Tech Forum

My stake president and I are trying to make sure we understand the new quarterly report. How are the 1-year and 5-year values determined? Are they the year-end values of the prior calendar year or the values of the quarter-end 12 months prior? For example, we have a Q1-2014 report. Are the 1-year and 5-year values for Q4-2013 and Q4-2009, or are they for Q1-2013 and Q1-2009? My assumption is the latter, but I was asked to verify.

In addition, are the past values determined from an actual snapshot, or is it recalculated each quarter? For example, I remember as an EQ secretary that our past home teaching percentages were ridiculously low. Then I realized that it was reporting the number of families that were home taught (say, 3 years ago) and still living in the ward divided by the number of families currently in the ward. Since we lived in a college town, we had a lot of turnover. That meant that maybe 15 families still lived in the ward from 3 years ago even though 50 families were visited. I just wanted to make sure that that isn't still happening with this new report.

In short, are the values from the past snapshots at the point, or are they regenerated based on current membership records?

dallasb wrote:My stake president and I are trying to make sure we understand the new quarterly report. How are the 1-year and 5-year values determined? Are they the year-end values of the prior calendar year or the values of the quarter-end 12 months prior? For example, we have a Q1-2014 report. Are the 1-year and 5-year values for Q4-2013 and Q4-2009, or are they for Q1-2013 and Q1-2009? My assumption is the latter, but I was asked to verify.

I'm afraid I can't answer that. I don't know that we've been told. Maybe somebody who has their own historical numbers can figure that out. I would (I've got our last 7 years of quarterly reports) but I was just released as ward clerk so I can't look what our most recent report looks like. But if nobody else can figure it out I'll see if I can get a copy of our the most recent report and do so.

dallasb wrote:In addition, are the past values determined from an actual snapshot, or is it recalculated each quarter? For example, I remember as an EQ secretary that our past home teaching percentages were ridiculously low. Then I realized that it was reporting the number of families that were home taught (say, 3 years ago) and still living in the ward divided by the number of families currently in the ward. Since we lived in a college town, we had a lot of turnover. That meant that maybe 15 families still lived in the ward from 3 years ago even though 50 families were visited. I just wanted to make sure that that isn't still happening with this new report.

In short, are the values from the past snapshots at the point, or are they regenerated based on current membership records?

Quarterly reports have always been static, unlike the VT/HT statistics calculated by MLS (which, as you say, are calculated based on the current known information in MLS). Once the quarterly report numbers are entered, they don't change.

Thank you. I didn't think of comparing to my past reports. I can do that myself. Thank you for the idea and the help on the rest of my post.

dallasb wrote:Are the 1-year and 5-year values for Q4-2013 and Q4-2009, or are they for Q1-2013 and Q1-2009? My assumption is the latter, but I was asked to verify.
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In short, are the values from the past snapshots at the point, or are they regenerated based on current membership records?

The RKATS article Quarterly Report explains that the report "includes the percentages relating to the information . . . from one year ago and five years ago to help leaders monitor trends."

It only makes sense that these 1 & 5 year figures would compare the same quarter in a previous year -- that would help eliminate seasonal variations that could otherwise make comparisons difficult or meaningless. And indeed, I've been able to verify that this is indeed the case. For Q1-2014, the 1-year figure is exactly what was on the Q1-2013 quarterly report, and the 5-year figure matches the Q1-2009 report.

And as eblood66 explained, this also verifies that the numbers are what was on those previous reports -- in other words, snapshots, not regenerated percentages.