Unbaptized Counselor in YW Class Presidency

[eblood66]

It was a login page where I tried my Church Account credentials unsuccessfully.

That's the problem. It seems someone didn't grant Ward clerks access to "service now".

Maybe it is a calling issue but it sounds like it redirected incorrectly even before it would know the calling. When I use that link it first goes to https://lds.service-now.com/gsc and briefly shows a custom login page but then almost immediately redirects to the church's single sign-on page and requests my credentials. After I enter username and password it finally goes to the support page on Service Now. So it doesn't look like that initial login page is intended for actual use for the church's configuration.

I'm guessing it's either a browser compatibility issue, a badly configured server in a cluster issue (where one person might get a good server but another a bad one) or a cookie issue. mkmurray, you might try incognito mode to eliminate the possibility of a cookie issue.

[eblood66]

Also, she is already assigned to the class we want her to be in. The confusing part is instead why the system is indicating she is NOT in the default assigned class. This or not being a baptized member seem to be the thing preventing me from assigning her to a counselor position in the class presidency. It will interesting to see if "Not Accountable" is an exception to that rule.

It still puzzles me why it mentions out-of-unit records. What is the exact message it's giving you?

[mkmurray]

Maybe it is a calling issue but it sounds like it redirected incorrectly even before it would know the calling. When I use that link it first goes to https://lds.service-now.com/gsc and briefly shows a custom login page but then almost immediately redirects to the church's single sign-on page and requests my credentials. After I enter username and password it finally goes to the support page on Service Now. So it doesn't look like that initial login page is intended for actual use for the church's configuration.

I'm guessing it's either a browser compatibility issue, a badly configured server in a cluster issue (where one person might get a good server but another a bad one) or a cookie issue. mkmurray, you might try incognito mode to eliminate the possibility of a cookie issue.

The only way I get the single-sign on page like you mention is if I'm logged out of my Church account when I hit the Service Now contact us link (and I just did it in Incognito mode to force that). However, after single sign-on, I'm immediately redirected to that same Service Now logged out page because I assume I don't have permissions.

It still puzzles me why it mentions out-of-unit records. What is the exact message it's giving you?

Again, not quite sure what exactly is disqualifying her: unbaptized or not in her default class (though this could also be unbaptized surfacing indirectly). She is a member of this class, though it appears a custom assignment was necessary. I heard from the previous clerk that some oddness around her account also surfaced with regard to registering for FSY and might have been similarly affected by her unbaptized status.

I have a theory that most of these coded restrictions might allow for an exception via the "Not Accountable" flag. I have been reading up on the ramifications and usage of that notation as much as I can to be a support to my bishop and her parents. However, her parents are hesitant to use that flag with a situation that is so debatable; I believe they also fear using that flag and then undoing the flag later, indicative that she's now all of the sudden capable of being accountable. She is clearly cognizant and aware to understand the world around her but has few motor skills for communication and movement. I believe she can currently express understanding and desire to be baptized and could be carried down into the water, but I believe incapable of holding her breath. I've heard the parents have been looking into a live proxy baptism for the last year with the stake president, which I wasn't aware there was precedent for. Kinda cool to think about actually.

Unless the bishop decides to use the "Not Accountable" and can test the theory further, we may end up just using a custom calling to get by.

[russellhltn]

Maybe it is a calling issue but it sounds like it redirected incorrectly even before it would know the calling.

Given the number of complaints in the forum, I'm pretty sure it's a calling issue. Yes, the service-now.com login screen re-directs to a church login. In my case (after everything settles down), I get a page where I can create a new ticket or look at the status of existing tickets. But many ward clerks in the forum have reported that they are unable to use that link.

I think service-now has an add-in module to use the church login and uses the callings to decide if you're allowed in or not. If it fails, it kicks back to the provider's login fail message.

[russellhltn]

She is clearly cognizant and aware to understand the world around her but has few motor skills for communication and movement. I believe she can currently express understanding and desire to be baptized and could be carried down into the water, but I believe incapable of holding her breath.

Sounds like a problem with the mechanics of baptism rather than an intellectual issue.

At this point she's old enough that the mission office would be involved. It might be wise to ping them on the situation.

[scgallafent]

There is a lot going on here, so I'm going to tackle the issues one at a time.

First, it is important to understand that a person who is age nine or older and has not been baptized (often referred to as a "child of record") is not a member of the Church. From General Handbook 33.6.2:

A person age 9 or older who has a membership record but has not been baptized and confirmed is not a member of record.

The scenario you are describing is one of many that can occur where a person who is participating in the Church is age nine or older but has not been baptized. Regardless of the scenario, on that person's ninth birthday, the magic boolean "member" flag flips from true to false unless the member is not accountable.

