Non-Member and Temporary Records

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
User avatar
mkmurray
Senior Member
Posts: 3266
Joined: Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:56 pm
Location: Utah
Contact:

Non-Member and Temporary Records

#1

Post by mkmurray »

This question comes from me investigating potential custom report bugs, found in this thread: http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3795

We have 3 Nonmember records in our unit's MLS. I know this because I can go to the "Remove Nonmember" under "Other Record Changes" and see the 3 records listed in the Member Selection dialog box that is common throughout the software when choosing a particular member. When you view any of these individual records (not through the Remove functionality), you see Address, Contact Information, Household Members, and then only a limited amount of the Personal Information (Full Name, Maiden Name, Preferred Name, and Sex). When you look at the Household Members, you can see that this nonmember actually has a membership record number that does not contain our unit number in it (I assume that means it's not a Temporary Record?).

Now we also have 1 Temporary Record, which I know because of the "Remove Temporary Records" functionality similar to what I found above. This temporary record also appears to be the same person as one of our nonmember records. When you look at this particular household, the record number is blank. But when I look at the member spouse's individual record, under the Spouse tab I can see that this nonmember actually has a membership record number like the other two nonmembers (with no unit number in it).

To me, it appears the Temporary Record is an extra, unnecessary one. Is my assumption correct? Any advice on how to clean this up if necessary? Do I need more investigation first?

Perhaps it is even throwing off my custom report as I mentioned in the thread linked to at the top of this post. In fact, it appears only the temporary record (with no birth date) is making it into the custom report.

Thanks in advance.
lajackson
Community Moderators
Posts: 11460
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:27 pm
Location: US

#2

Post by lajackson »

mkmurray wrote:We have 3 Nonmember records in our unit's MLS. . . .

When you look at the Household Members, you can see that this nonmember actually has a membership record number that does not contain our unit number in it (I assume that means it's not a Temporary Record?).

Correct. The number would not be a membership record number either. It would be a number that is assigned for use in keeping track of this individual on other records, i.e., if this person is listed as a spouse or a parent on a member record.
mkmurray wrote:Now we also have 1 Temporary Record, . . .

To me, it appears the Temporary Record is an extra, unnecessary one. Is my assumption correct? Any advice on how to clean this up if necessary?

Yes. I would just delete it.

EDIT: It appears this might not be the correct solution or even a correct assumption of the underlying issue. Please keep reading for more on the discussion before removing any nonmember or temporary records. Thanks. - mkmurray
User avatar
aebrown
Community Administrator
Posts: 15153
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Draper, Utah

#3

Post by aebrown »

mkmurray wrote:Now we also have 1 Temporary Record, which I know because of the "Remove Temporary Records" functionality similar to what I found above. This temporary record also appears to be the same person as one of our nonmember records. When you look at this particular household, the record number is blank. But when I look at the member spouse's individual record, under the Spouse tab I can see that this nonmember actually has a membership record number like the other two nonmembers (with no unit number in it).

To me, it appears the Temporary Record is an extra, unnecessary one. Is my assumption correct? Any advice on how to clean this up if necessary? Do I need more investigation first?

No, your assumption is not correct. The Temporary Record list will often contain nonmember records. What you are seeing in the Temporary Record List and the Nonmember Record list is the same record. If you delete it from Temporary Records, you will be deleting it from MLS. It will be completely gone, and won't show up in the Nonmember Record list anymore, either.

By the way, these records for nonmembers that do not have the unit number in the record number are called "Linked records" and are described in the wiki under Linked record.

If there were truly a duplicate record, you would see the name showing up twice in the list of Individual Records displayed when you select a record in various places in MLS. But you said that there were 3 distinct nonmember records. Therefore there is no duplicate record.

Do not delete it!
mkmurray wrote:Perhaps it is even throwing off my custom report as I mentioned in the thread linked to at the top of this post. In fact, it appears only the temporary record (with no birth date) is making it into the custom report.

There are important differences between temporary records that are created from spouse information on the record of an individual and temporary records that are just created from scratch. When you create a temporary record from scratch, you can enter only the full name, maiden name (if female), preferred name, and sex.

