MLS use breaks LCR Assignments (Problem with Priests & Laurels assigned to Elders & RS)

[gudmundsonsc]

I noticed something very disturbing in the LCR portal. LCR assigns members to EQ & RS classes by default according to their ordination or age. In organizing our Ward's two Elder's Quorums and three Relief Societies in the LCR portal last week, the LCR enabled me to create EQ-1 & EQ-2 as well as RS-1, RS-2, & RS-3 classes. I then moved the Laurels into the RS classes and the Priests into the EQ classes to be consistent with the Stake Presidency's request for organizing those auxiliaries. Other Ward Clerks in our Stake have done the same. I was able to print out attendance rolls for each class for this quarter. Yesterday I had to go into MLS to enter our new Ward Clerk assignments but did nothing else. Today I discovered that someone or something (probably the LCR portal) moved all the Priests out of the Elders Quorum and all the Laurels out of the Relief Society classes. The rosters for EQ-2 as well as RS-2 & RS-3 classes are totally empty while the Priest and Laurel classes are re-populated again. As a former software engineer, I'm wondering if MLS triggered an auto reset of the members in LCR according to the default assignments. In any case, there may be a serious bug in the portal. I plan to re-assign members again in LCR, but if this problem re-occurs, I plan to create spreadsheets and manually manage our Ward auxiliary attendance records and basically abandon LCR. I don't know if any of the other Ward Clerks in our Stake have experienced this problem. It's an issue that might need to be reported to the church's software development department.

Did the use of MLS or the addition of a clerk in MLS cause the class assignments in LCR to reset to defaults?
Is there some other automatic process that would reset the Elders and RS class assignments to their defaults by age?
What could we do to avoid this from ever happening again?

Right now 1 ward clerk has reported this, but I am worried there is a bug that surfaces in a specific situation and don't want to catch this bug ever again, a lot of time spent getting these classes configured correctly.

[scgallafent]

I am assuming that you are posting this after receiving it from a ward clerk. Without knowing which specific ward is reporting the issue, I am looking at things a little blindly, but have some thoughts below.

For those wondering, this is a BYU YSA stake that covers Helaman Halls, so two elders quorums and three Relief Societies is business as usual during the school year and assigning priests and laurels to the elders quorum and Relief Society is also standard practice. Don't try this at home.

Yesterday I had to go into MLS to enter our new Ward Clerk assignments but did nothing else. Today I discovered that someone or something (probably the LCR portal) moved all the Priests out of the Elders Quorum and all the Laurels out of the Relief Society classes. The rosters for EQ-2 as well as RS-2 & RS-3 classes are totally empty while the Priest and Laurel classes are re-populated again.

What you're describing here sounds like someone did a class reset for all members in the ward. I see one ward that is looks like a pretty good candidate to be the one you're talking about. If the ward called the GSC trying to address a couple of other issues I see, it is possible that the GSC triggered a class reset as part of that process. I don't see a couple of other things I would expect to have happened as part of this process, so I don't think that's the likely reason.

As a former software engineer, I'm wondering if MLS triggered an auto reset of the members in LCR according to the default assignments.

That's pretty unlikely. As the one who modified the class handling code in MLS for the transition to LCR, I know that when a unit is configured to use LCR, the only requests that MLS is allowed to send to CDOL are refresh requests and unit information changes (meeting times). If that code is broken, we would likely have heard more reports than this one about class assignments being reset wholesale. It is possible that it was broken with a subsequent change, so I won't rule that out, but it's not the first place I would go looking.

In any case, there may be a serious bug in the portal.

If this is occurring as described, I would agree that it's a pretty serious bug. On the flip side, for a bug of that magnitude to go unreported for the three (to seven, including beta) months that this release of LCR has been in use is a little surprising. It is possible that it is unique to YSA wards and the start of a semester, which would be a good reason for it not to have been reported by now, but we haven't heard about phones ringing off the hook yet.

Did the use of MLS or the addition of a clerk in MLS cause the class assignments in LCR to reset to defaults?

It is highly unlikely, but I won't completely rule it out. If I know which unit is involved, we could look at the history and see what triggered the class assignment changes. That would give us a better idea of what is going on.

Is there some other automatic process that would reset the Elders and RS class assignments to their defaults by age?

Moving records in and out will trigger a class reassignment, but the ward I think we're talking about has affected members that have been in the ward for a few weeks, so that seems unlikely.

There is another possibility related to the BYU batch move tool that was developed for use by wards covering BYU single student housing. The developer that originally wrote that today is out, but I'll check with him tomorrow. I could envision a scenario where the clerk processes housing assignments at the beginning of the semester and that triggers something like this.

Right now 1 ward clerk has reported this, but I am worried there is a bug that surfaces in a specific situation and don't want to catch this bug ever again, a lot of time spent getting these classes configured correctly.

Until you've got a second clerk reporting the same issue, it's a one-off issue and difficult for us to troubleshoot. If we know more specific details or get a second report, it becomes a little easier to isolate a bug.

If they know the class assignments at this point (from a printed roll, for example), it should not take a lot of time to straighten this out. The class assignments can be changed in batches from LCR and it should be something that can be fixed with five to ten minutes of work. Not ideal, but probably not a reason to rush out and abandon LCR, considering the other things that will not work correctly if the clerk decides to run the ward in Excel.

It's an issue that might need to be reported to the church's software development department.

If you want to report the issue to the GSC with specific details (ward, members affected, etc.), they can review it and then escalate it to the developers for review if they see a potential issue.