Non-leadership home teaching reporting

I'm wondering if LDS.org has the functionality to let non-leadership members report their hometeaching each month. I am in the Elder's quorum presidency and have the ability to do so myself, but I want to know if members of my quorum can report their personal hometeaching for just their families.

kevened wrote:I'm wondering if LDS.org has the functionality to let non-leadership members report their hometeaching each month. I am in the Elder's quorum presidency and have the ability to do so myself, but I want to know if members of my quorum can report their personal hometeaching for just their families.

No. And we've been told by one of the developers that self-reporting is unlikely to be added.

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm curious as to why they are choosing not to add this functionality?

My initial thought would either be because members may feel tempted to be dishonest or because they want to force members to have a face-to-face meeting or verbal accounting with a member of the presidency. I personally think it could improve reporting because it would give members the responsibility to report it on their own and not rely on the Elder's quorum presidency to nag them about it each month.

kevened wrote:Thanks for the quick reply. I'm curious as to why they are choosing not to add this functionality?

No reason has been given. We can only guess.

My personal guess is that the Brethren are concerned about removing the direct personal communication between home teachers and their leaders. They may also be wary of implying that home teaching reporting is merely a checkbox rather than a reporting of the status of the families we're responsible for.

eblood66 wrote:My personal guess is that the Brethren are concerned about removing the direct personal communication between home teachers and their leaders. They may also be wary of implying that home teaching reporting is merely a checkbox rather than a reporting of the status of the families we're responsible for.

I'd agree with that. Reading Handbook 2: 7.4 shows HT to be much more than a check box. I believe they want to maintain human-to-human contact in the reporting.

jonesrk, who works for the church, but on the CDOL system, offered the following comment on this thread:

jonesrk wrote:I don't know for sure what will happen, but there is something to be said for the principle of return and report

It's not an official statement, and he doesn't work directly on LCR as far as I'm aware, but he's probably involved in internal conversations. I think that is in line with some other opinions offered here by people who don't work for the church.

Personally, I've been a HT district leader on and off over the years, as well as EQ secretary for many years. While I believe some online system might get people to self-report, I think there are still going to be a bunch of people I have to nag and nag again to get any kind of report. Maybe if there's an app on their phone that keeps nagging them to report and/or daily emails/text messages to report, they would. I don't know. Very few people ever self-report. When I've served as EQ secretary, I found the timeframe in which CHQ wants the report to be unrealistic, too. It's often times a major battle to get reports out of people. I'd welcome any technology get gets people to do their reports, even if it removes the human element, as so much time is wasted administering that there is no time left to minister.

mevans wrote:Maybe if there's an app on their phone that keeps nagging them to report and/or daily emails/text messages to report, they would.

I have an app that does that. Its name is "high priests group leader." Fortunately, I've figured out how to keep it from setting off alarms every month.

Giving members the ability to fill out their own home teaching online won't stop members from returning and reporting. It will just take the administrative part out of the equation. Presidencies not doing PPIs is what would stop that practice. Theoretically, after each member fills out their home teaching, a district leader can print out the report and during the interview ask them to give an accounting. Then we don't need to spend the time on administrative questions. I can go straight to asking them how the families are based on who they checked off. And it's still a check box whether an EQP does it or a normal member does it. I would also add that if a notes field were added then each member could add a summary of the visit thus maintaining a record. Much like the missionary record book.

Personally, I'd like to see members able to update their own home teaching, and as mentioned, a comments box would be good. But even just making home teaching assinments (companion, assigned families, district leader) viewable on a priesthood holders personal profile would be a great help to many members, especially like ours that have military professionals who move more frequently and prompts change to the home teaching assignments multiple times per year.

I just want to find out who I home teach so I don't feel stupid asking the elder's quorum presidency. They usually send out a text for reporting. Why not use an lds tools messaging system to accomodate that, and then gather responses more easily? The home teacher would still have to reply yes/no.

brewerjoseph wrote:I just want to find out who I home teach so I don't feel stupid asking the elder's quorum presidency. They usually send out a text for reporting. Why not use an lds tools messaging system to accomodate that, and then gather responses more easily? The home teacher would still have to reply yes/no.

It's been discussed and wished for many times. But the church is not a democracy. The specs are set by the Priesthood Department. And from all indications - it's not going to happen.