Tech Forum

June 26th was the last Sunday of the month. I wanted to start the 2nd quarter report since we have the attendance numbers but the 2nd quarter is not available in the drop down. I'm guessing it'll be there on July 1st but why the delay? It makes being proactive difficult.

One reason could be that you have until 23:59 to complete HT/VT.

sasgrw wrote:I'm guessing it'll be there on July 1st but why the delay? It makes being proactive difficult.

Well, we don't have our attendance numbers yet, because we have activities this evening that will affect our report. And we just transferred out some membership records based on home and visiting reports this week. I imagine a few membership records will drop in this evening, as well. So, essentially, the 2nd quarter is not over just yet.

Sometime, on the 1st or very soon afterward, LCR will take a snapshot of the ward to be used for the quarterly report. We prefer that it be as accurate as possible. If the picture had been taken last Sunday, it would not accurately reflect our ward at the end of the quarter.

The quarterly report is based on your unit membership as of the end of the last day of the quarter. Shortly after the end of the quarter (very early on July 1, in this case), the quarterly report baseline is calculated. At that point, the report is available for you to edit. If the report was available to edit before July 1, the "potential" numbers in the report could not be calculated since the quarter would not have ended.

I'm not only the ward clerk but a software engineer too. This is an easy thing to program. You can have the modifiable fields available before the end of the quarter and still take a snapshot of "potential" numbers when the quarter ends. The "save" button can be enabled but the "submit" button could be disabled until the snapshot is taken. Whether records are moved in or out or whether home/visiting teaching has been recorded yet doesn't matter when recording attendance. If the "potential" numbers change after I've recorded the attendance, that's fine. it doesn't affect what I recorded.

@lajackson, I'm not sure how a mid-week activity would affect the report. Attendance is for Sunday meetings. If you had a youth that was not there the entire month but then showed up for an activity at the end of the month, you'd count that as Sunday attendance?

While that is an option, that is not how the system has been designed to work.

sasgrw wrote:If the "potential" numbers change after I've recorded the attendance, that's fine. it doesn't affect what I recorded.

That's not necessarily true. You only report numbers for members who are actually members of your ward as of the last day of the quarter. That can change because of record moves. You don't control when records are moved in or out, so with your proposed change, it's possible that you would report numbers for people on the 26th who were then out of the ward by the 30th. Until the denominator is set in stone, you can't accurately report the numerator, since it is reported against a specific set of people.

I really doubt this change is as easy as you claim (and yes, I'm a software engineer, too, but neither of us work on the actual code that would be affected, so we're both just guessing). And it has the potential to create reporting errors. So I don't see the value.

Yes, I'm just guessing since I don't know the code, but I was commenting on the theory. I've been evaluating algorithms for four decades so was using my purely anecdotal experience to say "easy". But I understand where you're coming from.

sasgrw wrote:@lajackson, I'm not sure how a mid-week activity would affect the report. Attendance is for Sunday meetings.

You are correct. I misspoke. Attendance does not change for weekday events.

Our leaders and secretaries turned in their numbers this evening. We don't normally do that stuff on Sunday.

aebrown wrote:

sasgrw wrote:If the "potential" numbers change after I've recorded the attendance, that's fine. it doesn't affect what I recorded.

That's not necessarily true. You only report numbers for members who are actually members of your ward as of the last day of the quarter.

I meant to comment on this part. That's a good point.

In theory, I should not include numbers for those who moved out of the ward, even if it happened on the last day of the month. In practice, I've never done that. If the John Doe family was active the whole month and then moved out on the last day, the secretaries of each organization should, in theory, subtract from their total attendance if there was a member of the Doe family in that organization. The attendance of the Doe family that month would essentially be for naught. Their number would be subtracted from our ward but the new ward, whose "potential" numbers just increased, would not get credit for their attendance.

As a good ward clerk, if I notice the records got moved out, I should contact all the secretaries to let them know to reduce their numbers. If I'm really good, I'll contact the Doe's new ward clerk and let them know to increase their attendance numbers. That way the Doe's attendance isn't for naught.

But I'm not a good ward clerk(*) . Actually, I shouldn't have to notify the secretaries because recently LCR was changed so that presidencies can view the move in / move out report. So they could review that report before putting their numbers together. What would be nice is if we could set up an "alert notification" (push notification) so that we could get an email when new records arrive or leave. Then it would a proactive thing instead of a reactive thing.

(*) Ok, I'm not that bad. When I move records out, I do look up the bishopric of the new ward and send them an email giving them a heads up of a new family in their ward and give them any history I have.

Well, this has been a nice discussion. I don't expect anything to change. But it did spark the idea of push notifications. I'm going to send feedback from the LCR page to suggest that.