Automated - New & Returning Member Progress (NMRP) report

Automated NRMP - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... sp=sharing

I read through a couple threads and noticed several requests for this. I didn't see anyone offering it yet though. Our Stake Presidency encouraged unit clerks in Jan2014 to start using the NRMP form with our ward councils. I was discouraged to find a [SAVE] button was not implemented in neither the lds.org nor the MLS version. So I rolled my own, attached is what the on-line Ward Council View and auto-generated report look like. I also attached the MLS and LDS.Org versions for comparison sake.

Personal opinion: I noticed many posts along the way about security concerns of storing member's personally identifiable info (PII) on-line. I totally agree. In google docs, I think it is 'safe' enough, so long as the clerk is diligent in managing the [Share] settings on a specific Google spreadsheet. My Bishop is very conservative with member's PII. He was fine with the security provisions of google spreadsheets. Let me know if this is not in-line with church policy...

1. Membership clerks: I created a google spreadsheet version of NRMP that is partially automated with Google App Script (GAS).

• * Partially because the ward/branch council tab requires manual input (but so does the MLS version of NRMP which only prints, saving isn't available)
  * The automation is under the "NRMP Tools" menu:
  • A. Generate an individual report
    B. Remove an individual from both the 'Ward Council View' and report
    C. Bring an individuals report to the foreground (just as easy to click the tab at the bottom

2. Membership clerks: once the 'Ward Council View' tab is populated and individual reports generated, the two are linked. Any update in the 'Ward Council View' is automatically populated in the individual report, so only input data in the 'Ward Council View'. No need to input data twice or thrice, etc... The benefits should be clear. google docs automatic save features also allow precise control of who can view via a documents [Share] settings.

3. Note for church developers:, while developing the GAS generator for the report I notice 2 very minor discrepancies between the MLS and lds.org version of NRMP.

Anyone using this will need to consider Meetinghouse Technology Policy 4.9.3 and 4.9.4.

Also slide 14 of Keeping Church Records Safe, which specifically says that Google docs can't be used for confidential information.

russellhltn wrote:Anyone using this will need to consider Meetinghouse Technology Policy 4.9.3 and 4.9.4.

Also slide 14 of Keeping Church Records Safe, which specifically says that Google docs can't be used for confidential information.

Thanks for answering my question on policy...

1. I am familiar with and adhere to the intent and spirit of 4.9.3 & 4.9.4. But they need to be cast in their proper light. Any 3rd party software would exclude a lot of tools required to be effective in leadership callings (i.e. an MSFT spread sheet used by a ward mission leader for coordinating with missionaries).

2. I was not aware of Bishop Burton's "Church Information and Security Introduction" presentation. If I had known it was under the presiding Bishop's pervue, I would have asked Bishop Stevenson (he just wrapped up our stake conference today). This answers a lot of my questions and I found very useful. Paying attention to exact definitions here, since you are firing a shot across the bow of this approach. I went through and carefully noted the slides that defined what is "confidential" below, hence not appropriate to post in google docs (gdocs). By my read the only two fields that would be inappropriate in gdocs from an NRMP report are endowment and sealing dates. My answer to that is simple, don't put a date, yes or no will suffice. In fact, at the moment I don't put any dates beyond baptism and confirmation, I only put in yes, no or N/A.

Is there any other confidential field in the NRMP form that is expressly forbidden from gdocs beyond endowment & sealing dates?

OF COURSE the alternative would be much nicer, listen to the clerk postings on tech.lds.org over the last four years and put a [SAVE] button on the form. A summary button of existing saved reports would help productivity immensely, as well.

[Slide 14] "Never use [Google(tm) Docs and social media website] services to post confidential Church information."

/wrt what is deemed confidential:

[Slide 5] "Membership Records are confidential"

[Slide 7] "Certain membership information should be handled with even greater care."
- Birth Year of adults
- Temple recommend status
- Sealing and endowment information
- Church disciplinary information

[Slide 8] ...financial records are confidential

[Slide 9] names, addresses and phone numbers may be included in stake and ward directories if they are listed in commercial telephone directory or if the member gives permission

rich wrote:Is there any other confidential field in the NRMP form that is expressly forbidden from gdocs beyond endowment & sealing dates?

Not that I'm aware of, but quite a bit rides on how local leaders interpret things:

rich wrote:[Slide 5] "Membership Records are confidential"

Which raises the question of just what that means. There are a number of fields in that form that address priesthood and attendance. How much information is "too much" (too close to Membership Records) for Google Docs? Lots of room for interpretation.

