Attendance Recording in LDS Tools

Please allow for attendance recording inside LDS Tools.

As the Young Men's president in a ward with combined Aaronic Priesthood and Young Men (12-18 in one class and for activities) it would be very helpful to be able to record attendance at church and at activities within the app and not be concerned with keeping track of paper attendance records.

Many of us here in the forum are members like yourself, and not church employees or software developers. While a software developer or community member working with LDS Tools may see it here, they may not. I usually ask you to submit feedback, but I'm not sure if LDS Tools would be covered in the LDS.org feedback link, but you can try. Ask them to forward it on!
feedback

kisaac
Community Moderator
LDSTech Forums

Part of this depends on what happens with the data. If it's just to print something a report to be turned in, you could take that up with the people who develop your version of LDS Tools.

But if it's to be fully automated, then first the roll function would have to be added to LCR, an API created, and LDS Tools developed to use the API. I think it's safe to say at minimum, that's years away.

kisaac wrote:I'm not sure if LDS Tools would be covered in the LDS.org feedback link, but you can try.

Just to hedge my bets, I already submitted there as well. I've used the feedback link multiple times for other reasons, but I never get a personal confirmation that it was seen (just the automated confirmation of receipt).

russellhltn wrote:If it's just to print something a report to be turned in, you could take that up with the people who develop your version of LDS Tools.

Do you mean posting specifically in the Android LDS Tools forum? I suppose I could do that as well, I basically just assumed that if it's a beneficial tool for both OS's it would be good to post in the generic forum.

kisaac wrote:While a software developer or community member working with LDS Tools may see it here, they may not.

That's actually surprising. I would have assumed this would be a highly beneficial medium to communicate with the dev's. Is there no better link of feedback to the developers than the generic feedback link on lds.org (whos closest relevant category is "Website and Application Support") or this forum?

Thank you both for your input.

thebundok wrote:That's actually surprising. I would have assumed this would be a highly beneficial medium to communicate with the dev's. Is there no better link of feedback to the developers than the generic feedback link on lds.org (whos closest relevant category is "Website and Application Support") or this forum?

The official feedback method for LDS Tools is via the feedback option in LDS Tools itself. In the Android version this is accessed via Help > Feedback on the menu. I assume it's in a similar place in the iOS version.

Attendance records for Sunday School and all other meeting too, seem to be overlook and not happening either to know number attending, were the attendances happening and also for safety within the buildings! No instruction in the Hand Book either. Had a big section Before!
Would Like to see some info on the matter for sectaries and leaders.
A little note:
Rows attendance at home; for each class that is happening reported.
Rows for each class; in person classes in the building. This also required for safety in an emergence by law.
Collecting of outline for classes as they happen to send to those not attending.
Activating close captions for the hard of hearing in all meetings.
Thank You for the Smilies; Pictographic writing known by the Chinese as the language of the gods using picture to tell a story would be more helpful to understand because the story is understood in all languages.
Jose Gomis; [contact information removed]

[Moderator note: The Tech Forum is public and anyone worldwide can view private information posted here. Contact information removed to protect privacy.]

Josegomis1 wrote:Attendance records for Sunday School and all other meeting too, seem to be overlook and not happening either to know number attending, were the attendances happening and also for safety within the buildings! No instruction in the Hand Book either. Had a big section Before!

The format for the attendance reporting in Member Tools is different from the report in Leader and Clerk Resources (LCR) to better fit the small screen on mobile devices. But the data to be entered is the same, or nearly so. The report is provided as a means of getting data into the quarterly report and will not include attendance reporting needs unique to specific areas of the world.

The default display is a list of unit members, or All Classes and Quorums, in alphabetic order. On the default screen and just below the search box is the title "All Classes and Quorums". This lets you know what members are listed. Below that title is a help instruction that states "Filter classes using filter icon above."The classes can be filtered using the three bar filter icon on the right at the top of the screen in the blue report title bar. Note there is a filter for Sunday School.

It is the responsibility of the organization secretaries to record the attendance as mentioned in General Handbook, 8.3.4, 9.3.3, 10.5, 11.3.3, 12.3.3, 13.2.2.1. Local requirements for attendance you mentioned would have to be handled as directed by the area or local leaders outside the application.

The Member Tools attendance report only provides the ability to record attendance for the current month (5 Sundays) while the LCR attendance report provides the ability to record attendance for earlier dates.

Josegomis1 wrote:Would Like to see some info on the matter for sectaries and leaders.
A little note:
Rows attendance at home; for each class that is happening reported.
Rows for each class; in person classes in the building. This also required for safety in an emergence by law.
Collecting of outline for classes as they happen to send to those not attending.
Activating close captions for the hard of hearing in all meetings.

You can send feedback from with the app for any feature requests at the Help > Contact Us menu item.

