Page 1 of 2

Ward Leadership report not updated

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:14 pm
by aebrown
In Stake MLS, there is a report under Organizations called Ward Leadership. For each ward, it lists the bishopric (including clerks and executive secretary), the mission leader, and the presidencies of HP, EQ, RS, YM, YW, SS, and Primary.

My question is: how is it updated and how quickly can we expect updates from the wards to show up?


I ask this because we have a situation where:
  1. A ward got a new bishopric a couple of months ago.
  2. There are new counselors, a new executive secretary, and a new ward clerk.
  3. Several other organizations have changed in the meantime for that ward.
  4. The only change I can see in the Ward Leadership report is the bishop himself -- all other positions are listed as they were months ago.
  5. Two and a half weeks ago I was personally present when I saw in that ward's MLS that all the positions had been entered properly, using standard callings. Furthermore, a Send Membership Data to Stake was done (even though I doubt that is relevant), followed by a Send/Receive.
  6. One week ago, since I was seeing none of the changes show up in Stake MLS, I did a full Request Unit Refresh at the stake level, requesting updates for every ward.
  7. Tonight during the Send/Receive in Stake MLS, I saw updates come in from every single ward, and it certainly took longer than usual to process the files that were received. It seems safe to conclude this was the refresh data.
  8. Still, the only updated calling that appears in the Ward Leadership report is the Bishop.
What more can I do? Is there some period of time I have to wait? If it takes multiple weeks or even months for updated callings to appear in Stake MLS, the Ward Leadership report will constantly be out of date, and thus of little use.

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:36 pm
by crislapi
Alan_Brown wrote:In Stake MLS, there is a report under Organizations called Ward Leadership. For each ward, it lists the bishopric (including clerks and executive secretary), the mission leader, and the presidencies of HP, EQ, RS, YM, YW, SS, and Primary.

My question is: how is it updated and how quickly can we expect updates from the wards to show up?
What more can I do? Is there some period of time I have to wait? If it takes multiple weeks or even months for updated callings to appear in Stake MLS, the Ward Leadership report will constantly be out of date, and thus of little use.
If you're asking the questions, that's a bad sign. You're the one who knows everything! I have been playing around with this recently and will share what I've discovered.

First, on how recently it updates. If I change callings and then send membership data to the stake, I get them almost immediately so long as it's not a Sunday. If I make changes to the membership records of someone in a leadership position (preferred name, for example), those don't show up until the ward database is updated and re-sent.

It is my understanding that the information sent to the stake by forcing the "send membership data to stake" is the same info that refreshes in the stake at the beginning of each month. We are also trying to get our leadership directory to show up accurately and correctly in the Stake MLS. I am waiting for the beginning of next month to see if these positions are all updated.

As I'm sure you know, they will, of course, only show up if they have been entered using standard positions. Given that they were, I'm currently working on the theory they will update at the beginning of each month. I'll come back and update what I find.

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:41 pm
by aebrown
crislapi wrote:It is my understanding that the information sent to the stake by forcing the "send membership data to stake" is the same info that refreshes in the stake at the beginning of each month. We are also trying to get our leadership directory to show up accurately and correctly in the Stake MLS. I am waiting for the beginning of next month to see if these positions are all updated.

As I'm sure you know, they will, of course, only show up if they have been entered using standard positions. Given that they were, I'm currently working on the theory they will update at the beginning of each month. I'll come back and update what I find.
Thanks for the information. However, I saw all these positions I'm talking about entered in that ward's MLS well before the end of October, and it is now November 12. So the "update at the beginning of each month" theory doesn't seem to be holding in this particular case.

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:46 pm
by crislapi
Alan_Brown wrote:Thanks for the information. However, I saw all these positions I'm talking about entered in that ward's MLS well before the end of October, and it is now November 12. So the "update at the beginning of each month" theory doesn't seem to be holding in this particular case.
Out of curiosity, when is the refresh date? It would be nice to know.