Indeed, I was hoping there might be a clear cut answer I do appreciate the guidance.

In a small unit (or large unit I would assume) with one clerk, distributed cloud documents with tightly managed access controls is a must or the work would be slowed to a glacial pace. Local leadership consented after discussing policy, the risks and that the decision is ultimately their stewardship. In our unit, we simplified sensitive date entry to yes, no or N/A along with specific access-control being the clerk responsibility.

From this discussion, I will disable the temple date entries.

rich wrote:distributed cloud documents with tightly managed access controls is a must or the work would be slowed to a glacial pace.

As someone who was a ward clek before the Internet age, I have to diagree with that one. It may not be as convenient as some would like, but I'd hardly call it "glacial". The form documents a process that happens over the course of a year or more.

I too was a clerk in the days of MS-DOS with dial-up modem financial transfers (guess that dates me). No spread sheet reports, etc. My reference to "glacial" didn't refer to the form or it's year-long goal. "Glacial" referred solely to the struggle of getting timely information from auxiliary leaders into the form(s) and create summary status of where a ward's efforts stand on reactivation and embrace new members as whole instead of piece parts to give a bishopric an accurate perspective or as leaders change over.

The NRMP form and it's goals give a ward council direction in step-wise, persistent fashion.

I was a ward clerk in 1982, when everything was paper. How did we survive?

drepouille wrote:I was a ward clerk in 1982, when everything was paper. How did we survive?

The same way we did when we were computerizing all of the membership records in 1974. We typed in the data using special typewriters with optical character recognition font that could be scanned by the computers at Church headquarters, and they sent back paper.

And we kept the names of the new and returning members and their progress on 3x5 cards, the same way I do today.

Works like a charm.

lajackson wrote: The same way we did when we were computerizing all of the membership records in 1974. We typed in the data using special typewriters with optical character recognition font that could be scanned by the computers at Church headquarters, and they sent back paper.

And we kept the names of the new and returning members and their progress on 3x5 cards, the same way I do today.

Works like a charm.

Chuckle... Very nice and security is accomplished by a real lock & key.

FYI 1974 was the year Gary Kildall and John Torode began selling C/PM.

rich wrote: C/PM.

CP/M.

uggh, sort of messes up the humor when I get the abbreviation wrong

"CP/M" => "Control Program / Monitor" or after tech-marketing got a hold of it "Control Program for Microcomputers".

Now those were the days...

rich wrote:

lajackson wrote:And we kept the names of the new and returning members and their progress on 3x5 cards, the same way I do today.

Works like a charm.

Chuckle... Very nice and security is accomplished by a real lock & key.

Actually, I kept the 3x5 cards in my suit coat pocket, and no one dared attack me to get at them.

Yes, we did lock up the membership records.

I, too, was disappointed to see there is not a <SAVE> feature on the NMRP report. Is this feature under consideration?

Having this information readily available to stake leadership could be of great help in their support of local unit leaders in shepherding new members. Currently the stake presidents in our mission are asking zone leaders to collect some of this information for review in the stake missionary coordination meeting, since there is limited information on the New Member Report. Permitting the saving of this information and making it visible to stake presidencies would permit this information to be used in supporting the work of local unit leaders in much the same way that the Action and Interview List can be used currently.

In reviewing Meetinghouse Technology Policy 4.9.3 and 4.9.4 and slide 14 of Keeping Church Records Safe (noted in Post #2), I assume that issues with using Adobe FormsCentral (which is a secure site which permits limiting access to invited users) are the same as issues with using Google Docs.

I just stumbled upon this post and I'm trying to understand the difference between google docs and email.

I found out recently how insecure email is (it really is like a postcard)... yet I've sent confidential items via email. (people who have attended a disciplinary council, meeting minutes, etc).

Should we be treating email the same way we treat google docs? (and thus no confidential information?)

Thanks~!

My personal motto is that you should never send anything via the Internet that you would not want to read on a billboard on the way to work the next morning.

I am hesitant to email sensitive information, although I sometimes have. I try to make those occasions rare, and I usually go into my email system and delete any references afterward. I fully realize that this does not make it go away.

I probably would not send an NMRP Report, and I definitely would not send a record of a disciplinary council, or an application to the First Presidency. I would probably send an agenda for a meeting if it did not have certain names, but I would never send the minutes.

My church email is mainly limited to meeting reminders and other calendar events.