It seems likely there is a implied business rule that a YW class councilor must be a member and not just a member of record.

There is a business rule that requires that a member of a young women class presidency must be a member of the Church. Because she is older than nine years old and has not been baptized, she is not a member of record (refer back to General Handbook 33.6.2) and cannot be recorded as holding that position.

... LCR is restricting that person from being entered into that position and saying that if they are "out of unit", I'd have to make a record for them that way.

Is there a better way to accomplish this? Is creating an out of unit record a necessary or plausible workaround?

LCR is restricting you from entering her into position because of the business rule above. An out-of-unit record isn't a plausible workaround because she is already a member of your unit.

MLS used to have a feature that would allow you to create a record that only existed in MLS for the purpose of adding people not in your ward (nonmember, out-of-unit leader, regular visitor) to the MLS database. That feature does not exist in LCR.

You can add a member to your ward as an out-of-unit member, but you are not creating a record. In that case, you are getting a limited copy of the person's membership record so that they show up in the member list and can be assigned positions within the ward. (Remember that the bishop of the ward with the person's membership record should be contacted before extending a calling to serve.) The two most common use cases for this feature are leaders serving outside of their home unit (an adult leader in a young single adult ward, for example) or a child whose parents are divorced where the child needs to be listed in both parents' wards so that leaders in the non-home ward can appropriately minister to the child when that child is attending their ward.

The message that is being displayed in LCR is a reminder for the clerk who is trying to add someone and can't figure out why the member doesn't show up when searching. Either the information is incorrect (wrong spelling, etc.) or the result is not allowed in this context (can't put a man in as the Relief Society president). In this case, it is because the position requires that the person be a member of the Church, so she is filtered out because of her membership status.

The last sentence is a reminder that for someone who is coming from outside the ward or branch (YSA bishop, missionary serving in a leadership role while in the mission field, etc.), they should be added as an out-of-unit member.

I heard from the previous clerk that some oddness around her account also surfaced with regard to registering for FSY and might have been similarly affected by her unbaptized status.

Yep. That is the case.

Back to "not accountable"...

I have a theory that most of these coded restrictions might allow for an exception via the "Not Accountable" flag.

I haven't tested it, but there is a reasonable possibility that marking the record as not accountable would be enough that some systems would look at the member flag and let you record the person in the position. Having said that, DO NOT USE the not accountable flag as a "workaround" to allow recording the person as serving in this position (assuming the system lets that slide by).

I also noticed this record has the option to be marked as "Not Accountable". I've now brought it up to our new bishop and I think he and the parents will be discussing this possibility soon. Kind of surprised it hasn't been brought up before by previous leadership and clerks over the last 5-6 years. She is wheelchair bound and largely mute.

I have been reading up on the ramifications and usage of that notation as much as I can to be a support to my bishop and her parents. However, her parents are hesitant to use that flag with a situation that is so debatable; I believe they also fear using that flag and then undoing the flag later, indicative that she's now all of the sudden capable of being accountable. She is clearly cognizant and aware to understand the world around her but has few motor skills for communication and movement. I believe she can currently express understanding and desire to be baptized and could be carried down into the water, but I believe incapable of holding her breath. I've heard the parents have been looking into a live proxy baptism for the last year with the stake president, which I wasn't aware there was precedent for. Kinda cool to think about actually.

General Handbook 33.6.10 has the authoritative information on how to handle this situation. The first sentence gets you started:

A person age 8 or older who has an intellectual disability, his or her parents (where applicable), and the bishop counsel together to determine whether the person is accountable.

I think that covers most of it. The key points so far:

• Because she has not been baptized, she is not a member of record.
• She must be a member of record in order to be recorded in this position.
• The decision of whether she is accountable is something that should be a matter of serious discussion between the young woman, her parents, and the bishop.

Now to tackle your questions about class assignments.

I am confused what the system thinks should be her default assigned class in this case. This would be her class based on age, but perhaps the baptism aspect is being enforced? I am wondering if the "Not Accountable" flag for the purposes of class membership or class leadership could be a programmed exception in the logic. If Bishop decides to activate that flag, it could be interesting to see how the logic evaluates differently if at all.

You currently have four Young Women classes in your ward:

• Young Women 12
• Young Women 13-14
• Young Women 15-16
• Young Women 17-18

The number attached to the class description is the age that the young woman will be turning during this calendar year. This means that your youngest young women (age 11 unless they have had a birthday since January 1) should be in the Young Women 12 class because they will be turning 12 this year. The same thing applies for your other classes.

