Automated - New & Returning Member Progress (NMRP) report

[russellhltn]

C/PM.

CP/M.

[rich]

uggh, sort of messes up the humor when I get the abbreviation wrong

"CP/M" => "Control Program / Monitor" or after tech-marketing got a hold of it "Control Program for Microcomputers".

Now those were the days...

[lajackson]

And we kept the names of the new and returning members and their progress on 3x5 cards, the same way I do today.

Works like a charm.

Chuckle... Very nice and security is accomplished by a real lock & key.

Actually, I kept the 3x5 cards in my suit coat pocket, and no one dared attack me to get at them.

Yes, we did lock up the membership records.

[richardewinder]

I, too, was disappointed to see there is not a <SAVE> feature on the NMRP report. Is this feature under consideration?

Having this information readily available to stake leadership could be of great help in their support of local unit leaders in shepherding new members. Currently the stake presidents in our mission are asking zone leaders to collect some of this information for review in the stake missionary coordination meeting, since there is limited information on the New Member Report. Permitting the saving of this information and making it visible to stake presidencies would permit this information to be used in supporting the work of local unit leaders in much the same way that the Action and Interview List can be used currently.

In reviewing Meetinghouse Technology Policy 4.9.3 and 4.9.4 and slide 14 of Keeping Church Records Safe (noted in Post #2), I assume that issues with using Adobe FormsCentral (which is a secure site which permits limiting access to invited users) are the same as issues with using Google Docs.

[nathangg]

I just stumbled upon this post and I'm trying to understand the difference between google docs and email.

I found out recently how insecure email is (it really is like a postcard)... yet I've sent confidential items via email. (people who have attended a disciplinary council, meeting minutes, etc).

Should we be treating email the same way we treat google docs? (and thus no confidential information?)

Thanks~!

[lajackson]

My personal motto is that you should never send anything via the Internet that you would not want to read on a billboard on the way to work the next morning.

I am hesitant to email sensitive information, although I sometimes have. I try to make those occasions rare, and I usually go into my email system and delete any references afterward. I fully realize that this does not make it go away.

I probably would not send an NMRP Report, and I definitely would not send a record of a disciplinary council, or an application to the First Presidency. I would probably send an agenda for a meeting if it did not have certain names, but I would never send the minutes.

My church email is mainly limited to meeting reminders and other calendar events.

[ssio]

This is great and our area is using a spreadsheet like this and will try it out for Progress records from missionaries as well.
ss

[cardboardboxman]

I've been a ward Mission leader for four months. And with this calling and any other leadership calling I've had tracking visits and the progress of those I've been blessed with the responsibility of stewardship over third-party software has been necessary such as Microsoft Office. I have been using Google Docs and a separate Google Calendar to help to manage visits with my missionaries and to try to make sense of all the many visits between the full-time missionaries the MLS missionary couple and my missionaries along with other visits the ward council and home teachers and visiting teachers are making with families we are focusing on.

I was in the process of making my own Google spreadsheet when I decided to search for one and this is just exactly what I want and need period and I'm going to probably use it no matter what period but I thought I would at least ask because as I read through all the posts it wasn't clear of whether we should or not period I saw a very opinionated back and forth with varying interpretations of certain talks or policies or presentation slides. So if the author or someone could please let me know with a simple yes-or-no I would appreciate it period again I'm probably going to use it regardless because I think it's fantastic and it will be more efficient then two or three or four people carry around a notebook of papers that will likely never be correlated against one another fully.

[russellhltn]

as I read through all the posts it wasn't clear of whether we should or not.

It depends on how your leaders interpret the policy that's been pointed out.

[rich]

I am the author and agreed with ALL of the posts that essentially fell into 2 buckets: 'for' or 'against' using cloud storage (outside of lds.org) to accelerate the work.

As noted by <russellhltn>, my answer can't be a clear 'yes' or 'no', it's a "depends". The decision, when I read all available guidance 2.5 years ago, falls to the Bishop. I doubt this guidance has been made anymore cut & dry. My Bishop authorized and encouraged our ward council's use of cloud storage and posting/tracking regular status in them, so long as I (clerk, at the time) did 3 things:
1. Used a single ward account to store cloud docs
2. Religiously pruned google doc 'share' access controls, as ward council members cycled out
3. For NRMP specifically, don't post dates in the Temple questions, a simple 'yes' or 'no' suffices

I was a clerk for 15 years, with the exception of google data mining, access to my ward's PII stored in the cloud was well controlled. No concerns were ever raised.

A thought - maybe one day the church will provision cloud storage for units and tie access control to our callings in http://www.lds.org/clerk and take PII access control back. As a commercial example/corollary, my company has moved all their internal website development (highly sensitive data and intellectual property) and deployments to AWS containers. I am sure Amazon <https://aws.amazon.com/cloud‎> could make secure arrangements for the church, if my company was willing. This comment is not intended to ruffle any feathers, it just an idea. I am sure CHQ developer folks have considered or already use various AWS options for their projects.