Callings show up in LDS.org, but are missing in MLS.

Hello,

I am an assistant ward clerk - membership (I do the callings and releases updates in MLS, and I follow up to make sure everyone gets set-apart and then record).

We have HUGE problem and I have spent a long time trying to find the answer by reading these forums, but to no avail.

We started noticing some callings dropping off of MLS for no reason at all, but the callings would be seen in the LDS.org/LDS tools lists.

When we recreate the calling in MLS, then the LDS.org and LDS tools list shows the same calling TWICE. We had to do this for our financial clerks, since they couldn't process tithing unless MLS recognized their calling authority.

Also, old callings are appearing out of no-where for members. Callings they have been released from years ago (and at the time, MLS was updated correctly).

Right now I have 46 callings that are missing in MLS, but show up on LDS.org. I have tried waiting for updates, and/or the problem to just fix itself, but no such luck. My Bishopric is really wanting me to get this fixed, so if anyone can please help me know what to do.

HELP!

-Josh Bingham
Menlo Park Ward, Menlo Park Stake (California)

P.S. Don't get this mixed up with the very common problem of callings in MLS that are missing in LDS.org/LDS tools. My problem is exactly the REVERSE.

A unit data refresh should correct the problem.

If you request a unit data refresh it will replace the callings in MLS with the callings in CDOL (which is where LDS.org/LDS tools get their callings).
You can see Correcting duplicate or missing callings for more details.

Thank you friends. This worked. (Doing this eluded me before since the intro text above this set of instructions talks about data from MLS missing from CDOL. "Sometimes clerks may notice duplicate or missing callings in CDOL.")

BUT, I still have a problem.

I still have callings (7 to be exact) that are duplicating in CDOL, AND I tried following the instructions about this, and it gets me no where. ("Sometimes you can't see the duplicates in MLS. If this is the case then remove the one that you can see, do a send/receive, wait a few minutes, do another send/receive, when the refresh comes down you will see the next calling of that type, repeat until correct or empty, then put the correct person back in if needed." )

The part that gets me lost is, "when the refresh comes down you will see the next calling of that type, repeat until correct or empty, then put the correct person back in if needed." I really have no idea what this section means. It is worded poorly.

Here is what is happening to me as I try and fix the seven folks who's callings appear twice in CDOL, but only once in MLS:

-I delete the only one that I can see in MLS.
-I do a send/receive, wait a few minutes
-I do another send/receive.
What I get is: The calling appears only once in CDOL, but it appears ZERO times in MLS.

What to do now?

joshbingham wrote: -I do a send/receive, wait a few minutes
-I do another send/receive.
What I get is: The calling appears only once in CDOL, but it appears ZERO times in MLS.

To get the data in CDOL down to MLS, you need to do a Unit Refresh. Note that it can take some time for SLC to process the request. So "a few minutes" is more like 20.

- Do a unit refresh
- Do a send/receive (to send the request)
- Wait at least 20 minutes
- Do a send/receive to see if the refresh happened. If not, repeat until done.

joshbingham wrote:The part that gets me lost is, "when the refresh comes down you will see the next calling of that type, repeat until correct or empty, then put the correct person back in if needed." I really have no idea what this section means. It is worded poorly.

What that section is addressing is a situation such as where you see Sister A, Sister B, and Sister C on CDOL with the calling of Chorister, and only Sister A appears in MLS. You would then:

1. Delete Sister A from that calling in MLS
2. Do a Unit Refresh (and by this I mean the request for the Unit Refresh, then two Send/Receives with a delay between), which should cause Sister B (or Sister C) to appear in MLS. If that doesn't happen, you may not have waited long enough (as RussellHltn noted)
3. Delete Sister B from that calling in MLS
4. Do a Unit Refresh, which should cause Sister C to appear in MLS.
5. Delete Sister C from that calling in MLS
6. Do a Unit Refresh, which should no longer change MLS for this calling.
7. Add Sister A back to the calling.
8. Do a Send/Receive

joshbingham wrote:Here is what is happening to me as I try and fix the seven folks who's callings appear twice in CDOL, but only once in MLS:

-I delete the only one that I can see in MLS.
-I do a send/receive, wait a few minutes
-I do another send/receive.
What I get is: The calling appears only once in CDOL, but it appears ZERO times in MLS.