The young woman in question turns 15 later this year. That means that she should be in the Young Women 15-16 class. You have her assigned to the Young Women 13-14 class, so she is not in the default class based on her age.

If you look at the members of your Young Women classes, you can see that you have lots of them that are not in the default class. All of the young women in your ward who are 12 years old are currently in the Young Women 12 class, but they should be in the Young Women 13-14 class because they will have their 13th birthday this year. All of them are marked as being out of their default class. The same thing applies for all of your 14-year-old young women (in Young Women 13-14 but should be in Young Women 15-16) and one 16-year-old young woman who is in Young Women 15-16 but should be in Young Women 17-18.

Your 18-year-old young women are marked as being out of their default class assignment because they turn 19 this year. The decision for when a young woman begins fully participating in Relief Society is something that should be considered by the young woman, her parents, and the bishop, but "by age 19, each young woman should be fully participating in Relief Society." (General Handbook 11.4)

Also, she is already assigned to the class we want her to be in. The confusing part is instead why the system is indicating she is NOT in the default assigned class.

It sounds like you need to redefine your classes. Based on how you have grouped your young women, you should have Young Women 12-13, Young Women 14-15, Young Women 16, and Young Women 17-18.

[russellhltn]

Good info, scgallafent.

Thanks!

[mkmurray]

Sounds like a problem with the mechanics of baptism rather than an intellectual issue.

At this point she's old enough that the mission office would be involved. It might be wise to ping them on the situation.

Yes, I should have mentioned that as the family has been exploring live proxy baptism as an option, the father had briefly mentioned that the situation required missionary discussions.

There is a lot going on here, so I'm going to tackle the issues one at a time.

Thank you SO MUCH, scgallafent, for your thoughtful and thorough response. Clearly as a Church employee, you were also able to look into my individual situation and give informed assessments and stellar guidance! I understand you can't do that with every case and question, but I sincerely appreciate you were able to take the time to do so with this one.

First, it is important to understand that a person who is age nine or older and has not been baptized (often referred to as a "child of record") is not a member of the Church. From General Handbook 33.6.2:

A person age 9 or older who has a membership record but has not been baptized and confirmed is not a member of record.

...
There is a business rule that requires that a member of a young women class presidency must be a member of the Church.
...
I haven't tested it, but there is a reasonable possibility that marking the record as not accountable would be enough that some systems would look at the member flag and let you record the person in the position. Having said that, DO NOT USE the not accountable flag as a "workaround" to allow recording the person as serving in this position (assuming the system lets that slide by).

Thank you for whittling it down to its core essence, I think that's what I have been missing in my confusion. As you can imagine, it's easy to classify this young woman as a faithful member of the church because of her weekly attendance and activity, and her unbaptized status is 100% empathetically understandable. But to your point, as a "child of record" that is unbaptized older than age 8, she is technically not a "member of record" for record keeping purposes and definitions. Obviously phrasing like this has to be treated delicately to not imply anything derogatory to potentially sensitive feelings about this sweet daughter's situation. I personally believe caution should be used in minimizing this situation to "non-member" or "not a member," especially when speaking with the family regarding the current state of things.

But alas, I believe this small nugget of truth explains the rest of the details and the resultant evidence now falls into place more logically. The class presidency member being a "member of record" requirement makes sense, and she certainly wouldn't qualify systematically then. As for comments about the "Not Accountable" flag, I would absolutely only proceed testing that theory with the system logic if proper handbook procedure is followed as you cited and decision is made by proper priesthood authority and family consent.

Now to tackle your questions about class assignments.

Again, thank you for taking the time to give thorough and knowledgeable feedback on this. I am new to the clerk calling and discovering existing ward organizational and class setup from my predecessors within LCR as I go. Clearly I need to reassess the current configuration against the intended outcome by my auxiliaries and make some adjustments. But looks like more than just the one situation of this thread doesn't line up.

I can easily see how to modify the name of the classes. But the logic behind membership in each class wasn't easy for me to find when I hit the edit button. Is the class membership criteria editable, or do you have to make a new class with the corrected criteria?

Thank you all!

[scgallafent]

I can easily see how to modify the name of the classes. But the logic behind membership in each class wasn't easy for me to find when I hit the edit button. Is the class membership criteria editable, or do you have to make a new class with the corrected criteria?

When viewing an individual class, click on the pencil icon next to the class name. That brings up a page that will allow you to change the class structure.

[mkmurray]

When viewing an individual class, click on the pencil icon next to the class name. That brings up a page that will allow you to change the class structure.

Do you have to get through the "Combine or Create New Class" screen first to get to that? I think that's where I halted for fear of making a change I couldn't undo as I was just investigating.