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Historically, clerks and other Church leaders have been required to be at their respective meetinghouse to perform administrative work because the Member and Leader Services (MLS) software could only be accessed from the clerk’s PC located at the meetinghouse. As a result, many clerks and leaders complete their administrative work on Sunday to avoid travelling to the meetinghouse during the week. Simple reports like the New Member Report can only be viewed or printed at the meetinghouse.
In order to ease the administrative burden of Church leaders, MLS functions are being added to LDS.org. Church leaders and clerks can now access records, reports, and other helpful resources from any computer connected to the Internet. This effort supports access from home or other locations, decreasing travel costs and time commitments. Making it easier for leaders and clerks to perform their administrative responsibilities will allow them to spend more time ministering to members.
Access to these MLS functions is through the Leader Resources and Clerk Resources pages on LDS.org and is dependent on members having an LDS Account and being assigned the correct Church calling in MLS. For example, a bishop will be able to access confidential membership information and reports whereas his counselor will not.
Adding all MLS functions to LDS.org will take time, with the initial focus being on those that are membership record-keeping related. During this transition, MLS can still be used at the local unit and the two systems will be synchronized. In the future, quorum and auxiliary leaders will also be able to access on LDS.org the MLS functions that relate to their callings. Leaders are encouraged to explore LDS.org > Tools > Leader Resources or Clerk Resources for a complete list of what is available. Four examples are shared below.
Quarterly Report: Quarterly report information can now be recorded and submitted. Past Quarterly Reports can also be viewed.
Key Indicators: A chart of key statistics, such as sacrament meeting attendance, home teaching, and endowed adults with temple recommends is now available. The Quarterly Report is the source of this Key Indicators information.
Action and Interview List: The list identifies actions that need to be taken by priesthood leaders, such as interview those coming of age for baptism and confirmation or Aaronic priesthood ordinations.
New Member Report: This report provides details about members assigned to a unit who were baptized and confirmed within the last 24 months and used to help nurture these new members.
For those interested in more information about MLS functionality being added to LDS.org, a series of training webinars will be offered in February. In addition, Church leaders can learn more by visiting the Clerk Wiki or the Leader Portal article on LDSTech. Additional support, including questions and interactive discussions, on clerk’s responsibilities and MLS can be found on the Clerk and Technology Support Forum. Leaders can also contact their Local Unit Support.
For more information, you are invited to attend an online training on this topic. The first broadcast will take place on February 3, 2012. For more information on training broadcast times, see Training Sessions for MLS Functionality on LDS.org. |
Comments
The computer of the ward/branch can be used, if it is online. But the computer can be logged off, so that members who enter clerks office still need the ward computer password. These different calibrations you can set yourselves in Teamviewer option. It is possible that more than one person can access at the same time. This is good for schooling. For this you give in your home options a shown name with your ID. So you can see who is at that moment on the ward computer.
With the almost constant changes with move ins and move outs we need to update home-teaching regularly. Not to mention record keeping for the quorum.
Is Teamviewer use allow by the church or do we simply need to discuss the option with the stake clerk?
This was mentioned in our Stake however the response is that even with the most basic level of access, there is information about members that may not be appropriate for EQ/RS/HPGL to see. Confidential information. The policy in our stake is that there should be a clerk physically present to log on and to insure that wandering fingers and eyes don't get the best of people.
There may be a way to directly submit reports into the system without having access to non essential information, but I suspect that it would entail a rewriting of the program, or the installation of some sort of new security firewall that tightens up access even further than it is at the moment.
Somos capaces de determinar las misiones que tienen responsabilidad es eclesiásticas y proveer a los líderes con acceso a los recursos para secretarios.
lds.org is being constantly updated but the clerk office is the most congested place in the church, people fighting for resources, and the current implementation does NOTHING to relieve the congestion, because NO auxiliary leaders have access to the online functions. Huzzah... I can submit the quarterly report online... but no auxiliaries can report their numbers online, how is that a step forward, it is still a manual process?
Do you know if some of these tools will also be available to the secretaries of auxiliaries? Like clerks we can do much to ease the administrative loads on our presidencies and these tools would help a lot with that goal.
Thanks again.