However, the spouse information on a member's record contains a birth date field and a record number. If you create a nonmember record from the Current Spouse screen of the member, then the nonmember record could have a birth date and a record number. In some places in MLS all nonmembers will be shown with no birthdate, since nonmembers are assumed to have no birthdate. One example of this is the Individual screen of the Individual Member Record. No date is ever displayed for nonmembers here. But on the Summary screen of the Individual Member Record, the birthdate will appear, if the record was created from spouse information and has a birthdate.

You should check on the Summary screen of each of your nonmembers' Individual Member Records to see if they have a birthdate.

The reason this is relevant to Custom Reports is that people with no birthdate have no age and thus will not be included on any custom report that filters in any way on age or birthdate. That could possibly explain why some nonmembers appear on a custom report, but others don't.
User avatar
mkmurray
Senior Member
Posts: 3266
Joined: Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:56 pm
Location: Utah
Contact:

#4

Post by mkmurray »

Alan_Brown wrote:If there were truly a duplicate record, you would see the name showing up twice in the list of Individual Records displayed when you select a record in various places in MLS. But you said that there were 3 distinct nonmember records. Therefore there is no duplicate record.
And you are correct, none of the 3 nonmembers have two entries in the list of Individual Records.
Alan_Brown wrote:No, your assumption is not correct. The Temporary Record list will often contain nonmember records. What you are seeing in the Temporary Record List and the Nonmember Record list is the same record. If you delete it from Temporary Records, you will be deleting it from MLS. It will be completely gone, and won't show up in the Nonmember Record list anymore, either.

...

Do not delete it!
Why would 1 of the 3 nonmember records have a temporary record then? Is the difference how they were created?

Also, why are you able to "remove" nonmember records? It seems like only temporary records should be able to be removed, as they would have been created locally. Linked records should be transfered around from unit to unit with the member and the household, correct?
Alan_Brown wrote:You should check on the Summary screen of each of your nonmembers' Individual Member Records to see if they have a birthdate.
I will check into this more thoroughly, but I am pretty sure I see birthdate and record number on the Spouse's Spouse screen for one of the nonmembers and also for this other nonmember record that also has a Temporary Record. The difference is on the each of the respective Households screens, where this "double" record nonmember doesn't show his birthdate and record number, while the other does.

This is why I concluded the temporary record is causing the discrepancy and could therefore possibly be removed to make this nonmember record be consistent with the other nonmember records. It seems to me that maybe we only have a temporary record for this nonmember and that we should perhaps try and request this nonmember record. Once this happens, there would be duplicate records and the temporary one could be removed. Is this also an invalid assumption?

It just seems like maybe we only have a Temporary Record, or at least that is the one connected to the household, when it should be a Linked Record instead.

I just thought of something...could it be that the unit which initally creates a Linked Record also has a temporary record? Then if this household were to move to another unit, only the linked record would transfer? I need to even make sure this is the case with this particular nonmember, but it's just a theory.
User avatar
aebrown
Community Administrator
Posts: 15153
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Draper, Utah

#5

Post by aebrown »

mkmurray wrote: Why would 1 of the 3 nonmember records have a temporary record then? Is the difference how they were created?
That must be the difference.
mkmurray wrote: Also, why are you able to "remove" nonmember records? It seems like only temporary records should be able to be removed, as they would have been created locally. Linked records should be transfered around from unit to unit with the member and the household, correct?
Most nonmember records are indeed temporary records. Actually, in my experience, all nonmember records are temporary records. I've never seen a nonmember record that is not, but clearly you are reporting that this can happen. They are not transferred with the household.
mkmurray wrote: I will check into this more thoroughly, but I am pretty sure I see birthdate and record number on the Spouse's Spouse screen for one of the nonmembers and also for this other nonmember record that also has a Temporary Record. The difference is on the each of the respective Households screens, where this "double" record nonmember doesn't show his birthdate and record number, while the other does.
Depending on how the nonmember record was created, the information on the member spouse's Spouse screen may not be connected at all, since you can clearly create a nonmember record from scratch for a nonmember spouse.
mkmurray wrote: This is why I concluded the temporary record is causing the discrepancy and could therefore possibly be removed to make this nonmember record be consistent with the other nonmember records. It seems to me that maybe we only have a temporary record for this nonmember and that we should perhaps try and request this nonmember record. Once this happens, there would be duplicate records and the temporary one could be removed. Is this also an invalid assumption?

