Issue with display of Stake 'Other Callings' when viewing lds.org directory

I did a search and was unable to find a recent report of this issue. In looking at our stake callings on LCR (Callings by Organization) and LDS Tools (both Android and Windows), they all reflect the same thing in regard to the presentation of callings under the 'Other Callings' grouping. We're good with what is shown here and have triple checked there's no duplication of custom callings amongst organization groups. However, when this info is viewed on the on-line directory under Stake Information > Stake Leaders and Organizations > Other Callings, there are several issues:

• Most, but not all, seminary teachers are listed under the 'Other Callings' group rather than 'Seminary and Institute' group. In our case, one teacher shows under 'Seminary and Institute', and the remaining 16 show under 'Other Callings'.

• All of the building schedulers and building specialist are listed under the 'Other Callings' group rather than the 'Facilities' group, with the stake PFR showing under 'Facilities'

• Most, but not all, auditors are listed under the 'Other Callings group rather than 'Auditing'. In our case, two audit callings show under 'Auditing', and the remaining three show under 'Other Callings'

You get the idea. In total, LCR reflects 7 callings under the Other Callings > Other Callings category, but the lds.org directory reflects 49 callings under that same category. Obviously, this becomes confusing with like callings not being reflected together. I'll appreciate thoughts on why the the lds.org directory has this behavior, thanks!

I'm seeing the same thing for my stake on the LDS.org Directory – a couple of auditors, several young single adult advisers, our Institute supervisor, and several Institute teachers are showing under "Other Callings" even though their specific categories are listed in the list of categories. Definitely a bug with the LDS.org Directory.

I'm seeing similar odd behavior for our stake. For the Audit Committee, I noticed that the one person who shows up under "Other Callings" is the one most recently called (and yes, he definitely has a standard calling of "Audit Committee Member"). All the others, including another brother with the standard calling of "Audit Committee Member", show up under "Auditing".

Clearly this problem has nothing to do with the particular calling (ericb reported problems with the calling of Auditor, but our stake has no such problem, whereas our stake has this problem with Audit Committee Member). There's not enough data yet to draw a conclusion but I do wonder if it impacts people added to callings recently, which would imply that some code change made in the recent past negatively affects how new callings are processed and then displayed by the Directory.

A follow-up on this after doing an experiment...

Our Stake Website Administrator calling was showing correctly under 'Technology' on the lds.org directory. Using LCR, I released the member to clear out the calling, saved, and then added them back in. I then went to the lds.org directory and the calling no longer showed under 'Technology', but reflected under 'Other Callings'. I did the same thing for an Auditor that was correctly reflecting under the 'Auditing' category -- same results, now showing under 'Other Callings'.

aebrown wrote:There's not enough data yet to draw a conclusion but I do wonder if it impacts people added to callings recently, which would imply that some code change made in the recent past negatively affects how new callings are processed and then displayed by the Directory.

Depending on what "era" of time we're talking about - it could be a calling added by LCR vs. added by MLS.

It's an issue of when the callings were added. In CDOL we store the top level organization that the callings are under. That is what the directory uses. LCR and LDS tools both use the more correct tree structure so all the callings fall in the correct place. The problem for directory is that when we restructured things and moved many of the organizations underneath Other Callings the existing positions didn't get that top level organization updated so for directory they are still appearing as if the organization still exists at the top level instead of being under Other Callings. I just discovered this problem this week, but was on vacation for the last few days. I'll be looking at fixing it in the next few days.

I like having all the organizations on the top level rather than buried. Several of the buried callings are ones I access frequently. Do we know why this change was made?

sbradshaw wrote:I like having all the organizations on the top level rather than buried. Several of the buried callings are ones I access frequently. Do we know why this change was made?

I agree with sbradshaw -- having org lists nested under 'Other Callings' seems unnecessary, but perhaps the reasons for this could be shared. The current solution does result in a 'Other Callings > Other Callings' scenario, which based on my own experience has been a usability 'no no'. Assuming the nesting had to stay in place, a suggestion would be 'Other Organizations > Other Callings'

jonesrk wrote:It's an issue of when the callings were added. In CDOL we store the top level organization that the callings are under. That is what the directory uses. LCR and LDS tools both use the more correct tree structure so all the callings fall in the correct place. The problem for directory is that when we restructured things and moved many of the organizations underneath Other Callings the existing positions didn't get that top level organization updated so for directory they are still appearing as if the organization still exists at the top level instead of being under Other Callings. I just discovered this problem this week, but was on vacation for the last few days. I'll be looking at fixing it in the next few days.