Auxiliary leaders will have access in the future. Work is underway now to design the web content they would access.
Thanks,
Guy
It would be great to have the ability to enter home teaching and visit teaching changes (and statistics) into MLS. The bishop needs to approve of any changes, thus I think if HT and VT goes online, an email should be generated to the bishop to approve or reject (line item veto) the changes.
I think there is value to having membership records still entered in the clerks office. For me, I would have one-on-one discussions with my membership clerk and we could resolve issues right then.
I have not served as a Bishop, but have served as a membership clerk, a stake executive secretary and a High Priest group leader. I understand that the bishop needs to approve changes to home teaching and visiting teaching, that the church handbooks spell that out clearly, I think.
The current MLS system does not have a mechanism for entering proposed changes for the bishop to approve so I doubt that the online implementation will have such a mechanism either. Some might feel that it would be wonderful to have such a mechanism rather than having to use paper and a face-to-face visit or e-mail to accomplish this approval as is now the case. But I doubt that such a mechanism will be implemented. There are some things that are likely to remain in the old fashion paradigm, and talking to the bishop about home teaching and visiting teaching assignments is probably one of them.
Lima Peru
If it's a recommendation that women not be out alone in certain neighborhoods, etc., fine. But that a woman needs to have some sort of priesthood oversight to be in a church building is a little odd.
First: When printed to hard copy, there is a second page that prints that contains 2 of the lines on the first page but without any grid behind it. It is the same data as on the first page.
Second, when printed to a PDF, the page is a blank sheet. Nothing on it.
Thank you for reporting this. We will address these bugs (and a couple of others there as well) soon.
Currently, we do not provide a PDF version of the Key Indicators Report. However, that functionality will be available in the next release. I assume you must be using a PDF print driver, or a browser plugin to generate your PDF.
It's coming this year! As of now, you can edit addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses for your members online. You can also edit and submit the Quarterly Report online.
This is an example of one of the biggest reasons we are doing this. We are hurrying as fast a prudently possible.
I second this. I was recently called as RS president in Panama (don't have a VT coordinator yet) and spent hours developing a spreadsheet to easily track VT. I missed a bunch of people regardless. Today within 25 minutes, I transferred the companionships and routes over to MLS. I passed out the lists and already have a bunch of changes. I have two small children, work full-time, and my most available time to take care of these changes is after the kids are in bed. I'm not heading back over to the Church because it's simply not feasible--plus, nobody else is there right now. It would be SO nice to do this from home, and even better if my future secretary and future VT coordinator could also do it. Thanks for working on it! (Also, please allow the enter/tab keys to replace using the mouse to click "accept".)
You can also view "Members with Callings" and "Members without Callings". These are available under the "Organizations" menu.
https://www.lds.org/mls/mbr/orgs/callings-by-organization.html?lang=eng
Thoughts?
You should already have access to the Ward Directory application ( https://www.lds.org/directory/ ), and the maps application ( http://www.lds.org/maps ). Hopefully, that will help in the meantime.
The applications are accessible to the specified leadership positions in a Stake, Ward, District, or Branch. Mission Presidents with stewardship over units also have access. What is the URL you are trying to access without success? I will also need to know your position to provide a complete answer to your question. Feel free to Private Message me in the forum https://tech.lds.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?112-Leader-and-Clerk-Resources if you prefer.
Our Bishop, Ward Council and the ward membership have been challenged to know every child's name in the ward -- from Primary through Young Men and Young Women ages.
Presently they are taking photos of each child and will compile some kind of spreadsheet or handout with the photos thereon.
IS THERE ANY WAY THE DIRECTORY COULD BE USED TO ACCOMPLISH THIS? OUR MEMBERS HAVE NOT ENTERED ANY PHOTOS IN THE DIRECTORY TO DATE NOR EMAIL ADDRESSES, ETC.
Would appreciate your comments here and thanks so very much.
This is a good question for the directory forum. Try asking your question there.
https://tech.lds.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?111-Directory
What I'd love to be able to do is to enter my home teaching visits when I come home from them (almost real time!) This could immediately roll up to my quorum, ward & stake leaders! They'll then know how recently needy members have been visited.
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