This is great and our area is using a spreadsheet like this and will try it out for Progress records from missionaries as well.
ss

I've been a ward Mission leader for four months. And with this calling and any other leadership calling I've had tracking visits and the progress of those I've been blessed with the responsibility of stewardship over third-party software has been necessary such as Microsoft Office. I have been using Google Docs and a separate Google Calendar to help to manage visits with my missionaries and to try to make sense of all the many visits between the full-time missionaries the MLS missionary couple and my missionaries along with other visits the ward council and home teachers and visiting teachers are making with families we are focusing on.

I was in the process of making my own Google spreadsheet when I decided to search for one and this is just exactly what I want and need period and I'm going to probably use it no matter what period but I thought I would at least ask because as I read through all the posts it wasn't clear of whether we should or not period I saw a very opinionated back and forth with varying interpretations of certain talks or policies or presentation slides. So if the author or someone could please let me know with a simple yes-or-no I would appreciate it period again I'm probably going to use it regardless because I think it's fantastic and it will be more efficient then two or three or four people carry around a notebook of papers that will likely never be correlated against one another fully.

cardboardboxman wrote: as I read through all the posts it wasn't clear of whether we should or not.

It depends on how your leaders interpret the policy that's been pointed out.

I am the author and agreed with ALL of the posts that essentially fell into 2 buckets: 'for' or 'against' using cloud storage (outside of lds.org) to accelerate the work.

As noted by <russellhltn>, my answer can't be a clear 'yes' or 'no', it's a "depends". The decision, when I read all available guidance 2.5 years ago, falls to the Bishop. I doubt this guidance has been made anymore cut & dry. My Bishop authorized and encouraged our ward council's use of cloud storage and posting/tracking regular status in them, so long as I (clerk, at the time) did 3 things:
1. Used a single ward account to store cloud docs
2. Religiously pruned google doc 'share' access controls, as ward council members cycled out
3. For NRMP specifically, don't post dates in the Temple questions, a simple 'yes' or 'no' suffices

I was a clerk for 15 years, with the exception of google data mining, access to my ward's PII stored in the cloud was well controlled. No concerns were ever raised.

A thought - maybe one day the church will provision cloud storage for units and tie access control to our callings in http://www.lds.org/clerk and take PII access control back. As a commercial example/corollary, my company has moved all their internal website development (highly sensitive data and intellectual property) and deployments to AWS containers. I am sure Amazon <https://aws.amazon.com/cloud‎> could make secure arrangements for the church, if my company was willing. This comment is not intended to ruffle any feathers, it just an idea. I am sure CHQ developer folks have considered or already use various AWS options for their projects.

I am impressed by how many folks have found this NRMP google form useful in your local units. The questions have been few but persistent about how to gain access and use. I created a brief video to help those unfamiliar with google form usage: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwaI4 ... nY3WXREODQ

I hope answers any questions you may have and assists your unit councils.

I know this post is old but the Google App Script enabled [NRMP] spreadsheet has many users.

I added an often requested feature. Make a new (as of 22May2017) copy of the [NRMP Template]. Then enter the ward/branch name and stake/district name once on the [Ward Council View] tab. In subsequent report tabs created by the menu [NRMP Tools][Create - an NRMP report], the unit names will be linked to the unit names set on the [Ward Council View] tab.

[NRMP Template] https://drive.google.com/open?id=1lCl_y ... pPou7fBSU4

Thank you! This is the best form I've found! You saved me from having to create one for our ward, so be shared also on a google drive amongst ward council members. Individual forms that are saved as PDF's are too hard to maintain.

glenlarson wrote:Thank you! This is the best form I've found! You saved me from having to create one for our ward, so be shared also on a google drive amongst ward council members. Individual forms that are saved as PDF's are too hard to maintain.

I'd be very careful about what you save on a site like Google Drive. "The use of cloud-based services for storing and/or backing up MLS or any membership related data is prohibited."

See 4.9.4 of the Meetinghouse Technology Policy

I don't disagree with church policy about storing personally identifiable information (PII) and sensitive personal information (SPI) on cloud storage.

From the 100's of church members that have reached out to me over the last 2.5 years since this NRMP google sheet template was published, lds.org developers could add a "save" button to the LCR version of NRMP to store/recall the information in/from LCR. Till that time, NRMP has more utility for ward councils and ward missionaries in an excel or google sheet format.

I realize this is an open forum that lds.org developers don't track but maybe your concern and the need could be fed into their development schedule.