Issue with pictures in directory

Being a singles stake most of our leadership is from out of stake. This creates a problem with accessing pictures that are posted by stake leadership. We can't see the pictures, none of our Stake Presidency or our High Council pictures can be seen, not all of them have a picture but none of the pictures can be seen. To make matters worse, our clerks do not have the 'edit' button to change the pictures and we also cannot set visibility rights.

Oh, and I know that several of the pictures are viewable on the users phone with LDS Tools but not viewable from anyone else in the stake.

Out-of-unit leaders have to have their photos approved by their home ward. The member or their home ward clerk can upload and edit the visibility. The ward being served has no power.

If I did get a hold of the home units clerks would the pictures still have visibility in another stake? Do you know that that I would have to contact 20 other units to accomplish this? There needs to be a better solution. It would be easier for me to pull there records into the stake, that would also be a mess

This is what our stake directory looks like right now http://postimg.org/image/5wyz6itu7/

laptop2d wrote:If I did get a hold of the home units clerks would the pictures still have visibility in another stake?

I'm not quite sure what you are asking, but there's only one set of pictures in the directory attached to the person and the household. It's not different for each stake.

laptop2d wrote:Do you know that that I would have to contact 20 other units to accomplish this? There needs to be a better solution. It would be easier for me to pull there records into the stake, that would also be a mess

Sorry, but that's the way it works. I'm not the decision maker. I think you'll find it far faster to educate 20 stakes then to get a change run up to the decision-makers and implemented (if it ever is).

Maybe we do have a communication gap. I have 53 people in my stake leadership, about 25 of those are from out of my stake meaning that the Stake President, his presidency, all of the high council are from out of the stake each from a different ward. Most of them have pictures. I've contacted them and asked them to change the picture visibility to stake. The pictures don't show up, this concerns me because 1) I don't have a way to help people who don't know how to load up pictures 2) I can't change the visibility settings and even when people change them the pictures still don't show up. Your suggestions on fixing the problem are: 1) Have the home unit powers that be change the pictures and the visibility - an option I don't like because I would have to contact the clerks of up to 25 different out of unit wards to get the options changed. Which I don't think will work because people that have changed their visibility options can't see there pictures in the stake directory 2) Don't do anything because the lds technical department is too political and cant change. 3) Get my Stake President to find the Seventy in charge of the technical department to make the change from the top down. I am not the only person in a singles stake, I can't be the only person having this problem

laptop2d wrote:I've contacted them and asked them to change the picture visibility to stake.

Most likely the problem is not the visibility (in the US the default is Stake Visibility) but whether the picture has been approved by an administrator in their unit. The person can't do that for themselves. It has to be done by a ward administrator.

laptop2d wrote:1) Have the home unit powers that be change the pictures and the visibility - an option I don't like because I would have to contact the clerks of up to 25 different out of unit wards to get the options changed. Which I don't think will work because people that have changed their visibility options can't see there pictures in the stake directory

Again, approval is likely the issue and if you get the ward clerks to approve the pictures then they should show up.

laptop2d wrote:2) Don't do anything because the lds technical department is too political and cant change.

I don't think this is a valid characterization of how church development works. Put simply Church developers take direction from the church department that sponsors the project (in this case the Priesthood Department) and demands on church funds are high from many sources. So the sponsoring departments have to prioritize. Often that means that we as users don't get what we'd like when we'd like it but I trust that the work being done is more important for the work of the church.

Note that I'm not connected to church development in any way other than as an interested observer in these forums for years. I do have a little additional information because my father worked as a developer and project manager for the church for 20 years until he retired about 12 years ago but nothing current.

laptop2d wrote:3) Get my Stake President to find the Seventy in charge of the technical department to make the change from the top down.

That's certainly an alternative approach and may provide additional information that helps the decision makers. But he doesn't need to talk to those who manage the developers but to the department that sponsors the project. For the Directory on lds.org that would be the Priesthood department. However, you're not the first clerk to bring this subject up in the forums so I imagine that others have submitted feedback and even perhaps had contact with the Priesthood department. But sometimes additional feedback may help change priorities.

laptop2d wrote:Oh, and I know that several of the pictures are viewable on the users phone with LDS Tools but not viewable from anyone else in the stake.