What to do now?

As long as you're waiting long enough and doing the Unit Data Refresh request, this does sound like the correct procedure.

aebrown wrote:

joshbingham wrote:Here is what is happening to me as I try and fix the seven folks who's callings appear twice in CDOL, but only once in MLS:

-I delete the only one that I can see in MLS.
-I do a send/receive, wait a few minutes
-I do another send/receive.
What I get is: The calling appears only once in CDOL, but it appears ZERO times in MLS.

What to do now?

As long as you're waiting long enough, this does sound like the correct procedure.

There's no unit refresh in there. Without that, the calling in CDOL will not come down to MLS.

russellhltn wrote:There's no unit refresh in there. Without that, the calling in CDOL will not come down to MLS.

Good point. I edited my post accordingly to emphasize the need to do the Unit Data Refresh.

Now that I read your replies (thanks for taking the time to help me brothers), I see that I didn't explain what is happening to me clearly.

What I am seeing in CDOL is a duplication of calling, with the SAME Member and the SAME calling. For example:

CDOL:
Sister A - Calling x
Sister A - Calling x

MLS:
Sister A - Calling x

So, when I go into MLS and delete the only thing I can, which in my example above is "Sister A - Calling x" then here is what I get:

CDOL:
Sister A - Calling x

MLS:
Nothing. Does not list Sister A with Calling x at all.

So, the real problem I have is somehow there is a phantom "Sister A - Calling x" that exists in CDOL and I have no way of deleting it.

So, what do I do in this case?

I really do appreciate your help brothers. I love how our church members support each other, and bless the church for making such collaboration tools available in these "latter-days." Pun intended.

-Josh

joshbingham wrote:CDOL:
Sister A - Calling x

MLS:
Nothing. Does not list Sister A with Calling x at all.

So, the real problem I have is somehow there is a phantom "Sister A - Calling x" that exists in CDOL and I have no way of deleting it.

So, what do I do in this case?

Do a unit refresh. That will take at least two send/receives 20 minutes apart.

So, what you are saying I should do is:

1. Delete Sister A - Calling X from MLS.
2. Send/Receive changes
3. Do a Unit Refresh
4. Wait 20 minutes
5. Send/Receive changes

And doing the above will delete BOTH of the "Sister A - Calling X" from CDOL?

And once that happens, I can go back into MLS:

1. Add Sister A - Calling X"
2. Send/Receive
3. Do a unit refresh
4. Wait 20 minutes
5. Send/Recieve

And the result will be the "Sister A - Calling X" will appear now only once in both CDOL and MLS?

joshbingham wrote:So, what you are saying I should do is:

1. Delete Sister A - Calling X from MLS.

You said MLS is empty, so you can't do that.

But, if you're following what I gave in my last post, and then your proposed procedure, that will work. However, I'd be inclined to just stop once you have Sister A - Calling X in both places. Which means you're currently only one unit refresh away from being done.

joshbingham wrote:So, what you are saying I should do is:

1. Delete Sister A - Calling X from MLS.
2. Send/Receive changes
3. Do a Unit Refresh
4. Wait 20 minutes
5. Send/Receive changes

I'd swap steps 2 & 3. The Unit Refresh feature in MLS is simply a request for unit refresh data. So you have to choose to request a unit refresh and then do a Send/Receive so that your request gets to CHQ.

I think I finally understand what I need to do. Thanks again to you all for your help.

Crossing my fingers.

-Josh

So, it looks like everything is fixed. Thanks again for your help.

I do have one question though. When I do a "Request Unit Refresh Data", it comes up with a box to choose either:
-Membership Records
-County States and Provinces List
-Temple List
-Language List.

When I want CDOL to refresh for a callings issue, do I check Membership Records, or do I just not check any of the boxes before hitting "OK"?

Good question. I'd say click "Membership Records", just that's just a guess.

One of the items on the list must be checked. The Membership Records item also deals with positions (callings). It puts in a request to both CDOL and CMIS.

Why is this happening? It's happening in our ward as well. When will it stop as I don't want to spend hours to fix just for it to happen again.

klebla wrote:Why is this happening? It's happening in our ward as well. When will it stop as I don't want to spend hours to fix just for it to happen again.