I also know it's dumb to ask you this, but were they entered using standard positions? I thought I'd checked all the leadership callings in MLS in my stake but some of them still don't show up in my stake MLS, so I either missed it or I'm also suffering from some sort of time delay as well. This is after I even sent membership data from all wards to the stake.

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:51 pm
by aebrown
crislapi wrote:I also know it's dumb to ask you this, but were they entered using standard positions?
I did mention that explicitly in point #5 of my original post in this thread.

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 4:18 pm
by calebpusey
As crislapi said, the updates should be almost immediate when not done on a Sunday. As we all know, Sundays are "peak" processing times for the servers and the updates are going to take longer. I was also informed recently that CDOL servers had a backlog of information to process but has caught up and is processing current files again. It's possible that your changes may have fallen victim to that. I think all in all, this is a new process for everyone and the kinks are still being worked out. However, the updates should make it to the stake with relatively little or not wait time.

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 4:46 pm
by russellhltn
So is the recommendation for Alan to call support?

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 6:25 am
by jmessinger
I'm also seeing strange issues in my stake MLS with regard to ward organisation. The wards in our stake have all been through the exercise of cleaning up custom positions and converting them to standard positions where appropriate. What we see in the stake MLS however is many duplications of callings in at least one of the wards. For example, in my home ward I personally went through MLS with the ward clerk a week ago to look at the callings (he had a problem after the last MLS update came through, which effectively wiped all the callings in the database, but that's another story), and verified that everything was now recorded correctly again.

When I did a send receive at the stake centre on Tuesday evening following, I found that the ward data shows duplicated positions for practically all the leadership positions for this ward (this from the WardOrganisation.csv export file). What I actually see in MLS is OK, but the export file is a mess. That's a bit of a pain, as the stake presidency uses the Ward Tools iPhone app, which relies on this file. We also use these export files for other types of custom report generation. I note that CDOL also shows the duplications for this unit (as of the time of writing).

I also found that some positions have multiple entries, but with different members (for example, both the current and previous auxiliary president are listed for a standard position in some instances). Finally, there are some positions showing that are totally out - for example an assistant ward clerk is still shown, even though he was released some months ago, and the ward MLS is up to date and no longer has this brother in that calling.

It seems that most of the problems are just for a single unit (my home ward :rolleyes:), but a couple of other units show one or two duplications.

Some of these have been in this state for over a month now. So, how do I fix this, or get it fixed? Is this something that is likely to clear itself, ie some sort of synch issue? CzechRM indicated that the CDOL servers have recently caught up from a backlog of information - maybe things like that take a little longer for us Down Under :D

Would appreciate if someone could offer a positive suggestion here (anyone from CHQ that might be reading this!!), or answers to the questions Alan posted at the start of this thread. Calling Clerk support from here involves international calls and the high costs associated with that, so that is usually a least preferred option for me.

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 7:17 am
by jmessinger
Just came across the thread regarding Missing Names in Ward Leadership Report, which seems to address some of the issues in my previous post. I will try a Unit Refresh when I am next at the stake centre, and see if that resolves the problem I am seeing in my stake MLS.

It still worries me though that CDOL shows all the callings in my home ward as being duplicated (multiple entries for the same positions) whilst the ward MLS is correct. Maybe the CDOL servers are yet to process the files for that unit... If any of the MLS developers reading this fancy looking into this, PM me and I'll send you the unit number :D

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 8:16 am
by calebpusey
jmessinger wrote:Would appreciate if someone could offer a positive suggestion here (anyone from CHQ that might be reading this!!), or answers to the questions Alan posted at the start of this thread. Calling Clerk support from here involves international calls and the high costs associated with that, so that is usually a least preferred option for me.
If you are seeing duplicates, you should contact your local area office. They have all of the same tools that headquarters does and be able to assist you in fixing the issue. And, it shouldn't cost you nearly as much in international phone charges. :)