Tech Forum

I attempted to assign a member under Organizations in lds.org to a calling as a Ward Temple and Family History Indexer. The member has an annotation on their record. This annotation does not prevent the member from being assigned as an Indexer or to some other callings for that matter. Actually this is an ideal calling for this member. When I attempted to assign the member to this calling an error message popped stating the member has an annotated record and cannot be assigned. At the same time an email was automatically generated to the Stake President alerting him that an attempt was made to assign a member to a calling with an annotated record. After conversation with the Stake President he is even confused as to why this cannot be done, especially for this particular calling. Is there anyway a member with an annotated record can be assigned to a calling under Organizations in lds.org? Is there a procedure or process for requesting an override for a particular scenario?

I assume the bishop and stake president have already read the Confidential Member Information Report has described in Annotation of Membership Records in the Help Center. If that's the case then the bishop probably needs to contact the Confidential Records department (he can call the global service center and they should be able to forward him).

Thank you. I am the Bishop who actually had the annotation put on the record. The Stake President is also very familiar with this member.

At this point, your best approach is to call and talk with Confidential Records about it. There is no way for you to override this, so talking with them would be your next step.

lmisner wrote:Ward Temple and Family History Indexer

I'm unable to find a description of that calling. What I can find is general information about Temple and Family History callings which includes "Learn how to help others". (Also see Handbook 2: 5.4.4) I think that's the sticking point. The church doesn't want someone with an annotation doing any one-on-one training.

Note that one does not have to have a calling to do indexing. Anyone, member or non-member can go to FamilySearch and start indexing.

russellhltn wrote:I'm unable to find a description of that calling. What I can find is general information about Temple and Family History callings which includes "Learn how to help others". (Also see Handbook 2: 5.4.4) I think that's the sticking point. The church doesn't want someone with an annotation doing any one-on-one training.

If the calling is the standard calling Ward Temple and Family History Consultant-Indexing then that calling does generally involve training on how to index and in my experience often works with youth more than adults. So depending on the reason for the annotation, that could very well be considered an inappropriate calling. A custom calling might be better. But, as already stated, contacting Confidential Records is probably still be the best initial course of action.

eblood66 wrote:If the calling is the standard calling Ward Temple and Family History Consultant-Indexing then that calling does generally involve training on how to index and in my experience often works with youth more than adults. So depending on the reason for the annotation, that could very well be considered an inappropriate calling. A custom calling might be better. But, as already stated, contacting Confidential Records is probably still be the best initial course of action.

Using a custom calling to bypass an annotation restriction is not a wise course of action. In some cases, the annotation restriction applies to an entire organization and will also apply to a custom calling. Without checking the configuration, I don't know whether that is the case here.

I suspect the desire here is to have the person serving in a safe calling. Indexing from home would seem safe for everyone involved. The question is how to record it without anyone trying to push the member into a different role.

Thank you everyone for your feedback. I contacted Confidential Records and the member cannot be put into a calling on lds.org, but the member can do indexing from home. This member will only be doing indexing from home and will not be involved in training. We will make it work while adhering to church policies for members with annotated records.