CDOL and publicaffairs.lds.org

I am the stake clerk, but I sure don't know how to update the CDOL as requested by our area Public Affairs Director. Can anyone here give me a clue how to do this? I see Edit Assignment in the CDOL, but it doesn't let me add these details. Also, I can't assign a counselor in the stake presidency to Public Affairs, can I?

<Quoted from PA Director>

The new secure Public Affairs Network site is now available for our use. It provides information and tools to help us better fulfill our callings. The new resources on the site include training modules, frequently asked questions, and a discussions section to enable worldwide collaboration among those with Public Affairs callings. Please sign up with your stake clerk to be added to the "Church Directory of Leaders" - CDOL, in order to get authorized.

The information required for entry into CDOL / Access to the Website is:
1. Full name, 2. name the person desires to be called in PA work, 3. home address, 4. Mailing addrss if different from home address, 5.desired phone number to be used for PA work, 6. Church Membership Record Number (can be found on your Church Record or your Temple Recommend), 7. The date you were called into your PA assignment.

All of the content that was available on the old Public Affairs website is still available on the new site, but it has been moved behind a secure firewall. This content will now only be available to those with public affairs callings and their priesthood advisers. In order to get access to this site as a member of a stake public affairs council, you will need to work with your stake clerk to make sure you are listed in the Church's Member and Leader Services (MLS) system by your specific calling. For the sake of simplicity, possible stake Public Affairs callings are limited to the following:

• Stake Director of Public Affairs (calling #724)

• Stake Public Affairs Assistant (calling #1417)

• Stake Public Affairs Specialist (calling #726)

Specific callings such as a secretary, photographer, writer, etc. can all be assigned to the Specialist position. These same callings are also available at the district level.

First, Area Seventy and Stake Presidents are already in CDOL and are therefore authorized.
Second, Stake President's Counselors who are the Stake Priesthood Adviser to Public Affairs will need to be entered in CDOL by the Stake Clerk.
Third, High Councilors are not generally approved for Public Affairs work, unless they are the Stake DPA, or there is another compelling reason, in which case they may be entered by the Stake Clerk.

Once you know you have been added to the MLS system, you may visit the site by going to http://publicaffairs.lds.org/ and signing in with your LDS account at the top of the screen:

drepouille wrote:In order to get access to this site as a member of a stake public affairs council, you will need to work with your stake clerk to make sure you are listed in the Church's Member and Leader Services (MLS) system by your specific calling.

I think that's the answer. Make sure it's a standard position and not a custom position.

Sure, I did that long ago when they were sustained. All the information requested is already on their membership records. I don't really know why the CDOL has an "Edit Assignment" link. It allows you to add phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc, which are already on their membership records.

I also have no idea what to do about this: "Stake President's Counselors who are the Stake Priesthood Adviser to Public Affairs will need to be entered in CDOL by the Stake Clerk."

drepouille wrote:I also have no idea what to do about this: "Stake President's Counselors who are the Stake Priesthood Adviser to Public Affairs will need to be entered in CDOL by the Stake Clerk."

Unless there's a feature I'm missing, I'm guessing it means the Counselors have to be placed in the CDOL by the stake clerk, but the person writing it wasn't fully aware of the process for doing so. (Since Counselor in the Stake Presidency is a "Tier 1" position, it's via the LCUR and not MLS.)

drepouille wrote:I also have no idea what to do about this: "Stake President's Counselors who are the Stake Priesthood Adviser to Public Affairs will need to be entered in CDOL by the Stake Clerk."

Those instructions win no awards for clarity, but they way I read it, there are only those three specific callings that grant access to the public affairs site. That means that a stake president's counselors have to be given an additional standard calling that is one of those three in order to access the site. it's not just that they need to be in CDOL; they need to be in CDOL with one of those three Public Affairs callings. From your posts so far, it's not clear to me that you gave the SP counselors an additional Public Affairs calling.

drepouille wrote:I also have no idea what to do about this: "Stake President's Counselors who are the Stake Priesthood Adviser to Public Affairs will need to be entered in CDOL by the Stake Clerk."

Based on some experimenting I just did, I don't think you need to do anything for the stake president or his counselors, if they are already properly loaded in MLS and therefore also in CDOL.

lajackson wrote:Based on some experimenting I just did, I don't think you need to do anything for the stake president or his counselors, if they are already properly loaded in MLS and therefore also in CDOL.

Are they able to get into the public affairs site and see additional information?

drepouille wrote:Stake President's Counselors who are the Stake Priesthood Adviser to Public Affairs will need to be entered in CDOL by the Stake Clerk.

The jury is still out on this one. I know that stake presidents can access the "secure" information, but I'm waiting to hear if his counselors can or not. If not, I will probably have to pretend that the counselor is a stake PA specialist in MLS.

Will the public affairs calling for the Stake Presidency counsellor work in the same way as the Stake audit chairman?
You have to be a counsellor on the presidency to be the audit chairman and if you are entered with that calling you get the access needed to LUFAS.
Does one of the counsellors have to be given a public affairs calling to get access to the website mentioned?

drepouille wrote: • Stake Director of Public Affairs (calling #724)
• Stake Public Affairs Assistant (calling #1417)
• Stake Public Affairs Specialist (calling #726)

These are the CDOL numeric IDs associated with these standard positions. I'm not sure where those IDs are exposed, so I don't know that they're much good for most people.

Short answer: assigning the members to one of those standard callings in MLS will do.

drepouille wrote:I know that stake presidents can access the "secure" information, but I'm waiting to hear if his counselors can or not.

Well, they can get Church email addresses. I did not follow through to see how far a counselor can actually go.

I think it is funny that when a stake president logs in to publicaffairs.lds.org, they find out that they have a new e-mail address they have to check for messages. Ugh. Too bad they couldn't receive all messages through a single mailbox.

drepouille wrote:I think it is funny that when a stake president logs in to publicaffairs.lds.org, they find out that they have a new e-mail address they have to check for messages. Ugh. Too bad they couldn't receive all messages through a single mailbox.

The same thing is true for counselors, who do not even have Church email addresses in the first place.

I have learned since last evening that a counselor in the stake presidency does have full access to the PA site by virtue of his calling in MLS/CDOL, just as does the stake president.

So the only ones that need to be loaded in MLS are the stake PA committee, and they will gain access if they are loaded in standard callings and MLS properly flows to CDOL.

scgallafent wrote:

drepouille wrote: • Stake Director of Public Affairs (calling #724)
• Stake Public Affairs Assistant (calling #1417)
• Stake Public Affairs Specialist (calling #726)

These are the CDOL numeric IDs associated with these standard positions. I'm not sure where those IDs are exposed, so I don't know that they're much good for most people.

Not sure if this is public knowledge, but using Internet Exploder, a person can see a bit of raw data for the LDS Account they are currently logged in with at https://www.lds.org/header. (For some reason, it's not working for me using FireFox.)

If you look at the policy-ldspositions: line, I believe the above calling numbers will be found following the letter "p". I think the "p" stands for "position", as it's pretty clear the number following a "u" is a "unit" number.

Good call on policy-ldspositions. I forgot about that.