Temple Entry System

I've set up an account for the tes and when I try to logon it says to see my stake president. Well the stake president doesn't know what he is suppose to do to rectify this. Any suggestions?

farwest wrote:I've set up an account for the tes and when I try to logon it says to see my stake president. Well the stake president doesn't know what he is suppose to do to rectify this. Any suggestions?

Although any member can set up an account for TES (it's a standard LDSAccount username/password), you can only login if you are actually a stake presidency member (according to the current Directory of Leaders).

As far as I know, this is the current policy and there is no way around it. Authorized stake clerks can activate temple recommends using MLS, but only the stake president and his two counselors can activate them using the online TES system.

UPDATE: See subsequent posts from Pilotfly to learn that Stake Clerks and Stake Executive Secretaries can also use TES if they are in the CDOL.

Alan, I have to disagree with you as stake clerks can get an account with tes, but it does take action by the Stake President.

Stake clerks can get an account with tes if they are listed on the Current Directory of Leaders. Normally the Stake President and his two counselors are listed on the CDL but if the Stake President sends the paperwork to Salt Lake the Stake Clerk can also be listed. I had a discussion about this very issue just two days ago with Church Headquarters. I wanted to ensure that there was no policy against the two stake counselors having access as well as the Stake President to tes. I asked about myself (as the stake clerk) since I gained access by learning about tes several weeks ago from Salt Lake during a conversation about the MLS recommend system. When I asked if our stake executive secretary could also gain access the person I was discussing this with looked on the current CDL and said the exec sec wasn't listed whereas I was. Thus the stake exec sec was not authorized an account.

I believe this is also true of the computer missionary recommendation forms. When I was made the stake clerk over a year ago, one of the first things the stake president did was send paperwork in (for the life of me I can't remember the title of the form, but it deals with changes to stake officers and Bishops). We then went down to the FHC (as they were the only ones in the building that had internet access) and the Stake President helped me get set up with an account so I could enter medical and dental reports into the system.

So apparently it needs the Stake President to send in the paperwork to Salt Lake (which our Stake President is real good about doing when Bishops, stake clerks, etc are changed).

Hope this helps.
Jim

Just an added thought to my previous post about the tes system. The reason I even learned about the tes system was due to some recommends that needed immediate input due to members wanting to go to the temple the next day. I had been on a quick trip up to Orem to visit with my sons and had gotten back late on a Thursday night. I checked my email and one of the stake presideny counselors had left me an email that three members needed their recommends activated so they could attend the temple on Friday.

I called Salt Lake to ask a question about how long does it take before an activated recommend (via MLS input) shows up in the temple computers. The answer I received sort of took me by surprise - the individual I was talking with said it depends on what system you use. I thought there was only the MLS system as I was unaware there was a Temple Entry system (tes) as well. The individual stated that when recommends are inputed via MLS it can take up to several hours or even in some circumstances up to a day for the activation to show up in the temple computers. However, by entering recommends via tes it is an instantaneous process - immediately shows up in the temple computers. I asked about how one gets access to tes. The individual gave me the site address and as the stake clerk listed in CDL all I had to do was sign up with a user name and password.

I still believe the best way to do the entry is by MLS, but there are always a few folks who don't get the word and want to get their recommend one night and attend the temple the next morning. This is at least a way to get them into the temple without undue problems. Also I might add, our stake is spread out over hundreds of miles (one end to the other) and often the stake presidency counselors will do recommend interviews and are unable to get to the stake center for a day or two. They have emailed me that recommends are on the way to me and in extreme cases (like last minute recommends) they will give me the membership number, recommend number, and activation month, and all I have to do is enter that data into tes and the member is good to go.

Anyway, this is how I know stake clerks can have access and in certain instances, can be a great benefit to getting folks into the temple on short order (not that we want to make a practice of that)!

Jim

Pilotfly wrote:Alan, I have to disagree with you as stake clerks can get an account with tes, but it does take action by the Stake President.

Stake clerks can get an account with tes if they are listed on the Current Directory of Leaders.

Thank you for the clarification -- I answered too hastily, but you laid out the process quite nicely.

The instructions for TES (which I should have reread before responding) confirm that stake clerks and executive secretaries can activate recommends via TES. But in our stake, the Stake Executive Secretary is not involved in activating temple recommends at all. Our Stake Clerk rarely activates a recommend (actually, I don't think he has ever activated one). The assistant stake clerks do all the activating in MLS. So the stake presidency members are the only ones that would use TES to activate recommends (and they do). So that's why I overlooked the stake clerk and executive secretary, who I'm sure are involved with recommend activation in other stakes.

