is not seeking just to reformat the mailing address data, but to add it to a directory report. The directory typically contains other information, such as household members and phone number, that is not in the mailing labels. IIRC, the only time I ever tried exporting the mailing labels to a CSV file, the only data I got there was what the labels themselves contained.
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aebrown
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#18

Post by aebrown »

RossEvans wrote:I still don't understand how this would satisfy daryl1's needs. He is not seeking just to reformat the mailing address data, but to add it to a directory report. The directory typically contains other information, such as household members and phone number, that is not in the mailing labels. IIRC, the only time I ever tried exporting the mailing labels to a CSV file, the only data I got there was what the labels themselves contained.
I made a suggestion, and he didn't respond to it. It was a simple followup to see if he understood and if that would be helpful. Yes, the only data with that mechanism is the data that the labels contain, but I don't see how you can be certain that is in no way helpful.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
RossEvans
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#19

Post by RossEvans »

aebrown wrote:I made a suggestion, and he didn't respond to it. It was a simple followup to see if he understood and if that would be helpful. Yes, the only data with that mechanism is the data that the labels contain, but I don't see how you can be certain that is in no way helpful.

Well, his original suggestionwas "Please consider adding to the Abbreviated Directory under under Customize the following... Add the following to the Abbreviated Directory Customize section to match the membership record...." (my emphasis).

Since the Abbreviated Directory contains other information, I thought it was pretty clear he wished to keep that and add the mailing address.
Daryl1
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#20

Post by Daryl1 »

Thanks for your help everyone. Maybe someday the programmers can add this to MLS. We have many members in our unit that have a physical address along with a mailing address. The RS has been asking for this for many years now. Currently they have had to create there own data base for mailings. Maybe sometime in the future MLS with be more useful for the RS and other leaders regarding physical and mailing addresses.

Let's keep moving forward in a positive way.:D
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