MLS wish list

[accampbell]

As a membership clerk there are a few things I wish MLS would and would not do:

1. Add Gospel Essentials as a default course and allow the option for a course to have manual enrollment only rather than age / gender based enrollement. Also allow age and gender settings to be modified after a course is created.

2. Allow group leaders / presidents fields to record and track PPI's and home visits. Create a composite report for these leaders and the bishop so they can see who was visited by what organization and how long ago.

3. Simplify the fields for talents and interests so they can be added directly from the member record screen. Create reports that will display members with or without those talents and interests.

4. Allow clerks to add member photos in MLS.

5. Clean up the standard positions. Add Ward Greeter and other frequently assigned positions that must currently be custom callings. Make an easy to access list of standard positions, viewable by organizations, that can be printed.

6. Allow the option to enter attendance data to organizational secretaries via MLs or better through LDS.org

7. Allow clerks to update and change member addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses through the clerk tools in lds.org.

8. Allow organizational secretaries to print rolls at home through lds.org. The ability to manually add or remove members from their classes would also be nice.

9. Allow organizational secretaries / group leaders / presidencies to update and print home / visiting teaching information through lds.org in addition to being able to enter their visiting data.

Just a few key thoughts. I am willing to share the rest if those already listed are viewed as having merit.

[russellhltn]

The problem with threads like this is that it immediately leads to a forked thread as each of the items are discussed. (As I will demonstrate.)

1. Add Gospel Essentials as a default course and allow the option for a course to have manual enrollment only rather than age / gender based enrollement. Also allow age and gender settings to be modified after a course is created.

If you haven't already, you may want to read the Wiki about classes. Manual enrolment can be set up by creating "impossible" rules. (Such as a minimum age of 200) But I agree it would be nice to specify it as "manual" rather then having to create oddball rules.

5. Clean up the standard positions. Add Ward Greeter and other frequently assigned positions that must currently be custom callings. Make an easy to access list of standard positions, viewable by organizations, that can be printed.

How so? (Please start a new thread for that). MLS only has positions defined in the Handbook as standard positions. In my opinion, that's how it should be.

8. Allow organizational secretaries to print rolls at home through lds.org. The ability to manually add or remove members from their classes would also be nice.

Adding or removing members from the classes is something that should only be done by a clerk under the direction of the Bishop. First, because in many cases a member needs to belong to some class. A secretary might notice that someone doesn't belong in their class, but it would seem odd to give them authority to add a member to someone else's class. Secondly, I'd be concerned that class leaders would start removing anyone who doesn't attend rather then working with that member.

[jdlessley]

1. Add Gospel Essentials as a default course ...

What do you mean by default course? It is easy enough to add any class in MLS. There is no default rules to be applied for those who would attend the Gospel Essentials class. Rather members are added manually because each member of the class is attending for a variety of reasons, the most common being they are investigators, converts, previously inactive members needing a refresher, or active members supporting those just mentioned. Investigators can be included but most likely will not be on the ward roster without being added with a temporary membership number. I know of no age, gender, priesthood office, or marriage status to apply for automatic inclusion in the Gospel Essentials class. For information on manually adding a member to a class see Specialty classes, Splitting classes or Moving members to a new class.

... allow the option for a course to have manual enrollment only rather than age / gender based enrollement.

I agree with this. Using a workaround that requires the class to be set up such that nobody meets the requirements only invites error and frustration for new or inexperienced MLS users.

Also allow age and gender settings to be modified after a course is created.

They can be modified, only it is not directly in the class that has been set up. Instead the procedure in Changing class rules must be used. Because this procedure requires creating a new class and so on, I would agree that a method of changing the rules and having the class repopulated would be easier and less frustrating for some users.

4. Allow clerks to add member photos in MLS.

I don't agree with this. My biggest reason for this is that the backup file is way too big now. Adding photos would make it unbelievably huge. It already takes an inordinate amount of time waiting for MLS to create a backup file. My second reason is that the photos are available at the on-line directory. Why have them in two places? Also, in many respects we are moving away from using the directory in MLS for many directory needs to the on-line directory.

5. Clean up the standard positions. Add Ward Greeter and other frequently assigned positions that must currently be custom callings.

What specifically needs to be cleaned up in the standard positions?

MLS reflects those callings listed in the Handbook. Ward Greeter, and I suspect other custom positions to which you may be thinking about, are local. They are not standard across the Church. That is why they are added as custom positions.

Make an easy to access list of standard positions, viewable by organizations, that can be printed.

There is access to the standard positions by organization provided in MLS. The method is to go to the organization, click add position, and then click Select. A list of standard positions is provided. The list can be printed by selecting any position and pressing Shift+Ctrl+C and then pasting into a word processing document or spreadsheet. Granted this is not elegant, but the number of times this needs to be done I don't think warrants additional programming effort to be taken away from other much higher priority programming issues and updates to MLS.

A complete list of ward standard positions is available by using the custom position review feature much the same way described above for an organization.

7. Allow clerks to update and change member addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses through the clerk tools in lds.org.

Updating these is not really a new MLS feature since they can already be done in MLS. Doing it on LDS.org should be a feature request for LDS.org. Phone number and e-mail can already be edited on-line by the clerk and all other ward default administrators (excluding ward website administrator). Member addresses may be coming in a future release to the on-line directory for the clerk. I believe the bishop can do that now.

8. Allow organizational secretaries to print rolls at home through lds.org. The ability to manually add or remove members from their classes would also be nice.

9. Allow organizational secretaries / group leaders / presidencies to update and print home / visiting teaching information through lds.org in addition to being able to enter their visiting data.

These are also feature requests for LDS.org and not MLS.

[Biggles]

*Originally Posted by accampbell
*
7. Allow clerks to update and change member addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses through the clerk tools in lds.org.

Updating these is not really a new MLS feature since they can already be done in MLS. Doing it on LDS.org should be a feature request for LDS.org. Phone number and e-mail can already be edited on-line by the clerk and all other ward default administrators (excluding ward website administrator). Member addresses may be coming in a future release to the on-line directory for the clerk. I believe the bishop can do that now.

Wards Clerks can also edit addresses and from memory, so can Assistant Ward Clerks - Membership (From a past life as a person wth that calling).

[accampbell]

Thank you all for the very helpful and valuable information. I will post later with a list of positions to which I am referring.