I think that's consistent with photos that are not approved.

laptop2d wrote:Your suggestions on fixing the problem are: 1) Have the home unit powers that be change the pictures and the visibility - an option I don't like because I would have to contact the clerks of up to 25 different out of unit wards to get the options changed. Which I don't think will work because people that have changed their visibility options can't see there pictures in the stake directory

As mentioned, the users can't approve their own photos. The home unit has to do that. The users can change their visibility.


Another factor we need to consider is that the photos have been uploaded as a individual photo. If it's been uploaded to family photo slot, I would not expect it to appear in the leadership photo where you need it.

laptop2d wrote:2) Don't do anything because the lds technical department is too political and cant change.

Carrying out the instructions of the people who sign your paycheck is not politics. The developers don't make this stuff up. The actions are approved by the leadership and then carried out.

laptop2d wrote:3) Get my Stake President to find the Seventy in charge of the technical department to make the change from the top down.

Go for it. That's basically the advice we've given to others in the past. I can't remember any that came back and said that worked. But even if that happens, it has to get approved, it has to get prioritized with all the other changes that needs to be done by a small development team, and then carried out. Unless this is already in the works, I'd give a very optimistic estimate of 6 months.


I'm not sure, but it's possible that the home stake clerk can help you out. That would make for a smaller set of people to work with. But even if you have to work with the home unit, I'd think you could write a form letter and email it to the 25 clerks in about an hour and see some results within a week or so.

Question: are ANY of your out of unit leader's photos showing up? If not, then perhaps there's a bug. Bug fixes get higher priority and don't have to get correlated. Even then, they can take some time to fix. But that's a completely different track.

That is correct, not a single member of our stake leadership that is from out of stake (as I've said before), zero of our Stake Presidency and High Council pictures are showing up. I know that some of them have changed their viewable status to stake.

laptop2d wrote:Oh, and I know that several of the pictures are viewable on the users phone with LDS Tools but not viewable from anyone else in the stake.

Just to be clear, is this ordinary users, or just members of Bishoprics/Stake Presidencies/Executive Secretary/clerks that can see these photos of other leaders?

I can confirm that this is a problem with out-of-unit leaders. Members can't see photos of out-of-unit leaders, even if they are approved and visible in the leaders' home stakes. Presumably it is because "stake visibility" for photos only applies within their home stake.

Along similar lines, I can confirm that clerks in a YSA stake aren't able to edit contact info for out-of-unit members serving in their stake. Luckily, everyone can edit their own contact info (though sometimes it would be easier for the clerk to do it).

We've learned to ignore the photos problem in our YSA stake (it has always been this way) but it is kind of annoying and I hope they fix it eventually. I would consider it a bug – an oversight. The same problem with photos occurs in Leader and Clerk Resources.

I can't see the photos for our out of unit(stake) bishopric counselors or wives either. I double checked and we can see their pictures on my moms LDS tools as they are in the same home stake. Our bishop and his wife, along with with an advisory couple who are from the home family stake that our YSA ward is a part of, do have photos that appear.

I'm wondering if the missing photos has to do with the temporary membership record in the out of unit stake that is created for these leaders to be in two units at once.

kellymab wrote:I double checked and we can see their pictures on my moms LDS tools as they are in the same home stake.

Ask your mom to check the directory for their photos.

Yes, the advisory couple's pictures show up in LDS Tools and the LDS.org directory for members in their home stake. I just looked at with my mom on her account and we were able to see this couple's photo in both places.

In contrast, their names only show up in the LDS Tools app with no photo and nothing shows up on LDS.org.

Does your mother have a leadership calling?

She teaches nursery No other callings.

kellymab wrote:She teaches nursery No other callings.

OK, I wouldn't think that would give her rights to see unapproved photos. But you might check with the clerk and make sure those photos are approved. I think LDS Tools tended to bypass approval requirements and some leaders could still see them, but rank-and-file members couldn't until approved.

kellymab wrote:Yes, the advisory couple's pictures show up in LDS Tools AND the LDS.org directory for members in their home stake. I just looked at with my mom on her account and we were able to see this couple's photo in both places.

After talking with the wife, their pictures were approved years ago and uploaded by the home ward, hence we can see their photos when viewing their contact information by a member of their home stake on LDS Tools or on LDS.org. My home stake had a big push several years ago to get pictures for all families uploaded to LDS.org.

However, since the YSA ward that they serve in out-of-unit positions is in a neighboring family stake, members in the YSA ward cannot see their photos.