I have fixed the problem, now everyone should be in the correct organizations.

ericb wrote:I agree with sbradshaw -- having org lists nested under 'Other Callings' seems unnecessary, but perhaps the reasons for this could be shared. The current solution does result in a 'Other Callings > Other Callings' scenario, which based on my own experience has been a usability 'no no'. Assuming the nesting had to stay in place, a suggestion would be 'Other Organizations > Other Callings'

That is because those callings are really in the top level other callings organization, but they didn't want to try and display the callings mixed in with the organizations, so the created the extra artificial layer.

jonesrk wrote:... I'll be looking at fixing it in the next few days.

I just looked at 'Other Callings' under Stake Leaders and Organizations for our stake and noticed all sub-categories are now gone. What I see is a very long list of callings with similar ones listed together, but as a whole in no particular order -- in the case of our stake, the list has 67 callings. I'm wondering if the sub-categories will come back (as in place in LDS Tools and LCR), as a long flat list is a bit cumbersome to view.

ericb wrote:

jonesrk wrote:... I'll be looking at fixing it in the next few days.

I just looked at 'Other Callings' under Stake Leaders and Organizations for our stake and noticed all sub-categories are now gone. What I see is a very long list of callings with similar ones listed together, but as a whole in no particular order -- in the case of our stake, the list has 67 callings. I'm wondering if the sub-categories will come back (as in place in LDS Tools and LCR), as a long flat list is a bit cumbersome to view.

The same thing now happens for "Other Callings" at the ward level as well.

If I understand jonesrk correctly, the problem is that the code in the Directory is older and doesn't properly handle the new two-level structure for callings, whereas LDS Tools and LCR have had their code updated along the way to adapt to the new structure. Once the Directory code gets updated, you'll see the subcategories under Other Callings (e.g., Family History, Technology, Music), just like you do in LCR and LDS Tools.

aebrown wrote: If I understand jonesrk correctly, the problem is that the code in the Directory is older and doesn't properly handle the new two-level structure for callings, whereas LDS Tools and LCR have had their code updated along the way to adapt to the new structure.

That is correct

aebrown wrote: IOnce the Directory code gets updated, you'll see the subcategories under Other Callings (e.g., Family History, Technology, Music), just like you do in LCR and LDS Tools.

My original suggestion a few years ago was that the callings on the right be grouped by the next level, that would have put the primary teachers together in the classes they taught as well as now showing the subcategories now in Other Callings. But another viable option would be listing the subcategories underneath the main category in the middle column (at least for the currently selected one).

Aside from Other Callings > Other Callings, I still haven't seen an explanation of why so many things moved under "Other Callings" in the first place. They used to be in top-level organizations and now so much stuff is buried in "Other Callings." It's more difficult to find things now. For example, when I look under our stake "Other Callings" there are more than 60 callings bundled together. It's not easy to use.

Since this isn't the official forum to submit such things, I just submitted feedback. Gee, maybe I'll get asked to take the directory survey again and will remember this in my feedback.

mevans wrote:Aside from Other Callings > Other Callings, I still haven't seen an explanation of why so many things moved under "Other Callings" in the first place.

This is just guess but all of the other top level organizations are now real organizations of the ward which generally have a presidency (or equivalent) and are represented on the ward council. The 'organizations' under 'Other Callings' are really just categories of callings, most of which serve the entire ward.

mevans wrote:Aside from Other Callings > Other Callings, I still haven't seen an explanation of why so many things moved under "Other Callings" in the first place. They used to be in top-level organizations and now so much stuff is buried in "Other Callings."

There are already 10 top-level organizations. I can certainly imagine that that was considered to be quite enough for the top-level list; adding new organizations under Other Callings allows for expansion without making the top-level list unwieldy.