MLS and CDOL Out of Sync

So, I'm a new stake clerk and have recently been trying to get the information in CDOL updated so that the information on CDOL matches the information on the computers in our local units MLS, stake and wards.

I suspect that LDS.ORG and/or CDOL polls information from several databases (I can't confirm this though) since we I needed to correct some information recently and lost information when I told by the clerk support line (telephone) to delete and recreate the information. As I recreated the information, I realized that I did not have the date sustained and/or set apart date information. The support agent on the line was able to get me that information from their "backup" database.

I still have information for several wards in my stake that have duplicate entries and/or missing information in CDOL but the information is correct and up-to-date in the local units MLS. The suggestion from the support agent is to do a refresh, meaning we'll lose some information on the local computers and have to recreate the information again from scratch.

Does anyone know of a better way to do this? i.e. get the information on CDOL and the local unit MLS to sync correctly? Thanks in advance.

Nope. Correcting duplicate or missing callings is the standard way we recommend fixing it. It's the only way you can fix it by yourself. If you print off what you need before you do it, it shouldn't be that big a deal.

My husband is one of our two stake technology specialist and he and his partner figured something out where several of our units had a CDOL MLS sync problem. If you have two people in the same calling like we have with the two of them you have to release both people in order to release either of them and have CDOL update. Then you add the one that is remaining back. CDOL will not update until you do this for some strange reason. The MLS Servers seem to keep the old data too and they will add the released person back in at the next send/receive.

We had two stake technology specialists (one for family history centers exclusively). They decided to release the other one and call someone else. When they did they released tech 1 but not my husband. When they did a send/receive the old guy showed up again and he never went away in CDOL. So they released him again and he kept showing up. Meanwhile he never disappeared in CDOL. So the guys decided to release both of them and do a send/receive in order to show that the calling was empty. Then they added my husband back in and all was well. CDOL updated and the issue was resolved. I don't know if your problem relates to something like this but if it does the solution is actually pretty simple but annoying.

If you are releasing someone and calling a new person the safest thing to do is release the old person, do a send/receive, and then add your new person. If you have more than one person in that calling like Assistant Scout Masters and such then release them all and add the ones you want to keep back in after you do a send/receive in MLS. That way there is no confusion and cdol updates properly. WHat brought the problem to the attention of my husband and the new tech was not thier own callings but the fact that our ward had 3 scoutmasters and 12 assistant scout masters and only 3 of them were actually active callings. The others had all been released and none of them at all showed up in CDOL except the very first ones who had been released for over two years.

The problem began when we called a new scoutmaster who had no experience so we kept the old one for three months to work with the new one. The old one was moving away so he remained in the calling until he actually moved. Once he moved they released him in MLS but it never actually took because of this weirdness and so eventually every other scoutmaster was added to the list and none of them were actually released. Eventually my husband and our ward clerk had to print off a list of them all and release them all, do a send/receive and just for good measure they waited two days and then once CDOL had populated the fact that we had no scout leaders at all they went back in and added the correct ones to MLS and did a send/receive and again waited on CDOL to sync up with MLS. After all of that they called and had Salt Lake correct the release dates on all the old leaders using the calling date of the next as an approxomate release date except the one that started the entire problem to begin with and they corrected the release and call dates to reflect the overlap.

All of this overlap and having two people in a calling thing made them wonder about how things were at the stake level with their callings and the release of Tech 1 so they went to check on it and found that we had three stake technology specialists instead of two. So they did the same thing again on their own callings and once again all was well.

There is a problem here but no one is actually listening to us about it so I wish you luck in fixing your problem and I hope this is a help to someone if it does not resolve your issue.

spydyee wrote:If you have two people in the same calling like we have with the two of them you have to release both people in order to release either of them and have CDOL update. Then you add the one that is remaining back. CDOL will not update until you do this for some strange reason.

Thanks for sharing these details. The situation can't be as simple as you suggest, since I see plenty of examples where there are multiple people in a calling and releases and new calls sync with CDOL just fine (an obvious one is the high council, and our stake calls and releases people with that calling frequently). But if a developer happens to see this it might be helpful, and some MLS users may also find it helpful.

The other thing I would add is that although there are some outstanding problems with calls, it doesn't seem to be an ongoing problem. When we see problems like this, and clerks run through the procedure for Correcting duplicate or missing callings, the problem doesn't seem to come back again -- MLS and CDOL stay in sync. So I think the problem is a data problem caused by previous versions of the software, not a current software problem. Fixing the data now actually fixes the problem going forward.

dannyyeo wrote:So, I'm a new stake clerk and have recently been trying to get the information in CDOL updated so that the information on CDOL matches the information on the computers in our local units MLS, stake and wards. [...]

Does anyone know of a better way to do this? i.e. get the information on CDOL and the local unit MLS to sync correctly? Thanks in advance.

RussellHltn wrote:Nope. Correcting duplicate or missing callings is the standard way we recommend fixing it. It's the only way you can fix it by yourself. If you print off what you need before you do it, it shouldn't be that big a deal.

The Wiki describes two ways of doing this. Our ward clerk was just instructed on a third way.

Instead of doing a Unit Data Refresh, CHQ instructed him to select the Send/Receive to Stake option. I'm guessing that this updates CDOL in a round-about sort of way. Has anyone else heard of this method or had experience with its effectiveness and/or pitfalls?