Ordinances tab on Member Look-up has disappeared

I am stake executive secretary. As late as last Sunday, when I did a member lookup, I saw the ordinances for the member. Not today. Have my permissions to view data changed or is it something else?

davidrichey wrote:I am stake executive secretary. As late as last Sunday, when I did a member lookup, I saw the ordinances for the member. Not today. Have my permissions to view data changed or is it something else?

I don't know what the stake executive secretary's permissions were previously, but the Access Table says that he doesn't have permissions to see membership records or even the individual ordinance summary. Given that, it makes sense that he wouldn't be able to see ordinances on the member lookup section. My guess is that the Leader and Clerk Resources page is being tightened up to match Handbook policy for who can see membership record information.

It appears there was a new release today which did exactly as aebrown indicated. It is interesting, the counselors have also been removed from access to the member record ,and also the IOS. There is at least one reference to a clerk or a bishopric member reviewing the ios once a year with the family, i suspect well see some additional changes.

JohnShaw wrote: It is interesting, the counselors have also been removed from access to the member record ,and also the IOS. There is at least one reference to a clerk or a bishopric member reviewing the ios once a year with the family, i suspect well see some additional changes.

Oh, no! This is going to be pretty frustrating. I understand having rights to view the membership record available only to the Bishop and Clerk due to confidentiality, but the Ordinance summary? I'm not sure that there's any value of closing the door here, but doing so will certainly stymie our "situational awareness" across the bishopric. I have been relying very heavily on the information provided in those additional pages over the last 2 years (or however long the /leader page became available online) as Counselor to the Bishop.

Here's why:
1. We live in a ward that experiences a fair amount of turnover (serve a military base), and invariably have new people moving in every month. Active and less-active alike. As such, we always have outreach efforts underway (coordinated by both the Clerk, and me, the 1st Counselor). Critical information to the type of outreach:

• How long ago was this person baptised?
• Do they appear to have been BIC?
• Did they serve a mission (where/what language)?
• When did they receive the priesthood?

Honestly, having this information greatly informs how we reach out, who we prioritize as on a more critical timeline, and who we send to make the first contact.

2. Counselors have access to Temple Recommend Status. What's the point of removing this information from the Member information page? Honestly--making us dig for it? Counselors in our ward do most of the recommend renewals, and reminding the Bishop of who could be target families to re-engage toward the temple. Important information here is:

• Has the person been endowed?
• Has the couple been sealed in the temple (where/when)?
• How long has it been since the recommend lapsed?

3. I have been FULLY engaged in finding members who have fallen out of touch with the church (through faulty information), and the parents names available GREATLY assists in that search. WhitePages.com and so forth affiliates parents and children quite often, and the internet in general yields alot of context for understanding who we are looking for. More information helps provide a means for us to make a phone call to update contact information. The alternative is to push more names to the "Address Unknown" file, but then who is really serving them at that point?


Honestly, removing these pages obscures all the useful information that's not already in the unit directory except i) the Priesthood office, and ii) the previous ward. Perhaps the point is that the Clerk and the Bishop should be doing all this legwork on his own. Perhaps there is merit to having Bishop's counselors not having intel on ward member's experience in the church, so we are more uniform (blind?) in our ministering. In the end, hiding these pages will place MORE burden on the Bishop and slow our Bishopric's information exchange.

aebrown wrote:My guess is that the Leader and Clerk Resources page is being tightened up to match Handbook policy for who can see membership record information.

The information in question is not the full membership record, but just Individual Ordinance Summary (IOS) information. Which Handbook policy says that the bishopric counselors and ward executive secretary cannot see the IOS?

genman wrote:The information in question is not the full membership record, but just Individual Ordinance Summary (IOS) information. Which Handbook policy says that the bishopric counselors and ward executive secretary cannot see the IOS?

Regarding the executive secretary, I would ask the question, "which Handbooks section says that the executive secretary can see the IOS?" It's very clear that Church policy says that membership information should be seen only by those authorized to see it (see, for example, Handbook 1, section 13.8). So without a specific authorization for a particular calling, the default answer is "no."

