Directory API

Hi, I'm a ward clerk in a new ward and our Relief Society would like to make a directory with picture, contact info, plus a little mini bio for each of the women to help them get to know each other. I'd like to convince them not to create a parallel directory, but I don't see a notes field in the technology roadmap for the LDS.org Directory, so I was wondering if there is any kind of api with authentication that we could hook into.

The API's are only available for approved LDSTech community projects. More information about LDSTech projects can be found in articles found in the wiki.

You can submit feedback for Directory enhancements through the LDS.org home page feedback link. This feedback link is also found on many other, but not all, LDS.org pages.

I'm unaware of any plans to make APIs available for use outside of church sanctioned development.

Thank you for the quick reply, it's very helpful. Looks like we'll have to figure something else out for the time being.

You can do an export to Excel to get some of the information. That might help. Make sure you respect the privacy choices that individual members may have made about their personal information.

Your profile doesn't include your country. I'll assume you're in the USA, but in case you aren't, it's especially important, as members in many countries need to "opt in" to sharing their information with the ward membership, whereas the United States is an "opt out" country.

I suppose the Relief Society could do all their own information gathering, which leads to a complete "opt in" system, but that has its own set of problems, too (as you've already indicated). If they proceed with this project, make sure the Bishop approves. It probably needs to have the appropriate church disclaimers, such as "for church use only", etc.

Is there any way to use the existing API in the newsletter? For example, if you had a featured post for the bishopric that displayed Ward info with some directory information, could you have that information come from the directory or is the only option to manually update the list?

shem.simmons wrote:Is there any way to use the existing API in the newsletter?

No.

Are there plans to be able to export a directory list to csv for home teaching route organization? It would be nice to display the home teaching families on a map to see how far the routes are for people. If there was a csv export, that would make it pretty easy to do.

The general trend has been to remove exports. In some case we're told it's to preserve data security, other times we're left to guess.

There are consequences to not allowing downloads of data in formats other than PDF. I was trying to download the home teaching assignments so I can do some work in excel but found that I could only get the report in PDF. But was was able to find an online PDF to XML converter that worked great. I wish that I didn't have to jump through the hoops to get what I need.

orthogonalone wrote: I was trying to download the home teaching assignments so I can do some work in excel but found that I could only get the report in PDF.

This thread is about access to the Directory API. All home teaching tools are found in Leader and Clerk Resources. How is access to the Directory API related to downloading home teaching assignments from LCR?

orthogonalone wrote:There are consequences to not allowing downloads of data in formats other than PDF. I was trying to download the home teaching assignments so I can do some work in excel but found that I could only get the report in PDF. But was was able to find an online PDF to XML converter that worked great. I wish that I didn't have to jump through the hoops to get what I need.

+1.

Isn't there a way that this could at least be set up so that leaders are able to download in a format other than PDF?

This is an old thread but I would really like to able to automate some procedures. I want to be able to automatically download a current ward list including Name age and phone number(optional) is there any way to do this. Is there any way to get access to an API. Thanks for your help.

rsgoth wrote:I want to be able to automatically download a current ward list including Name age and phone number(optional) is there any way to do this.

Yes, if you are a ward clerk, assistant ward clerk - membership, and a bishopric member. It is in LCR Create Report. No for the general membership.

rsgoth wrote:Is there any way to get access to an API.

No. The API is only available internally or to specific church sponsored community app teams.

jdlessley wrote:

rsgoth wrote:I want to be able to automatically download a current ward list including Name age and phone number(optional) is there any way to do this.

Yes, if you are a ward clerk, assistant ward clerk - membership, and a bishopric member. It is in LCR Create Report. No for the general membership.

rsgoth wrote:Is there any way to get access to an API.

No. The API is only available internally or to specific church sponsored community app teams.

Assistant ward clerks and membership clerks do not have access to custom reports.
Also I believe the reports are generated in PDF only and not any form of raw text such a CSV. I am guessing that is what rsgoth was wanting?

klricks wrote:Assistant ward clerks and membership clerks do not have access to custom reports.

The only reason I mentioned custom report was because rsgoth was interested in getting member age which is restricted privacy data due to the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). I did not check the access table nor the Member List until just now. The assistant ward clerk and assistant ward clerk - membership do have access to the Member List which includes information for gender, age, birth date, address, phone, and e-mail. Since the assistant ward clerks and membership clerks have membership edit permissions I suspect the same information is available for them to print the Member List.

klricks wrote:Also I believe the reports are generated in PDF only and not any form of raw text such a CSV. I am guessing that is what rsgoth was wanting?

All CSV exports have been removed for some time. I suspect it is fallout of the GDPR and possibly because of potential for liability to the Church of compromised data from mishandling raw data.