The TES instructions say:

Only the following stake leaders listed in the Church Directory of Organizations and Leaders (CDOL) will be given access rights to the Internet site:
• Stake president
• Stake presidency counselors
• Stake clerk
• Stake executive secretary

Your stake should have a copy of CDOL on a CD that can be read on the stake computer. The stake president can also access CDOL on the Internet.

Use the Stake/District Clerk or Executive Secretary Information for Directory form to add people to CDOL as needed. Use one form each for the stake clerk or executive secretary who is to have the right to use the Internet to activate recommends. Follow instructions on the form.

Note: Even though the form allows the stake to register assistant clerks in CDOL, they are not authorized to use the Internet site to activate or cancel temple recommends. Only those listed above are authorized.

Alan, I hope you see this as I have a question. (actually two )

I first answered Farwest's question because I had just recently gotten on the tes system and knew from first hand experience how to go about doing it. But what I should have asked, and perhaps you have the answer - how did you learn about tes in the first place? I had no idea there was such an entity as tes as I thought MLS was the only way to enter recommends until the agent at CHQ mentioned tes to me.

Second, where did you find the instructions for tes? Appaently I'm not paying attention or us folks out in the "mission field" aren't always up on the newest services offered by the church. When I first mentioned tes to our stake president it was the first time he or his counselors had ever heard of it. Was tes mentioned in a letter from the First Presidency or the technology departments or how did your stake (and Farwest) learn about it?

Thanks
Jim

Pilotfly wrote:Alan, I hope you see this as I have a question. (actually two )

I review every single post on LDS Tech, so you can always be sure that I will see your posts.

Pilotfly wrote:I first answered Farwest's question because I had just recently gotten on the tes system and knew from first hand experience how to go about doing it. But what I should have asked, and perhaps you have the answer - how did you learn about tes in the first place? I had no idea there was such an entity as tes as I thought MLS was the only way to enter recommends until the agent at CHQ mentioned tes to me.

I don't have access to the notifications right now, but I know that when our stake received the instructions for the new temple recommend activation system, the TES documentation was part of those instructions. I believe the documentation included was simply a cover letter and a printout of the documents I will mention below.

Pilotfly wrote:Second, where did you find the instructions for tes? Appaently I'm not paying attention or us folks out in the "mission field" aren't always up on the newest services offered by the church. When I first mentioned tes to our stake president it was the first time he or his counselors had ever heard of it. Was tes mentioned in a letter from the First Presidency or the technology departments or how did your stake (and Farwest) learn about it?

When your stake MLS supports temple recommend activation, new items are added to the MLS Help menu to give you access to the instructions. I know that this is the case for the MLS activation instructions, including the use of the scanner. I am not at stake MLS right now, so I can't give you the names of the specific menu options.



However, there is a place where you can find the instructions in any installation of MLS. Look in C:\Program Files\LDS Church\MLS\lib\TES and you will find three PDF files.

• TESInstructions.en.pdf contains the recommend activation instructions. The first part covers MLS; Step 3, Option B on page 13 explains how to use TES.
• barCodeSetup.en.pdf tells how to set up the bar code scanner
• TREInstructions.en.pdf should be ignored -- it seems to be some instructions for the pilot program for the TR activation system.

Thanks Alan,

I will be down at the stake center today so I will take a look for the PDF files. I was beginning to wonder if us "mission field folks ) were being left out!

Thanks again
Jim

Thanks for the info. I learned about it from my stake president and the 1st counselor. I was called at a later date then they were as 2nd counselor so I'm not listed in the cdol. When I was put in a area authority was at our stake conference and it was my understanding that he was to take care of the paperwork. This has been over 7 months ago. Once again thanks for the input.

farwest wrote:Thanks for the info. I learned about it from my stake president and the 1st counselor. I was called at a later date then they were as 2nd counselor so I'm not listed in the cdol. When I was put in a area authority was at our stake conference and it was my understanding that he was to take care of the paperwork. This has been over 7 months ago. Once again thanks for the input.

My understanding is that it is actually the Stake Clerk's responsibility to make sure that these items are up to date. The beta CDOLallows the Clerk to print off a "current" stake calling form, crossing out the items and making changes. It can then be faxed in.

With regard to the question on timing, if the stake clerk activates a recommend in MLS and completes a successful Send/Receive, the recommend is usually active in the TES system within the hour. As an example, when I activate a recommend at the stake center, it is already active in TES by the time I arrive home from stake presidency meeting (one hour drive each way).

