MLS Changes to Other Callings

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
jonesrk
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Re: MLS Changes to Other Callings

#11

Post by jonesrk »

jhigbee wrote:That may be true for most (but not all) of our stake callings. But the two examples I gave that apply to several members in our ward (service missionaries mostly on Temple Square, and Temple workers) do not apply to any “other unit” criteria. Do we need to just accept this loss in being able to conveniently see these Out-of-Unit callings in the name of this online standardization process?
For now this kind of custom position will need to be just listed under other callings.
jhigbee
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Re: MLS Changes to Other Callings

#12

Post by jhigbee »

Sorry for the delay in responding. In looking at “Callings by Organization” on that Clerk Resources field, I found that the “Other Callings” grouping was just as jumbled as it was in our MLS system. Maybe you intended for me to look somewhere else within Clerk Resources for these callings guidelines?

I’ve begun the re-formatting work I’ll need to do now with this new MLS 3.5.1 callings re-formatting. I counted 70 callings in our ward that have been “gathered” into the new “Other Callings” sub-category that I’ll need to address. Ten of them are stake callings that are now duplicated with the Stake-entered callings, so I will delete them all from our OC list. Eight of them are ward music callings, none of which were populated within the revised Music sub-category (formerly called Music Committee), possibly because there were no standard callings for them in the past (although there is now); so I will re-assign them within the new Music (using std callings where possible), and then remove them from the OC list.

I also noticed that the class names of the entire primary and all the Sunday school classes were inadvertently dropped with this 3.5.1 callings re-formatting. Fortunately, it kept them all in order, so it will be fairly simple for us to go in and re-add the class names. But it would be good to inform everyone of this problem that the wards and branches will need to fix.
Let me ask a few more questions on this re-formatting:
1. Under the new Activities and Sports sub-category, why does it show a std calling of Activities Chairman, when I thought that all ward activities committees were to be dissolved?_2. Has the calling of full-time missionary been made a standard, and if so, do they belong in the general OC sub-category? Since the previous sub-category of Full Time Missionaries has been replaced with “Ward Missionaries”, that no longer seems an applicable category for our full-time missionaries (of which we have 11). Are there thoughts about populating our full-time missionaries from some other source (like the Missions themselves or the stakes)?
3. Have any of the following common “other callings” been added recently as standard callings? And if not, could they be considered? Weekly bulletin coordinator, newsletter editor, historian, emergency preparedness coordinator (maybe placed within the new Welfare/Empl sub-category), and name extraction worker.

Thanks again for your input on these.
russellhltn
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Re: MLS Changes to Other Callings

#13

Post by russellhltn »

jhigbee wrote:Have any of the following common “other callings” been added recently as standard callings? And if not, could they be considered? Weekly bulletin coordinator, newsletter editor, historian, emergency preparedness coordinator (maybe placed within the new Welfare/Empl sub-category), and name extraction worker.
Generally, the standard callings are ones found in the handbook (although there may be a delay between policy and getting the MLS list updated). I'm not sure as the church is willing to go down the road of adding "common" callings.

But in the case if the newsletter, they might want to make an exception to allow for granting rights to the newsletter app without granting rights to all web apps.
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jdlessley
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Re: MLS Changes to Other Callings

#14

Post by jdlessley »

jhigbee wrote:I also noticed that the class names of the entire primary and all the Sunday school classes were inadvertently dropped with this 3.5.1 callings re-formatting. Fortunately, it kept them all in order, so it will be fairly simple for us to go in and re-add the class names. But it would be good to inform everyone of this problem that the wards and branches will need to fix.
One of the changes that was released with MLS 3.5 was the standardization of classes (class membership rules are standardized and cannot be edited). All custom classes were removed. Because custom classes were removed the Primary and Sunday School classes were reset and shifted everyone into the classes for which they met the class membership rules. This was announced in the MLS message that was sent out in early October 2012 before the release of 3.5.

Even though custom classes cannot be created, the standardized classes can be merged or split to to essentially create a pseudo-custom class. What is not possible is to change class membership rules. Even with the standardized classes, members of one class can be moved from one class into another class. For example members needing to attend the Teaching the Gospel class are removed from the Gospel Doctrine class and added to the Teaching the Gospel class.
jhigbee wrote:Has the calling of full-time missionary been made a standard, and if so, do they belong in the general OC sub-category? Since the previous sub-category of Full Time Missionaries has been replaced with “Ward Missionaries”, that no longer seems an applicable category for our full-time missionaries (of which we have 11).
"Missionary - Full Time" is a standard position for missionaries serving from your ward. The position is found in the Other Organizations > Ward Missionaries group. It is one of the seven new organizations added with the update to MLS 3.5.
JD Lessley
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jhigbee
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Re: MLS Changes to Other Callings

#15

Post by jhigbee »

We’re still having issues with the recent MLS callings re-formatting. In the most recent case, one of the recently released bishops in our stake, who was called as our Stake Employment Committee Chairman in Dec, contacted me regarding his problem in that he’s found he doesn’t have access rights to see the stake information at LDS.jobs.org, which he really needs. I ran over to our stake office this evening to check out the MLS situ with stake employment callings. I saw that we’ve had that calling for some time, but only as a custom calling. I then looked at the newly created “Employment and Welfare” sub-category (within Other Orgs) which is currently blank, and saw that the only available employment standard calling within it was “Stake Employment Specialist”.
Since someone on this board told me earlier that based on the Handbook in essence we’re not supposed to have emergency preparedness coordinators, likewise are we not supposed to have Stake employment committee callings? Will this stake empl specialist std calling give our leader the access rights to this Church website that he needs?
jdlessley
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Re: MLS Changes to Other Callings

#16

Post by jdlessley »

jhigbee wrote:Since someone on this board told me earlier that based on the Handbook in essence we’re not supposed to have emergency preparedness coordinators, likewise are we not supposed to have Stake employment committee callings?
There is no restriction to creating custom positions. The limitation with custom positions is they will not have access to web sites, tools, or other applications limited to specific positions.
jhigbee wrote:Will this stake empl specialist std calling give our leader the access rights to this Church website that he needs?
Stake Employment Committee Chairman is a custom position, as you know. As such, this position does not have any special access permissions. If he needs access to specific websites to fulfill his calling then he needs to have the standard calling positions that are granted access to the web sites. For the access he needs he should be given the position of Stake Employment Specialist in addition to his real calling. This may not be what he was called to do but that is a work-around. Of course the decision to use this work-around should be made by the stake president.
JD Lessley
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lajackson
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Re: MLS Changes to Other Callings

#17

Post by lajackson »

In addition to making sure the position is listed in MLS as a standard position, we have been required in the past to have a unit leader go to the employment site and authorize an employment specialist to use it. The stake president had to do it for the stake employment specialist, and the bishops have had to do it for the ward employment specialists.

This happened about 9 months ago. I do not know if it is still a required part of the process.
jhigbee
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Re: MLS Changes to Other Callings

#18

Post by jhigbee »

Thanks for the responses. I thought most would realize my callings “not allowed” comment was tongue-in-cheek. Of course bishops and stake presidencies can create any custom calling they want, and obviously no custom callings will be linked to online services such as this. My point was the delay with the MLS folks in creating standard callings for these commonly used callings, especially when they require online links such as this one of our Stake Empl Committee Chairman. But I did assign this brother for this additional std calling last Wednesday, and am waiting to hear whether that gives me the LDS employment connection he needs.

Thanks for that heads-up Brother Jackson on that unit leader authorization note. I’ll let the fellow and our Stake Presidency know if it looks like this std calling still won’t work for him.
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