Regarding bishopric counselors, however, there is indeed a specific section in the Handbook (Handbook 1, 13.6) that talks about clerks or "bishopric members" reviewing the IOS with members annually. So it does seem that the software restriction against counselors seeing the IOS is inconsistent with that Handbook provision. Note that my earlier statement that you quoted was only in the context of executive secretaries, and said nothing about bishopric counselors.

Aebrown, that was the section i was refering to as well.

aebrown wrote:Which Handbooks section says that the executive secretary can see the IOS?

Good question. I don't see anything specific. And when I look at the counterpart to this in the MLS users manual, it suggests that "View Membership" access rights are to be given to "Bishopric members". Not sure if this means "Bishopric members" (with a capital B, meaning the Bishop and his two Counselors), or whether it means "bishopric members" (with a lower case b, meaning the 5 who attend the Sunday Bishopric meetings. The ward executive secretary works closely with the bishopric as an "administrative assistant" to the bishopric. I suspect that not a few wards currently also give "View Membership" MLS access rights to ward executive secretaries and that those bishops are relying on that. Bishops have some flexibility on how they give MLS access rights, but it appears that the LDS.ORG online access rights are not tailorable by bishops.

aebrown wrote:It's very clear that Church policy says that membership information should be seen only by those authorized to see it (see, for example, Handbook 1, section 13.8). So without a specific authorization for a particular calling, the default answer is "no."

The ward executive secretary is an administrative assistant who works closely with the bishopric. The tone of H1.13.8 appears to deal with lists given out to the wider public (e.g. not to be used for commercial purposes, etc). But it seems reasonable that the executive secretary supporting the bishopric would have a legitimate access need to IOS type info at some point.

aebrown wrote: Regarding bishopric counselors, however, there is indeed a specific section in the Handbook (Handbook 1, 13.6) that talks about clerks or "bishopric members" reviewing the IOS with members annually. So it does seem that the software restriction against counselors seeing the IOS is inconsistent with that Handbook provision.

In practice, do bishopric counselors really ever participate in supporting the annual IOS review by members at the annual tithing settlement time? I have not ever seen that happen. It is always the Bishop and the Clerks supporting that. So, if the annual IOS review is the only valid reason for bishopric counselors to need IOS access, then it would probably make sense that bishopric counselors really don't need access to the IOS data after all.

However, what jaj78 described above, sounds like a practical reason why it could be useful for other reasons (besides annual IOS review) for bishopric counselors to have access to IOS info, even though what he described is not specifically authorized in the Handbook for bishopric counselors to do. In many wards, executive secretaries might also provide that kind of information for a bishopric meeting, as tasked by the Bishop. As jaj78 said, perhaps the point is that the Clerk and the Bishop should be doing all that legwork on their own. That increases barriers and removes flexibility for the Bishop to task those at the bishopric (lower case b) meeting.

genman wrote:In practice, do bishopric counselors really ever participate in supporting the annual IOS review by members at the annual tithing settlement time? I have not ever seen that happen. It is always the Bishop and the Clerks supporting that.

I guess we all have different experiences, but I've never seen the bishop participate in the annual IOS review -- he's very busy with tithing settlement, which only he can do. And in at least a couple of wards the bishopric counselors have indeed participated in the IOS review, although it is more common for that to be a clerk function.

davidrichey wrote:I am stake executive secretary. As late as last Sunday, when I did a member lookup, I saw the ordinances for the member. Not today. Have my permissions to view data changed or is it something else?

I noticed the same thing on Sunday, we had a young man ordained to the priesthood and I hadn't seen him before in my ward so went in to check. As Stake Exec Sec I have had access to Ordinance information through the tabs, not via IOS like the Clerks, but when it wasn't there I thought something was wrong with my internet connection until just now.

What is odd, is that I can edit members phone/email via Directory but in online MLS that feature isn't available. Seems that the permissioning has been a bit inconsistant but I agree that this information is pretty important to the role of Exec Sec in prep'ing the Bishop for interviews and the like.

chris_hazeldine wrote:I noticed the same thing on Sunday, we had a young man ordained to the priesthood and I hadn't seen him before in my ward so went in to check. As Stake Exec Sec I have had access to Ordinance information through the tabs, not via IOS like the Clerks, but when it wasn't there I thought something was wrong with my internet connection until just now.

