Unassigned families in home teaching

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russellhltn
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#11

Post by russellhltn »

1historian wrote:We tried that but the Hp group leader threw a fit because it lowered his home teaching percentage.
Those types irk me. The goal is the work, not the statistics. The change would would distort the effectiveness of the quorum's teachers, but not the effectiveness of the quorum. I believe that move-ins aren't even counted for the month they move-in, so that shouldn't be an issue.

One of the biggest drag on the reports I've seen is the members who want no contact. The failure to be visited is not because of the teacher or the quorum but because of the member. Is that what we're talking about here?
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#12

Post by RossEvans »

RussellHltn wrote: The goal is the work, not the statistics.

I agree. But I also think the statistics should reflect the work. We are record-keeping church for a reason. The HPGL in question here is focusing on a bogus metric that excludes from the denominator all the work his group is supposed to be doing.

Doesn't the quarterly report to the stake self-populate from the actual home-teaching visits reported divided by the total actual households? Even if it does not, I believe the procedure has always been to include all households in the denominator (except a few exceptions such as new move-ins during a month.) I don't recall if that report includes a breakdown by quorum.

In this case, it may be that the home-teaching statistics being reported in could be EQ 90%, HP 90%, Ward 50%.
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aebrown
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#13

Post by aebrown »

boomerbubba wrote:I agree. But I also think the statistics should reflect the work. We are record-keeping church for a reason. The HPGL in question here is focusing on a bogus metric that excludes from the denominator all the work his group is supposed to be doing.

Doesn't the quarterly report to the stake self-populate from the actual home-teaching visits reported divided by the total actual households? Even if it does not, I believe the procedure has always been to include all households in the denominator (except a few exceptions such as new move-ins during a month.) I don't recall if that report includes a breakdown by quorum.

In this case, it may be that the home-teaching statistics being reported in could be EQ 90%, HP 90%, Ward 50%.
The HT Statistics report has three subcategories: Elders Visits, HP Visits, Visits to unassigned families. The denominator for each of these lines can't be changed, except by assigning families to companionships within the Elders or HP. In any case, the sum of the three denominators is set to be the total number of families, and that cannot be changed. The number of visits for each of the three categories is automatically populated from the detailed visit statistics for the month, and the total number of families is automatically populated.

The Quarterly Report automatically populates the Total Families, and this cannot be changed. The clerk enters the total of all HT visits from the HT Statistics for the last month of the quarter on the Quarterly Report. There is no breakdown by quorum on the Quarterly Report -- the only figure entered is the total HT visits for the last month.

So it is possible that the stats could be EQ 90%, HP 90%, unassigned 2%, Ward 50%. But such a disparity between EQ/HP stats and total stats is only possible if there are a lot of unassigned families (an undesirable situation) who are not getting home taught (an unacceptable situation).
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#14

Post by russellhltn »

Alan_Brown wrote:who are not getting home taught (an unacceptable situation).
Unless the families don't want to be contacted. Then there's not a lot the ward can do about it.

(Except maybe telling the families how to remove their name from the records. That's one way to improve the stats. :eek:)
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#15

Post by lajackson »

boomerbubba wrote:Doesn't the quarterly report to the stake self-populate from the actual home-teaching visits reported divided by the total actual households?
Yes, it does. But, you can directly change the number of families visited on the report. This allows the report to be sent even if the HT/VT visits have not been recorded.

In most of our wards, the elders quorum president is listed without a companion and has all the families assigned to his quorum but not to home teachers. And the high priests group leader is listed without a companion and has all of the families assigned to the high priests. These priesthood leaders then use those lists to assign home teachers.

You can do this because a home teacher can be in more than one companionship.
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#16

Post by RossEvans »

lajackson wrote: In most of our wards, the elders quorum president is listed without a companion and has all the families assigned to his quorum but not to home teachers. And the high priests group leader is listed without a companion and has all of the families assigned to the high priests. These priesthood leaders then use those lists to assign home teachers.

You can do this because a home teacher can be in more than one companionship.

Yes, that is the ad hoc process I have been referring to upthread as a "workaround." I am suggesting that MLS should create such dummy companionships -- perhaps enumerated as District 0, Companionship 0 -- in each quorum by default and protect them from deletion. Then MLS users can be instructed routinely to use these companionship to ensure that families' assigned quorums are recorded.

That would have the effect of institutionalizing and documenting the ad hoc workaround. (Which I believe would essentially rebuild the functionality that used to exist in MIS.) And quorum leaders such as the HPGL in 1historian's ward would get their actual work product reflected in their stats. Apparently that metric is what gets his attention.

I also think it is a good idea, as a matter of process, that the ward clerk take responsibility for assigning new families to these companionships in the first place. MLS then becomes a better mangement tool for tracking and for motivating priesthood leaders to get the assignments delegated to actual home teachers.
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Hijt
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#17

Post by Hijt »

If I understand your question right, you are wondering how men, or head of households get assigned to a quorum when they do not fit in the criteria that normally sort them to one quorum or the other automatically. Sometimes you might want to assign an adult aaronic to the HP quorum and an other to the elders because of age. If you read this thread that was posted sometime ago and it tells you how to assign them to a particular quorum.http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.ph ... ned+quorum
When you perform this procedure, these men that you manually move around will then show up on the roll that you want them to. I know this does not cover all of your inquiry but it should help you with assignments to the quorums.
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Hijt
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#18

Post by Hijt »

One Other thing that I wanted to add was once you get these men assigned a quorum, they can then be added to a companionship in a district formed by that quorum.
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#19

Post by russellhltn »

Ground Rod wrote:If you read this thread that was posted sometime ago and it tells you how to assign them to a particular quorum.http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.ph ... ned+quorum
That assigns a male member to a quorum in terms of Sunday attendance. Does that affect which quorum is responsible to Home Teach that family? I believe that's what we are discussing in this thread.
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aebrown
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#20

Post by aebrown »

Ground Rod wrote:One Other thing that I wanted to add was once you get these men assigned a quorum, they can then be added to a companionship in a district formed by that quorum.

Actually, these two issues are not at all connected in MLS. The assigning of Home Teaching districts, companionships, and families to teach is not dependent on the quorum assignment of anyone involved.

For example, you could technically have a companionship that consists of one Elder and one High Priest, in a HT district that is assigned to the Elders, teaching a family where the head of household is a High Priest.

It may well be that a ward decides to keep districts, companionships, and assigned families in the same quorum for the most part, but there may be cases where some exceptions are made. Fortunately, MLS is flexible enough to support this. In some places, such as when you assign a family to be home taught, MLS will initially show a list of households in the quorum that owns the district, but that is just a filter that can be changed to show other quorums or even all households.
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