It just seems like maybe we only have a Temporary Record, or at least that is the one connected to the household, when it should be a Linked Record instead.
As far as I know, there is no way to request a nonmember record. A linked record may exist at CHQ, but that doesn't mean that you can request it. In a local MLS installation, the presence of a linked record at CHQ is indicated by the administrative MRN, which looks like a regular MRN (it doesn't have the unit number in it, which is the case with pure temporary records).

A linked nonmember record in local MLS still acts mostly like a nonmember record -- the only differences are that it may have a birthdate, and/or an administrative MRN. It is still a local record, and may be deleted with no impact on the central membership database at CHQ.
mkmurray wrote:I just thought of something...could it be that the unit which initally creates a Linked Record also has a temporary record? Then if this household were to move to another unit, only the linked record would transfer? I need to even make sure this is the case with this particular nonmember, but it's just a theory.
Units don't directly create linked records. That is done at CHQ, based on information supplied by units about nonmember children, parents, and spouses of members. Linked records also don't transfer; all that can be transferred is a pure membership record (but that membership record may contain links to children, spouses, or parents who have administrative MRNs). Nonmember records have to then be created locally (when permission is given -- see Nonmember Records on the wiki).
jbh001
Senior Member
Posts: 856
Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2008 6:17 pm
Location: Las Vegas, NV

#6

Post by jbh001 »

Alan_Brown wrote:Do not delete it!
If the temporary/nonmember records are for a nonmember spouse, I don't see what harm it would be to delete both the temporary and nonmember record since they should be easily re-create-able.

What might happen if you delete the records, and then go back and click the link to add the nonmember spouse to the household?

What am I missing?
User avatar
aebrown
Community Administrator
Posts: 15153
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Draper, Utah

#7

Post by aebrown »

jbh001 wrote:If the temporary/nonmember records are for a nonmember spouse, I don't see what harm it would be to delete both the temporary and nonmember record since they should be easily re-create-able.

What might happen if you delete the records, and then go back and click the link to add the nonmember spouse to the household?

What am I missing?
Well, it's true that it can be recreated. I probably shouldn't have bolded my advice not to delete it. But I didn't want mkmurray to be under the mistaken impression that there were two different records. It's important to understand that even if there is only one nonmember record, that single record will show up when you go to the screen to delete Nonmember Records, and also on the screen to delete Temporary Records.

If you think there are two different records, then you would think that you could delete the "extra" one and still have the "good" one. But that's not the case -- deleting the single record from either screen will remove it from MLS, and it will no longer appear in either place. When you say it does no harm to "delete both the temporary and nonmember record," you're repeating that misconception. There is only one record.
User avatar
aebrown
Community Administrator
Posts: 15153
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Draper, Utah

#8

Post by aebrown »

jbh001 wrote: What might happen if you delete the records, and then go back and click the link to add the nonmember spouse to the household?
There are some potential negative effects to removing nonmember records that could make recreating them a bit more work than you might think at first. The person will be removed from all callings, classes, and organizations, and all custom member fields will be removed.

You may think that is hypothetical, but one of the best Church scout leaders I know is a nonmember spouse of a member. So he has a calling. I know of nonmembers who are attend a Gospel Principles Sunday School class, and so they could be on a class roll. I know of nonmembers who are block captains in our emergency preparedness efforts, so they might very well have Talents and Interests listed in the Custom Fields.
russellhltn
Community Administrator
Posts: 34421
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:53 pm
Location: U.S.

#9

Post by russellhltn »

Alan_Brown wrote:There are some potential negative effects to removing nonmember records that could make recreating them a bit more work than you might think at first. The person will be removed from all callings, classes, and organizations, and all custom member fields will be removed.
In addition, the non-member may be the HOH, so there may be an impact on the household such as Home Teaching districts.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
User avatar
aebrown
Community Administrator
Posts: 15153
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Draper, Utah

#10

Post by aebrown »

RussellHltn wrote:In addition, the non-member may be the HOH, so there may be an impact on the household such as Home Teaching districts.
Fortunately, how the household entity is linked to things such as HT districts is unaffected by removal of the HoH. What remains is the same household, albeit with a new HoH (the wife, in this case).
Locked

Return to “MLS Support, Help, and Feedback”