Export file from LDS.org rather than MLS

I am looking to see if there is an option to export information from LDS.org rather than from MLS.

We seem to be migrating from MLS to LDS.org and I like the reports on LDS.org however, there does not seem to be a way to export them to a PDF file (or another file) to send / share as appropriate rather than doing hard copies.

I do have a way to do this via "printing to PDF" however, not everyone is comfortable doing this, so I was wondering if there was an export feature I was missing?

Thanks

jmarion wrote:I am looking to see if there is an option to export information from LDS.org rather than from MLS.

I am not aware of any export function from LDS.org.

jmarion wrote:I am looking to see if there is an option to export information from LDS.org rather than from MLS.

We seem to be migrating from MLS to LDS.org and I like the reports on LDS.org however, there does not seem to be a way to export them to a PDF file (or another file) to send / share as appropriate rather than doing hard copies.

As lajackson said, there doesn't seem to be an "export," but when I choose the printer icon (towards upper right) on these reports in LCR (leader Clerk Resources) the report opens up in my Adobe acrobat, and I can just save it from there as a PDF, or print it. Are you using the browser print function instead of the LCR report print option?

I usually want data in a format that I can manipulate so exporting would be preferred over simply printing. My method is a little bit clunky but it works.

Bring up the report with the data you want on the screen. Then hold your left mouse button down while you scroll down the page to the bottom of the report. You'll see that all of the data is highlighted. Then hit Ctrl-C and paste-special the data into Excel as unformatted text. You will probably have to clean it up a little but usually it's not too bad. If you just paste it into Excel, you will end up with a bunch of hyperlinks and button graphics.

I usually use Firefox but this works with Internet Explorer also.

I wish there were a way to export for example quarterly report data in a format, that is easy to manipulate with Excel (or Matlab, R etc.).
I like to make different kind of graphs, and the standard graphs in LCR's Key indicators are nice, but not always what I want. For example, I like to normalise VT and HT numbers with the number of active sisters and priesthood holders respectively. Otherwise it looks that RS has really good VT percentages (in comparison to HT), but that is due to the fact that we have more active sisters and they have less families to visit. After my normalisation, one notices that in our ward HT companionships are actually more industrious.

The problem with the Key Indicators is that the colored lines don't translate to a monochrome printer. So the ability to modify graphs is pretty important.

My method described above works to get the base populations used for the quarterly report, but the actual visited sisters/families still have to come from MLS. I really hope that there will be some provision for exporting data and for developing custom reports.

nikk3hi3tala wrote:I wish there were a way to export for example quarterly report data in a format, that is easy to manipulate with Excel

I think the following method is really easy (using the PASTE SPECIAL option in excel) to get your quarterly data (or any report from LCR) into excel

idjeeper2 wrote:I usually want data in a format that I can manipulate so exporting would be preferred over simply printing. My method is a little bit clunky but it works.

Bring up the report with the data you want on the screen. Then hold your left mouse button down while you scroll down the page to the bottom of the report. You'll see that all of the data is highlighted. Then hit Ctrl-C and paste-special the data into Excel as unformatted text. You will probably have to clean it up a little but usually it's not too bad. If you just paste it into Excel, you will end up with a bunch of hyperlinks and button graphics.

kisaac wrote: I think the following method is really easy (using the PASTE SPECIAL option in excel) to get your quarterly data (or any report from LCR) into excel

It would be nice - if I had done that after every quarter. But if I for example now want to make a graph of YSA attendance during last five years, I have to do that twenty times. And even then, I have each quarter in different sheet in Excel and I need to collect the right number from each sheet (yes, Excel provides some ways to do that, but I'm not that good with Excel) and then I can plot the data. I wish there where some way to download data in machine readable format, that would allow me to select what I want (i.e. line 17 (YSA attendance), from Q1 2010 to Q1 2015). Then I could import that in Excel (or in Matlab, which I use in work daily) and make a graph.

I can see that the Key indicators menu could be expanded to allow graphing of all Quarterly report numbers. But if I want to do things like the example I gave in my previous post, then flexible data export would be the best option.

nikk3hi3tala wrote:I can see that the Key indicators menu could be expanded to allow graphing of all Quarterly report numbers....flexible data export would be the best option.

Welcome to the forum, nikk3hi3tala!

I agree that a custom output of the historical QR data that we know are stored at CHQ would allow us far greater flexibility to report on trends and "participation" habits, and give the reports to our leaders that are specific to our individual needs. As you know, many of us here in the forum are members like yourself, and not church employees or software developers. While a software developer may see it here, they may not. Make sure that you use the "submit feedback" option to suggest this feature, and explain how it would help your leaders and members. This process is how me make these tools better and more helpful.

kisaac, Community Moderator
LDSTech Forums