What is odd, is that I can edit members phone/email via Directory but in online MLS that feature isn't available. Seems that the permissioning has been a bit inconsistant but I agree that this information is pretty important to the role of Exec Sec in prep'ing the Bishop for interviews and the like.

The bit that doesn't make sense is that the IOS does say at the top - for Membership Clerk and Bishop only, but there is also a Member page that has pretty much all the same information on it that doesn't have the same restrictions listed on it. That information is all that Bishopric members and Exec Secs were able to view previously in Online MLS.

aebrown wrote:In at least a couple of wards the bishopric counselors have indeed participated in the IOS review.

Out of 28,000 wards, that is probably true. Such as if a clerk is unavailable and the clerk did not print out the IOS ahead of time for the bishop.

So that would be reason to give bishopric counselors access rights to print IOS info for members to review for accuracy. And looks like H1-13.4.1 gives broader record-keeping reason why bishopric counselors need IOS visibility beyond just printing the IOS.

I'm still trying to see where in the Handbooks what jaj78 described (which sounds good) would be authorized as an appropriate activity per the Handbook, assuming as we are that if the Handbook doesn't specifically cover it and allow it, that it is not authorized to do.

chris_hazeldine wrote:I agree that this information is pretty important to the role of Exec Sec in prep'ing the Bishop for interviews and the like.

That is a good point. H1-13.4.4 includes scheduling appointments for the bishopric as one of the enumerated duties of the ward executive secretary. Providing the Bishop some basic situational awareness for an appointment seems like a valid thing for an Exec Sec to do, such as did they serve a mission, how long ago baptized, what priesthood do they hold, what unit they came from, etc. The Bishop appreciates that kind of background info when he is meeting with someone for the first time. He could dig up that information himself, but why prevent him from asking his administrative assistant from helping him with that?

chris_hazeldine wrote:I noticed the same thing on Sunday, we had a young man ordained to the priesthood and I hadn't seen him before in my ward so went in to check. As Stake Exec Sec I have had access to Ordinance information through the tabs, not via IOS like the Clerks, but when it wasn't there I thought something was wrong with my internet connection until just now.

What is odd, is that I can edit members phone/email via Directory but in online MLS that feature isn't available. Seems that the permissioning has been a bit inconsistant but I agree that this information is pretty important to the role of Exec Sec in prep'ing the Bishop for interviews and the like.

This is interesting, and certainly not a function of your calling (Unless this ordination was to the MP (an interview you likely would've setup) I don't see this as a need to access the data - you could ask that the person who has the access verify, but your desire to perform the activity doesn't seem to be a reason to make it available generally)

MLS and the online tools are not inconsistent, MLS is limited in role based access, much too limited as can be shown by the very thread we're involved in. The online tools represent a move to more granular control. This represents the Church's direction limiting access to personal information. Coming from a healthcare IT background I have always been appalled at the way membership data is treated, passed around like it's no big deal... I think, our church culture has contributed to it over time, but the Brethren have obviously targeted and desire to limit access wherever possible.

If a bishop or a stake president need to have prep information for an interview they can work with their clerk to reivew the confidential information, while the ExecSec can manage the appointment itself. I think this shows the role separation pretty well, and helps to clarify in the minds of many that an ExecSec is the scheduler, and the Clerks work with the records. There is an interesting coorelation, IMHO, to another thread discussing the Clerk and ExecSec roles https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.p ... nks-higher

JohnShaw wrote:MLS is limited in role based access... The online tools represent a move to more granular control.

Not sure what you mean. The intention of both MLS access rights and online access rights is to be role-based. The bishop currently has more granular control for MLS access rights than for online access rights. For example, MLS allows the Bishop to give "View Membership" rights to the ward executive secretary. He cannot do that with online. So online gives less granular control to the local unit. Unless by "more control", you mean "less local control".

chris_hazeldine wrote:The bit that doesn't make sense is that the IOS does say at the top - for Membership Clerk and Bishop only, but there is also a Member page that has pretty much all the same information on it that doesn't have the same restrictions listed on it. That information is all that Bishopric members and Exec Secs were able to view previously in Online MLS.