Our primary secretary did have the ability to record attendance for about three months. Now the menu link for recording attendance is no longer available. The last update of Member Tools was the previous night near midnight. Her calling is set up correctly in LCR. How do we give her access to recording attendance?

thomasbaldwin wrote:Our primary secretary did have the ability to record attendance for about three months. Now the menu link for recording attendance is no longer available.

I'd suggest doing the update again, preferably at a time that's not busy for servers (like Sundays).

It may be a service wasn't running at the time of the sync and so it didn't get all the needed information to unlock that feature.

We have Sunday School teachers who want to record class attendance in the tools app but cannot. Is that an option? ...or is it only for sacrament meeting, YM, YW, RS, EQ and Primary? If there is a mechanism for Sunday School attendance, who can input that info? (Just the SS presidency/secretary? Or can the class teachers listed in LCR also input that info)?
Thank you

jimpacker wrote: Sat Feb 19, 2022 7:30 am We have Sunday School teachers who want to record class attendance in the tools app but cannot. Is that an option? ...or is it only for sacrament meeting, YM, YW, RS, EQ and Primary? If there is a mechanism for Sunday School attendance, who can input that info? (Just the SS presidency/secretary? Or can the class teachers listed in LCR also input that info)?
Thank you

Sunday School teachers (and other class teachers) don't have the ability to record attendance online.

Was there a rollout with this feature that got rolled back? I've seen screenshots where people could do this and my Sunday School President said he was sure he's seen it before as well.

bkirkby wrote: Sun Feb 20, 2022 12:12 pm Was there a rollout with this feature that got rolled back? I've seen screenshots where people could do this and my Sunday School President said he was sure he's seen it before as well.

Presidencies (including secretaries) can (and should) record attendance online but teachers do not and have not had this ability.

bkirkby wrote: Sun Feb 20, 2022 12:12 pm Was there a rollout with this feature that got rolled back? I've seen screenshots where people could do this and my Sunday School President said he was sure he's seen it before as well.

It is possible someone has 2 callings and one grants access to record attendance. For example, if a brother was a Gospel Doctrine teacher and EQ Secretary, he would be able to record attendance for the brethren due to his EQ Secretary calling, not his Gospel Doctrine teacher calling. I wonder if that is what your SS President saw.

Our Relief Society President wants to delegate attendance recording to the RS Ministering Secretary. Is there a way as a Ward Clerk, I can grant those permissions in Tools?

jacobajensen wrote: Sun Mar 27, 2022 10:50 am Our Relief Society President wants to delegate attendance recording to the RS Ministering Secretary. Is there a way as a Ward Clerk, I can grant those permissions in Tools?

I'm afraid not. Rights are based on calling and can't be changed at the local level.

jacobajensen wrote: Sun Mar 27, 2022 10:50 am Our Relief Society President wants to delegate attendance recording to the RS Ministering Secretary. Is there a way as a Ward Clerk, I can grant those permissions in Tools?

Could she be called as Relief Society Assistant Secretary instead? That would give her the correct access in Leader and Clerk Resources.

How do you keep an accurate attendance record of Primary teachers and YM, YW teachers for Sunday School? I would like to add them to the rolls with the students names because just assuming that they are there every week because they have the calling does not seem very accurate.

How do you keep an accurate attendance record of Primary teachers and YM, YW teachers for Sunday School?

Since YM & YW classes are not held on weeks where SS classes are held, the adult YM/YW leaders will be attending their normal adult SS class and be included in the SS attendance. From a SS perspective, the only issue is adult Primary teachers, and the SS Presidency (as well as the RS/EQ leaders for their attendance) should work with the Primary secretary to determine an effective way to record the attendance of Primary teachers. Every unit will likely find a different method works best for them, your suggestion of manually adding them to paper rolls is a good solution.

BrianEdwards wrote: Wed Aug 30, 2023 7:37 am Since YM & YW classes are not held on weeks where SS classes are held,

Where do they go for the first and third Sundays?

Perhaps I misunderstood, I thought the question was how the SS would keep attendance records for those in Primary, YM, and YW classes. My point was that on the 1st/3rd Sundays when the SS classes occur, the only ones not in a SS class would be Primary teachers, so they would be the only ones the SS leaders would need to worry about getting additional information. Everyone else would be in a SS class.

But I may have missed the point of the question.

BrianEdwards wrote: Wed Aug 30, 2023 1:21 pm My point was that on the 1st/3rd Sundays when the SS classes occur, the only ones not in a SS class would be Primary teachers,

As far as I know, YM/YW meet every Sunday. I'm not seeing any directive in the Handbook that says otherwise.

But not having been a YM for many years, and having no callings in that area, I'll admit I'm out of touch with that.

GHB 29.2.8

With the two-hour block, the YM/YW only meet on the 2nd/4th Sundays, same as EQ/RS.

Ah, so to answer my question, Youth Sunday School. I didn't know it was a thing. Thanks for the info.

So, that means Sunday School needs to record youth attendance on those Sundays - and that does affect funding.