Maxing out on "Out of Unit Administrators" in YSA Stake/Ward MLS.

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
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AllredDB
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Maxing out on "Out of Unit Administrators" in YSA Stake/Ward MLS.

#1

Post by AllredDB »

Although I haven't checked in the last month or so, there are ongoing issues when attempting to add new out of unit administrators to MLS for the wards in our YSA stake. (Obviously, we need the "out of unit" stuff to work properly so leadership rights are setup properly for CDOL, etc.). Even after going through and "un-checking" the Admin box next to names of former bishopric members, etc., MLS remains stubborn about not allowing us to add more (one ward only has ONE full-blown admin in their MLS right now because MLS won't let us add another! Dangerous.). In my case (as stake clerk), I cannot even add myself as an admin to the system to help out on two or three of the accounts in our "common" clerks' office. Is this a case of LUS needing to come in and perform some "magic" on these specific instances of MLS? Note that we have 11 units sharing these computers. Suggestions?
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kh_design
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add leaders in MLS as Out of Unit Members

#2

Post by kh_design »

aebrown wrote: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.
add leaders in MLS as Out of Unit Members
aebrown wrote:Simply add them as Out of Unit Members in MLS. The steps to do this are outlined in the wiki article Out of Unit records. Once they are listed as out of unit members, you can assign callings to them, just as with any other member of the branch.

create MLS logins for them as Member of Unit
crislapi wrote:Be sure to include their membership numbers and most recent priesthood ordination info so that you can add them to the bishopric. Also, if you are creating MLS logins for them, you want to assign them as "Member of Unit" and NOT "Out of Unit Administrator". To do this, they will need membership numbers in their local record. See here.
jdlessley
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#3

Post by jdlessley »

It sounds like the Out-of-Unit Administrator position was improperly used to grant an out-of-unit member leader administrative rights to MLS. Once this person enters any financial transactions that Out-of-Unit Administrator position is no longer available for use for its intended purpose. Normally the Out-of-Unit Administrator position is used by stake clerks and other stake officers to gain access to the unit MLS to assist in maintenance, training, and other similar purposes. There are only two Out-of-Unit Administrator positions available per unit number. This includes the stake installation of MLS. Once those two are used that is it. If an Out-of-Unit Administrator makes a financial transaction that position is not available for the entire record retention period (3 years in the USA) from the date of their last financial transaction. And it is for this very reason that out-of-unit members fulfilling leadership positions within a unit should not be entered into MLS as an Out-of-Unit Administrator.

To free up an Out-of-Unit Administrator position requires the member holding that position to be transitioned to a member of unit. This is done by creating an out-of-unit member record for that member. The minimum information required to create an out-of-unit member record is their full name, birth year, birth place, and record number. Once this is done the user can be changed from an Out-of-Unit Administrator to a Member of Unit. The problem may be that the member may have moved out of the stake and the minimum information is not easily obtained. Do what you can to get this or that Out-of-Unit Administrator position will be lost for at least three years.

The proper method for an out-of-unit leader to gain administrative access to MLS is for the out-of-unit member record to be created and then the member can be selected from the unit membership in creating a normal user account. That user can now be given any of the five available user rights just as any other member of the unit.
JD Lessley
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AllredDB
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#4

Post by AllredDB »

Thanks for the quick feedback. I think part of the problem has been the "traditions of the fathers" in how previous administrators were added. I've inherited a good chunk of the mess (I bet you've heard that before). I understand the problem a little better. I figured it had something to do with financial transaction history but was hoping not. As an enhancement request, it would be extremely helpful if there were some type of HQ override to allow an additional administrator so that at least I could be added to each system. It sounds like the stake admin accounts that were deactivated (probably by the ward clerks using the systems) can't be reactivated without some HQ intervention.
crislapi
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#5

Post by crislapi »

Out-of-unit administrators are those linked to names not associated with a member record number. The simplest way to avoid this problem is ensure the out-of-unit leaders have out-of-unit records created in the unit's MLS and that each of these records contain the member's record number. There is no reason why someone at the unit level would need to be an out-of-unit administrator. They should all be members of unit.

I don't think there would be any need to involve CHQ when restoring them. First, you shouldn't need to restore, but if you do, just create an out-of-unit record for the person (if it doesn't exist already), restore and link to the newly created record. You cannot have more than 2 out-of-unit administrators, however, so if restoring the stake account puts you over the limit, you probably can't do it. Have the wards create the out-of-unit records for their local leaders, link their MLS user accounts with the records, and that should free up the 2 spots so that you can reactivate your accounts.
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aebrown
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#6

Post by aebrown »

AllredDB wrote:It sounds like the stake admin accounts that were deactivated (probably by the ward clerks using the systems) can't be reactivated without some HQ intervention.
crislapi wrote:You cannot have more than 2 out-of-unit administrators, however, so if restoring the stake account puts you over the limit, you probably can't do it.
Although it's true that you can't have more than 2 out-of-unit administrators, you can fix this problem without help from CHQ no matter what. There are step-by-step procedures for doing this on the wiki under Reusing out-of-unit administrator slots. Those procedures will work, even if the people who used the out-of-unit administrator slots are no longer around.

One thing we have done in our stake is to have one of the slots called "Stake Administrator" and not tied it to a personal login. That way there will never be a reason to disable those accounts. Of course, this is only valid for administrators that are truly out of the ward, not administrators who are out-of-unit members of the ward (typically leaders) -- those should use regular member administrator slots.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
AllredDB
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#7

Post by AllredDB »

Thanks a bunch, guys. I appreciate the help. Sorry I missed the "Reusing out-of-unit administrator slots" in the wiki. I looked around but apparently not sufficiently deep.
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