The printout that says "Membership Clerk and Bishop only" is not the IOS. That is the actual formal Membership Record. The formal membership record is ONLY for Bishop and Membership Clerk. Not even members are to see their official membership record. What you are calling the "Member page" is the IOS, which members can see and are encouraged to review for correctness. Yes, the IOS and the Membership Record have pretty much the same information in most cases, but not always. There are very strict confidential controls on the actual formal "Membership Record". The topic of this thread is NOT about the Membership Record, but about the less confidential other membership information.

JohnShaw wrote:If a bishop or a stake president need to have prep information for an interview they can work with their clerk to review the confidential information, while the ExecSec can manage the appointment itself. I think this shows the role separation pretty well, and helps to clarify in the minds of many that an ExecSec is the scheduler, and the Clerks work with the records.

That will require more involvement of the Clerk with appointments and such. The Clerk and the Exec Sec are going to have to coordinate alot more than they currently do, IMO. That's probably a good thing.

genman wrote:
I'm still trying to see where in the Handbooks what jaj78 described (which sounds good) would be authorized as an appropriate activity per the Handbook, assuming as we are that if the Handbook doesn't specifically cover it and allow it, that it is not authorized to do.

I'll admit that in the ideal case, I wouldn't be doing as much finding/outreach/TR needs reporting because people wouldn't be lost/less active or have lapsed recommends. Then understanding the "back story" isn't as critical.

The ideal case would be that we have a Membership Clerk (calling vacant recently, Ward Clerk fulfilling mostly) making all the first contacts when people move in to let them know we have received their records, when our meeting time/location, and such. This presumes that the record when we receive it has an accurate address, telephone, or email address. Also in the ideal case, the Elder's Quorum, High Priest's group, and Relief Society maintain close contact with all the ward members and send contact info updates to the Membership Clerk regularly so that nobody goes missing.

The fact is that for most wards, it's a bigger job than one clerk can wrangle, the Auxiliaries sometimes let people slip through the cracks, and the redundancy helps when the Bishop wants to know "did Bro Jones serve a mission?" or "were the Smith's sealed in the temple?" As a side note, we try to follow the model "if there's anything the Bishop CAN delegate, he SHOULD delegate," so the open permissions previously helped me to be more familiar with our ward member's history as an asset for the bishop.

jaj78 wrote:As a side note, we try to follow the model "if there's anything the Bishop CAN delegate, he SHOULD delegate," so the open permissions previously helped me to be more familiar with our ward member's history as an asset for the bishop.

I'd argue that this is more than just a side note, given the two previous Worlwide Leadership Trainings. While the ordinance/mission information isn't absolutely critical to my success (as 1st Counselor) in helping to lessen the Bishop's burden, it is very helpful in allowing me to "get to know" the member quickly and to look for opportunities to make connections either myself or by assignment to ward members. It helps to unify the saints when you know their shared experiences. Knowing the information ahead of time helps us to welcome new members in quickly and efficiently, thus lessening some of the burden on the Bishop.

faguirre wrote:... in helping to lessen the Bishop's burden, it is very helpful in allowing me to "get to know" the member quickly and to look for opportunities to make connections either myself or by assignment to ward members.

Great point. In the context of interviews and casual conversation, members expect me to remember that they joined the church in xxxx then were sealed in the [your favorite] temple the next year. It's incredibly helpful to have one more source of "electronic storage" as a reminder of those details. Familiarity is the key.

On a similar note, I'm a ward exec sec and no longer have access to the "action interview" or "birthday" list...when updating data the app crashes and never completes...I think this problem began when membership record info permissions were removed from exec sec's...what are your thoughts?

jaj78,

This is different for different people, I'd personally find it a bit creepy for someone to know that much detailed information about me. I was married in the Temple... oh I see you have a failed marriage to a previous spouse, etc... I've already had a primary teacher tell a 6 year old of mine that I was married to someone else that wasn't her mommy.... not sure how she knew that... but I can guess based on who she was married to, and it wasn't a clerk.

I don't doubt that there is a fine line to walk, but we must get used to having these privileges removed, and our access to information limited to those who NEED it. The debate about what access you need will be a good one, but I think we will find that we WANT more information than we NEED.

JohnShaw wrote:I've already had a primary teacher tell a 6 year old of mine that I was married to someone else that wasn't her mommy.

I'd report that to the Stake President. Members who can't keep information confidential don't last long in their callings.