Previous year budget missing

[jdlessley]

DISCLAIMER: These instructions are provided without warranty or expectation of desired results. Due to configuration or other differences between the computer system these steps were derived and any other computer system, the procedures or steps may need to be modified to achieve expected results. Moving and removal of MLS program files can cause unexpected program behavior or program failure. Proceed at your own risk. Always make a backup before modifying or removing any program files to prevent data loss.

These are the detailed steps I used to manually recover lost budget data. Note the only data that can not be recovered using this manual method is the rollover amount for the years 2010 and 2011. I did not lose the 2012 rollover to 2013 when the other budget data was lost.

• Make sure an MLS backup known to contain budget data is available. I used our 22 January backup since I had viewed the budget data that evening and knew it existed in that backup.
• Make sure you have your ward number and your stake number available for entry later on. This information is listed on the Unit tab in Edit > System Options.
• Exit MLS.
• Move all ward data folders found in "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\LDS Church\MLS\data\units\" to another location.
  • All ward data folders will be named with the ward number.
  • Since it is quicker for me to use the drag-and-drop method I just drug all the ward data folders to the desktop. This included the test ward 108.
  • I moved all ward data folders just to simplify the number of setup steps for the ward to do the restore.
• Start MLS.
• With no unit data available MLS will prompt to set up a unit.
  • Complete the setup for your ward.
  • The only data that must be entered is the ward name, ward number, stake name, stake number, and administrator username and password.
  • Don't worry if you are not an administrator. Just enter your username and password you normally use as the setup administrator username and password.
• Click "Restore from a File"
• Navigate to and select the backup file.
• After MLS logs you out, log back in using your normal username and password.
• Go to Finance > Budget > View/Edit Budget and manually copy the data for each year you need the data.
• Exit MLS.
• Delete the ward data folder found in "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\LDS Church\MLS\data\units\".
• Move the ward data folders previously moved to another location back to "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\LDS Church\MLS\data\units\".
• Start MLS
• Go to Finance > Budget > View/Edit Budget and enter the missing data.
• Make a backup.

[russellhltn]

Move all ward data folders found in "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\LDS Church\MLS\data\units\" to another location.

That's for WinXP. For Win7, I think it's "C:\ProgramData\LDS Church\MLS\data\units\". Note that ProgramData is a hidden folder, but if you type in the value, you can get to it.

[allenjpl]

How important is it to restore previous years' budgets? Although our 2013 budget also disappeared, we had a hard copy that I used to simply re-enter the amounts. Is there any advantage to be gained to restoring the budget numbers for 2012, 2011, or 2010?

[thurberet]

Is this topic still open? I am a Branch Clerk and I noticed that the previous 2 years data is missing. The 2011/2112 years is not even on the drop down menue in the view/edit budget page. 2013's data dissappeared last Sunday and I need to replace it.