What is the 'rule' for assigning YM to Boy Scouts

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
waltbristow
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What is the 'rule' for assigning YM to Boy Scouts

#1

Post by waltbristow »

While trying to verify that members had been properly assigned to organizations, quorums and classes, I noticed that only a couple of our Young Men were showing up assigned "Boy Scouts" (Criteria = Organization Class is Boy Scouts").

When I opened a young man's individual record who was not on the report, clicked on "Reset Organizations for Member" and then ran the Custom Report again, the young man then showed up as assigned to the Scouts. (On the young man's record itself, Boy Scouts is NOT listed as an organization the member is assigned to.

Anyone know what's going on and why some young men seem to be automatically assigned to Scouts but others are not?

Walt Bristow
Lynchburg (VA) 2nd Ward Clerk
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mkmurray
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#2

Post by mkmurray »

wbristow wrote:While trying to verify that members had been properly assigned to organizations, quorums and classes, I noticed that only a couple of our Young Men were showing up assigned "Boy Scouts" (Criteria = Organization Class is Boy Scouts").

When I opened a young man's individual record who was not on the report, clicked on "Reset Organizations for Member" and then ran the Custom Report again, the young man then showed up as assigned to the Scouts. (On the young man's record itself, Boy Scouts is NOT listed as an organization the member is assigned to.

Anyone know what's going on and why some young men seem to be automatically assigned to Scouts but others are not?

Walt Bristow
Lynchburg (VA) 2nd Ward Clerk
I would suggest checking out this LDS Tech wiki article on Class Membership and Class Rules: https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/Cla ... Membership

My guess is that you will want to look at the class rules to determine what the current criteria is for automated assignment to the Scouts class/organization.
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aebrown
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#3

Post by aebrown »

wbristow wrote:While trying to verify that members had been properly assigned to organizations, quorums and classes, I noticed that only a couple of our Young Men were showing up assigned "Boy Scouts" (Criteria = Organization Class is Boy Scouts").

When I opened a young man's individual record who was not on the report, clicked on "Reset Organizations for Member" and then ran the Custom Report again, the young man then showed up as assigned to the Scouts. (On the young man's record itself, Boy Scouts is NOT listed as an organization the member is assigned to.

Anyone know what's going on and why some young men seem to be automatically assigned to Scouts but others are not?
Unfortunately, the "Boy Scouts" organization in MLS is rather strange, and so some of the normal techniques and procedures used for it don't apply.
  • The rules for this organization are hard coded as males, 12 and 13 years of age. There is nowhere in MLS to examine the organization rules.
  • The organization membership appears nowhere in the MLS user interface.
  • The organization leadership does appear in MLS under Organizations under Bishopric/Other Callings, but unlike most other organizations, the membership doesn't appear with the leadership for the organization.
  • Because the membership appears nowhere, there is nowhere to do a master reset of the organization, as is possible with Sunday School and Primary.
  • Membership in this organization is not listed on an individual's membership record.
  • For young men who fit the organization rules but are not appearing in the organization, going to their individual membership record and doing Reset Organizations for Member will have no immediate visible effect, but will indeed add them to the organization.
  • There is no way to print a normal class list or roll for this organization, but a custom report using Organization Class is Boy Scouts will list the members of the organization.

I have no idea why some 12-13 year old YM don't get added automatically to Boy Scouts, but it even happened with the MLS test database. If you really want to use the Boy Scouts organization, I would suggest running a custom report for all males age 12-13, and for each person on that list who is not in the Boy Scouts, do a Reset Organizations for Member.
greggo
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#4

Post by greggo »

Alan_Brown wrote:I have no idea why some 12-13 year old YM don't get added automatically to Boy Scouts, but it even happened with the MLS test database. If you really want to use the Boy Scouts organization, I would suggest running a custom report for all males age 12-13, and for each person on that list who is not in the Boy Scouts, do a Reset Organizations for Member.

