Tech Forum

Today we released the 1.7 version of the online ward/stake directory. Here are the major changes in this release:

- Added a new Missionary section for wards/branches. This section displays:

• The Ward Mission Leader
• The missionary companionship assigned to serve in that ward (and a photo, contact information, and a map of the local mission boundaries)
• A list of the members of that ward that have been called as missionaries (as well as photo, and map showing the boundries of their assigned mission)

- Renamed the 'Ward Leaders and Organizations' section to 'Ward Leaders', this section will display members called to serve in those organizations
- Added a new 'Ward Organizations' section, this section will display a roster of ward organizations (e.g. a list of EQ members, or RS members)
- Added PDF printing for the above Ward Organizations

I really like the new changes. Thank you!

I've also notice an "Email" button for emailing members of an organization. Who is this feature available to? Is is only available to administrators and certain leaders? Or is it available to general membership?

These are great, thanks

Nice. I especially like the missionary link. I think the ordering of it on the list doesn't make sense though. It should at least be before the "Export Households" link and probably some others. (Maybe that's only an issue for admins.)

One other big oversight I see is that the High Priests and Elders organization list only seems to show those who actually have those priesthoods. We have a number of older Elders who meet with the High Priests and a number of Prospective Elders that are each assigned to each quorum. The Prospective Elders don't show up in either place. They are reflected correctly in MLS. Perhaps this information is not yet available in the central database.

mfmohlma wrote:One other big oversight I see is that the High Priests and Elders organization list only seems to show those who actually have those priesthoods. We have a number of older Elders who meet with the High Priests and a number of Prospective Elders that are each assigned to each quorum. The Prospective Elders don't show up in either place. They are reflected correctly in MLS. Perhaps this information is not yet available in the central database.

Yes, the problem lies in the fact that those assignments are stored in MLS, but are not available anywhere else. If you assign an Elder to the HP Group, or a Prospective Elder to an EQ, that assignment is only stored in your local MLS...

jdcr256 wrote:The missionary companionship assigned to serve in that ward (and a photo, contact information, and a map of the local mission boundaries)

I noticed that it gives the missionary's full name, such as John J Smith. I thought we were discouraged from knowing the missionary's first name and only call them "Elder Smith". But perhaps that's because I joined the church in a Student Ward where you didn't want the members to get too friendly with the missionaries.

I think that the changes are a great improvement over the previous version.

We have 2 sets of full time missionaries assigned to the ward and only 1 set is showing up with in the directory. How does one go about correcting this so both sets appear?

Thank you for all of the hard work.

One other observation about the missionaries serving from the ward: As the help link indicates might occur, we have a missionary whose parents moved into the ward while he is out. He does not show up on our list, even though I know for a fact that his monthly deductions have been coming from our ward for over a year now (ever since I, the ward clerk, called and set it up). I guess I need to make another call, even though it was already done to transfer the financial side. I'll be interested to see what info I get from the missionary department about where they think he currently belongs.

mfmohlma wrote:He does not show up on our list, even though I know for a fact that his monthly deductions have been coming from our ward for over a year now (ever since I, the ward clerk, called and set it up). I guess I need to make another call, even though it was already done to transfer the financial side.

If I remember correctly from our discussions with the missionary team, there are three (maybe four) unit entries for a missionary - such as supporting unit (financial), home unit, etc. None of those units are updated unless someone calls to request a change, and a change to one would not necessarily dictate a change to another. So yes, you'll need to call again.

This functionality is new to the mission department as well. They were happy to see it implemented, but have never had a real need to keep those unit numbers up to date as families move around.

jdcr256 wrote:Yes, the problem lies in the fact that those assignments are stored in MLS, but are not available anywhere else. If you assign an Elder to the HP Group, or a Prospective Elder to an EQ, that assignment is only stored in your local MLS...

Ouch. Can I ask that you add a "(List Incorrect?)" link like you did with the Missionaries? Otherwise, the clerks, LUS and the forum is going to get a large number of "The directory isn't correct, how do I fix this?" question.