Are they callings that you have removed from MLS but didn't get removed from LDS.org? Did you remove them recently or is this an old data problem that is just being noticed?

We had some problems a year and a half ago, but if there are current problems with them not getting deleted in CDOL, I'm not aware of them.

Are they callings that you have removed from MLS but didn't get removed from LDS.org? Did you remove them recently or is this an old data problem that is just being noticed?

We had some problems a year and a half ago, but if there are current problems with them not getting deleted in CDOL, I'm not aware of them.

Yes they are callings that were removed over the last year and some (not all) have reappeared. We have never updated LDS.org because we thought updating MLS would auto update LDS.org but have never seen those in sync. However, now it appears LDS.org is more correct than MLS. I just noticed but don't know how long it's been wrong. It appears to jsut be the callings in the "other..." categories under each auxiliary. I have a print out from November and they were fine then. I don't understand how CDOL is separate from MLS. To me the MLS is the central system and should update all others like LDS.org and possibly CDOL when we do send/receive. Why these other systems would maintain their own data and reverse update the central system like MLS seems to be a flaw. Otherwise let me know what we're doing wrong.

klebla wrote:To me the MLS is the central system and should update all others like LDS.org and possibly CDOL when we do send/receive.

I wonder if someone did a restore of your MLS database - perhaps to fix a finance issue.

klebla wrote:To me the MLS is the central system and should update all others like LDS.org and possibly CDOL when we do send/receive.

I could see how you might look at it that way, but MLS is definitely not the central system. It is simply a tool for updating the central systems such as CDOL, CMIS, and others. For callings, CDOL is the central system.

Of course, MLS is designed to stay in sync with CDOL, but it if gets out of sync, it is CDOL that is the system of record. You can do a Unit Data Refresh in MLS to request that the MLS data gets updated to match CDOL (it will also update the membership records). That's generally a good thing to do if you have problems with being out of sync.

I wonder if someone did a restore of your MLS database - perhaps to fix a finance issue.

Will check with the other clerks Sunday when the last one returns from vacation and see if that may have happened.

aebrown wrote:... MLS is definitely not the central system. It is simply a tool for updating the central systems such as CDOL...

Of course, MLS is designed to stay in sync with CDOL, but it if gets out of sync, it is CDOL that is the system of record. You can do a Unit Data Refresh in MLS to request that the MLS data gets updated to match CDOL (it will also update the membership records). That's generally a good thing to do if you have problems with being out of sync.

How do I look at CDOL and make a compare to MLS? Can a compare tell me what is out of sync? It seems for some odd reason some of the 'other' callings we updated in MLS did not get updated in CDOL. Then something happend to trigger all of that old stuff to be sent from CDOL to MLS. What keeps MLS from sending the latest info to CDOL? We do send/receives all the time.

klebla wrote:How do I look at CDOL and make a compare to MLS?

Manually.

klebla wrote:It seems for some odd reason some of the 'other' callings we updated in MLS did not get updated in CDOL.

There was a bug from some months ago that caused that. So some callings entered in a certain time frame may not be in CDOL.

klebla wrote:Then something happend to trigger all of that old stuff to be sent from CDOL to MLS.

A Unit Refresh could have done that. I believe there are times when it's done automatically - possibly with a MLS upgrade.

klebla wrote:What keeps MLS from sending the latest info to CDOL? We do send/receives all the time.

MLS only sends changes. It won't send things that had already been sent. So you need to do something, such as toggle the set part flag to cause MLS to re-send that position. And before you ask - no, there is no "reverse unit refresh" to send all MLS calling data to CDOL.

Thanks russellhltn will try these and see what we can do to clean things up. From now on for sure we will just delete current persons being released and just add the calling again with the new person, etc.

klebla wrote:From now on for sure we will just delete current persons being released and just add the calling again with the new person, etc.

You're welcome to do that extra work if it fixes your problems, but I've never had to do that. I simply change the people serving in the existing callings and everything syncs properly. I'd be wary of institutionalizing a temporary workaround that creates extra work. Once you get MLS and CDOL in sync, a simple calling change should work just fine.