Out of unit member/administrator

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
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Brian-p40
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Out of unit member/administrator

#1

Post by Brian-p40 »

Help! I need to add myself to each of the ward computers to assist them. The precious two out-of-unit administrator slots are already taken by user ids that are inactive. Although inactive they do not free up the slot.

Help 2! I am in a student stake. I need to add a new Bishop as an out of unit member. I received his IOS and entered his data and created an out-of-unit member. However, when I go to add him as a user under system options and click member of unit he is not listed. Thus, I can only use out of unit administrator but that doesn't work...see above.

It is so secure now, the intended users can't use it. Please Help.
jdlessley
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#2

Post by jdlessley »

Brian wrote:The precious two out-of-unit administrator slots are already taken by user ids that are inactive. Although inactive they do not free up the slot.
I assume from your post that you inherited the problem from someone else. I am also not sure what you mean by inactive. I will make the assumption that the people identified as out-of-unit administrators are no longer members of the stake or no longer hold a calling requiring access to MLS.

This situation sounds like the out-of-unit administrator users entered at least one financial transaction. When this happens their user ID cannot be deleted for the entire record retention period for their last transaction (3 years US, five years Canada). A possible solution to recover the out-of-unit administrator positions is to convert the user from an out-of-unit administrator to an out of unit member. Once this is done you should be able to change them, as a user, from an out-of-unit administrator to a member of the unit. This is done in systems options>users>[user name]user information. This will require having the previous out-of-unit administrator's IOS information. If they have moved out of the local area this may be difficult to get.

Some people confuse the term out-of-unit administrator with an out-of-unit member who has administrator rights. The problems you are now experiencing are a result of that misunderstanding.
Brian wrote:I need to add a new Bishop as an out of unit member. I received his IOS and entered his data and created an out-of-unit member. However, when I go to add him as a user under system options and click member of unit he is not listed.
My suggestion here is to create the record again paying attention to information in the colored boxes and to save the record before closing. You should get a "Duplicate Name Warning" message box if the record already exists in the system. If not, then the first attempt to create the record did not take.
JD Lessley
Have you tried finding your answer on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org Help Center or Tech Wiki?
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aebrown
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#3

Post by aebrown »

Brian wrote:Help 2! I am in a student stake. I need to add a new Bishop as an out of unit member. I received his IOS and entered his data and created an out-of-unit member. However, when I go to add him as a user under system options and click member of unit he is not listed. Thus, I can only use out of unit administrator but that doesn't work....

You can only add an out-of-unit member as an MLS user if their Member Record Number is properly recorded in their record. The fact that this new bishop is listed is a clear indication that the record number is not yet recorded. Go to his record, add the member record number, and you should be able to add the bishop as a regular MLS user.
Brian wrote:Help! I need to add myself to each of the ward computers to assist them. The precious two out-of-unit administrator slots are already taken by user ids that are inactive. Although inactive they do not free up the slot.

The previous post by jdlessley explains how you can recover these slots. I would just emphasize that the key piece of information for that process to work is that you enter a valid record number for such people so that they can be changed to out-of-unit members, so that their MLS user record can become a regular (not out-of-unit administrator) MLS user, thus freeing up the out-of-unit administrator slots.

For further reference see the thread: Out of Unit Administrator Bug and the MLS Users article on the LDSClerks wiki.
Brian-p40
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Thank you

#4

Post by Brian-p40 »

Thank you for the suggestions.

For the out of unit member issue... I had not entered the member record number and now that I have it works as intended. The record number is not a "yellow required field", but I think it should be.

For the out-of-unit administrator....I will wait for the bug to be fixed. In the meantime, I'll add myself (stake clerk) to the wards as an out-of-unit member.

Mahalo,
Brian
dstorry
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#5

Post by dstorry »

Does anyone know if MLS will allow more than 2 out of unit administrators in my stake we currently have the Stake Clerk and the Stake Asst Clerk Finances, as out of unit on each ward system but now have the need to have a 3rd out of unit administrator Stake Asst Clerk. We have one ward for sure and maybe more that do not have any open slots or any slots that are classified inactive that we can reuse.

Any suggestions?????
lajackson
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#6

Post by lajackson »

dstorry wrote:Does anyone know if MLS will allow more than 2 out of unit administrators
MLS is limited to allow only two logins by those who are not listed as members of the unit. I would check to see that, where two logins are already in place, neither of them are tying up an out of unit login when they could be using a unit login.
jdlessley
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#7

Post by jdlessley »

dstorry wrote:Does anyone know if MLS will allow more than 2 out of unit administrators...
Only two are available.
dstorry wrote:n my stake we currently have the Stake Clerk and the Stake Asst Clerk Finances, as out of unit on each ward system but now have the need to have a 3rd out of unit administrator Stake Asst Clerk. We have one ward for sure and maybe more that do not have any open slots or any slots that are classified inactive that we can reuse.
My suggestion is for all stake administrators to use the same user logon such as "Stake Administrator". These out of unit administrator user accounts are intended to assist unit leaders for those situations when no unit administrator is available. For example the bishop is released and the clerk is not available to make administrative changes to MLS or MLS user accounts. This is just one of many scenarios, but I think you get the idea. No stake leader should be making financial transactions on a ward computer when logged onto MLS. Rather unit members with financial rights should be doing this.
JD Lessley
Have you tried finding your answer on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org Help Center or Tech Wiki?
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aebrown
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#8

Post by aebrown »

dstorry wrote:Does anyone know if MLS will allow more than 2 out of unit administrators in my stake we currently have the Stake Clerk and the Stake Asst Clerk Finances, as out of unit on each ward system but now have the need to have a 3rd out of unit administrator Stake Asst Clerk. We have one ward for sure and maybe more that do not have any open slots or any slots that are classified inactive that we can reuse.

The out of unit administrator feature is designed for occasional support purposes, and so I would think that two such administrators would be ample. I would guess that the limitation of two out of unit administrators was put in place to encourage stakes to only use this capability on occasion. For most purposes, the stake person can sit down with the ward person he is supporting and the ward person can be logged in.

Are there really three separate stake people that regularly need to access each ward computer in the stake? Our stake has only one out of unit administrator for each ward, and that gets used only a small number of times per year. I would advise you to reconsider how these out of unit administrator logins are used.
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