Please remember to include the 11-year-olds, and unless there are separate organizations for Varsity Scouts and Venturers, Boy Scouts should include all boys age 11-17.
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aebrown
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#5

Post by aebrown »

Greggo wrote:Please remember to include the 11-year-olds, and unless there are separate organizations for Varsity Scouts and Venturers, Boy Scouts should include all boys age 11-17.
Unfortunately, as I explained in my previous post, there is no way to manually adjust the membership of the built-in MLS organization "Boy Scouts", which has a hard-coded rule of males 12-13. So there's no way to do what you suggest, at least the way MLS works with that built-in organization.
jdlessley
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#6

Post by jdlessley »

Greggo wrote:Please remember to include the 11-year-olds, and unless there are separate organizations for Varsity Scouts and Venturers, Boy Scouts should include all boys age 11-17.
In the Church the 11-year-old boys are part of Primary and not the Aaronic Priesthood. Keeping the 11-year-old Scouts separate from the other Scouts is intentional.
JD Lessley
Have you tried finding your answer on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org Help Center or Tech Wiki?
greggo
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#7

Post by greggo »

jdlessley wrote:In the Church the 11-year-old boys are part of Primary and not the Aaronic Priesthood. Keeping the 11-year-old Scouts separate from the other Scouts is intentional.

Yes, I understand that. But unless the ward has a separate troop and scoutmaster for the 11-yr-olds (which doesn't make a lot of sense). Scout leaders should be able to get a complete list. In my experience, I have never heard of a separate troop, scoutmaster, troop committee, etc. just for the boys that are 12+ years old.
lajackson
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#8

Post by lajackson »

Greggo wrote:Yes, I understand that. But unless the ward has a separate troop and scoutmaster for the 11-yr-olds (which doesn't make a lot of sense). Scout leaders should be able to get a complete list. In my experience, I have never heard of a separate troop, scoutmaster, troop committee, etc. just for the boys that are 12+ years old.

Having them all does come in handy at registration time. But, as Alan has pointed out, the hard coding in MLS does not seem to coincide with the reality of the Scout membership situation. And since it is in the code and not accessible for change, it really does not help us much.
SheffieldTR
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#9

Post by SheffieldTR »

Greggo wrote:Yes, I understand that. But unless the ward has a separate troop and scoutmaster for the 11-yr-olds (which doesn't make a lot of sense). Scout leaders should be able to get a complete list. In my experience, I have never heard of a separate troop, scoutmaster, troop committee, etc. just for the boys that are 12+ years old.
While it may not make sense to you, there should be different leaders working with the 11 year old scouts within the church. While they are (by BSA definition) scouts, they are not a part of the deacons quorum and therefore should not be involved with the normal operation of the scouting program within the ward. They are a part of the same troop, but that is a BSA definition. The church has allowed for a couple of overnight activities a year to join them together, but that is it. There weekly meetings should be separate for the same stated reason. This should not be news to your bishop or YM leaders. It appears that the MLS hard coded definition says that 12 and 13 year olds are scouts and that would be correct. 14 and 15 year old boys are Varsity and 15 and 16 year old boys are Venture. The later two groups while under the overall umbrella of BSA are not Scouts. They are members of the Varsity Team or Venture Crew. It may seem like splitting hairs, but sometimes hairs need to be split.
lajackson
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#10

Post by lajackson »

tsheffield wrote:It appears that the MLS hard coded definition says that 12 and 13 year olds are scouts and that would be correct. 14 and 15 year old boys are Varsity and 15 and 16 year old boys are Venture. The later two groups while under the overall umbrella of BSA are not Scouts. They are members of the Varsity Team or Venture Crew. It may seem like splitting hairs, but sometimes hairs need to be split.

Some areas with larger numbers of Scouts form a separate Team or Crew. But, in many areas, there are not enough Scouts to form a separate group, so they remain as members of the Scout troop.

The MLS hard coded definition is correct. But it just is not complete in most cases, and therefore becomes meaningless for normal use. Because of that, we use the custom reports function of MLS for our Scouting needs.
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