Tech Forum

Hi,

I'm trying to support a question for a ward in our stake. There those who don't want name on directory. Out of respect for them but ease of producing a ward directory is there a way for ward clerk to mark the field that makes info hidden in addition to members themselves?

Thanks,
Jeff

jeffvanderdoes wrote:I'm trying to support a question for a ward in our stake. There those who don't want name on directory. Out of respect for them but ease of producing a ward directory is there a way for ward clerk to mark the field that makes info hidden in addition to members themselves?

The ward clerk (along with a variety of other leaders listed in Roles and responsibilities) does have the ability to hide a household profile (or specific elements of the profile), as described in Edit household and individual information for members.

aebrown wrote:The ward clerk (along with a variety of other leaders listed in Roles and responsibilities) does have the ability to hide a household profile (or specific elements of the profile), as described in Edit household and individual information for members.

Thanks I'll take a look at this info and pass it along to the ward leadership.
Jeff

Since this thread is in the "MLS Support..." forum I am guessing that the question in the OP is about limiting display of member information in a directory printed from MLS. The online Directory has greater support for members to let their privacy desires be known. The MLS printed directory has no such feature. A clerk must record member privacy desires outside MLS and use that record to limit the directory printed from MLS. If a member, or part of the household data, is to be restricted (not printed) the process of printing a directory from MLS must include exporting the data to another program for manipulation. The online Directory is the better choice when member privacy settings are to be included in the resultant printed product.

jdlessley wrote:Since this thread is in the "MLS Support..." forum I am guessing that the question in the OP is about limiting display of member information in a directory printed from MLS.

I must admit that I didn't pay attention to the forum it was posted in. But the original post did say: " is there a way for ward clerk to mark the field that makes info hidden in addition to members themselves?" (emphasis added)

Since regular members have no access to MLS, I think it's safe to assume that the question was indeed about the online Directory -- that's the only place that comment about "in addition to members themselves" would make sense.

aebrown wrote:I must admit that I didn't pay attention to the forum it was posted in. But the original post did say: " is there a way for ward clerk to mark the field that makes info hidden in addition to members themselves?" (emphasis added)

Since regular members have no access to MLS, I think it's safe to assume that the question was indeed about the online Directory -- that's the only place that comment about "in addition to members themselves" would make sense.

Actually as the bishopric discussed it and I understand their hopes, yes I had hoped one could mark something in mls and it would result in it not showing up in mls directory and web directory... hmm bishhop was hoping the tools would work well enough so they didn't have to export and reformat. Hmmm.... guess that's something for future versions.

Thanks for insight... any suggestions for a tool that would take export and format it easily in a ward directory?

Thanks,
Jeff

Currently MLS has no privacy settings at all. It's strictly on the web side.

Ages ago, I tackled the problem by printing the directory from MLS, whiting out the private information and then photocopying for distribution. I think you're process may be a little more high-tech, but it will end up being the same idea.

jeffvanderdoes wrote:Thanks for insight... any suggestions for a tool that would take export and format it easily in a ward directory?

If you want to respect the privacy settings, you'll probably want to use the Export Households feature of the LDS.org Directory, since (as has been mentioned) those settings are not accessible via MLS.

If I were doing this, I'd probably do the following:

• Export Households from the LDS.org Directory.
• Open the CSV file in Excel and save it as an Excel file.
• Create a Mail Merge (Directory style) document in Word
• Do the merge

You can probably do the same thing in other office suites. The reason I would do it that way is that although there's a bit of work involved in setting up the mail merge document, once you've done that, it's very easy to crank out a new directory any time you want.

There is a workaround in MLS, though far from perfect:

We restrict all household addresses to the Address Line 1 only. Then, For those members who desire their information private, I add a descriptor in the Address Line 2. All my Custom reports are set to filter out any record with anything in the Address Line 2 (select the record only if Address Line 2 has no value).

This does not filter them out of the regular directory, but it allows me to print any Custom Report without the private members showing (and thus our organizations don't get yelled at for contacting someone after they "requested no contact").

And yes, I know it does not comply with official church policy - a fact I review with the bishop periodically. He is not comfortable with the alternative and would prefer to honor the wishes of the members (or their antagonistic non-member spouse). He does contact those members from time to time so they are not "forgotten."