I believe the temple updates the recommend list each morning before they open, but I have not had a chance to visit with our temple recorder and ask the question. Next trip.

The reason I asked the question of the MLS guru's in the first place was I had just returned from a trip to Orem and found an email from one of the stake counselors that there were three recommends that needed to be put into the system asap. (I returned home late Thursday evening and the members wanted to go to the temple Friday). I was pretty much under the weather from a virus that had been going around and didn't really want to go out into the cold until later Friday morning. Since I wasn't sure what session the members were planning on attending (here in western Colorado we either go to Vernal, Monticello, or Denver normally), I was concerned that my delay in entering the recommends was going to cause problems. Thus I called Salt Lake just out of curiosity to see how long it did take once a recommend was entered via MLS. I figured if I got the recommends in by 10 or so the members would be able to enter without any problems.

Okay, so to answer the time question - the information I got from the MLS guru's at Salt Lake was that when a recommend is entered via MLS it can take up to a couple of hours or in unique circumstances (and I have no idea what that means) it could take up to a day. So the information I gave in a previous post in this thread was echoing what I heard from Salt Lake. If entering a recommend via MLS is essentially as quick as doing it via tes then all is good. I was just worried that because I wanted to wait until I felt a little better that I was going to cause some members difficulty in getting into a session.

End of story - sorry for rambling!

You might want to try sending the email to another address in a different domain. It's possible something in hotmail is interfering with the link.

Personally, I like gmail. I find that many times it fixes links that get broken because the text gets wrapped to a new line.

But first you might want to check any features in hotmail to see if it's stripping out the link or perhaps it's broken because of the line wrap and you just need to use notepad and paste it together.

opee wrote:My understanding is that it is actually the Stake Clerk's responsibility to make sure that these items are up to date. The beta CDOLallows the Clerk to print off a "current" stake calling form, crossing out the items and making changes. It can then be faxed in.

Of course, it goes without saying that the faxed form needs to have the signature of the Stake President.

I have a question about re-activating a recommend as I am hearing and seeing two different responses.

Situation: A member misplaces their temple recommend and notifies the Bishop, who notifies a member of the Stake Presidency or Stake Clerk. Soon after, the member finds the misplaced recommend. How should this be handled?

A call to CHQ and the support staff say that once the recommend has been reported lost/stolen, it cannot be reactivated and the member needs a new recommend.

However, if you login to TES, and search for the member, the online system will let you change the status of the lost recommend, back to Active, and allow you to update and save the change.

CHQ says that even if you can do that, it won't change the status for the Temples to read. So, what really happens?

Either way, I am okay with the policy. However, I would make a recommendation that, if in fact, you cannot reactivate a lost recommend, that the TES application be tweaked to mirror the policy. In other words, it the status of a recommend is lost/stolen, do not give the opportunity online or in MLS to "Edit" and then make and save the change.

Making this change will prevent someone from embarrassment, frustration and potentially missing an important event at the temple when they thought their recommend was active.

Does this make sense?

MRK wrote:A call to CHQ and the support staff say that once the recommend has been reported lost/stolen, it cannot be reactivated and the member needs a new recommend.

The online help says you can change it from lost/stolen to active, so if this is true, the help screen also needs to be updated.

I was going to do this one time, but I think by the time the member found the recommend, it was nearly expired, so a new one was issued.

I do know that once you cancel a recommend, you cannot get it back into the system.

Alan,

You quoted the tes instructions which said "Use the Stake/District Clerk or Executive Secretary Information for Directory form to add people to CDOL as needed. Use one form each for the stake clerk or executive secretary who is to have the right to use the Internet to activate recommends. Follow instructions on the form."

I've never heard of this form. Do you know where to get it?

Thanks,
Gary

GaryBlackburn wrote:"Use the Stake/District Clerk or Executive Secretary Information for Directory form to add people to CDOL as needed. Use one form each for the stake clerk or executive secretary who is to have the right to use the Internet to activate recommends. Follow instructions on the form."

I've never heard of this form. Do you know where to get it?

The stake president or stake clerk may have one in their files. Otherwise, the stake president or stake clerk can request the form from Church Organization Services.

The stake clerk is usually already at the CDOL and already has permission to activate recommends. If a stake executive secretary is added, he will also have permission to activate recommends.

The form allows the adding of assistant stake clerks to the CDOL. However, even if these assistant stake clerks are added to the CDOL, they will not be allowed to access TES. Only a member of the stake presidency or the stake clerk or executive secretary are allowed to access TES.

My position as assistant temple coordinator over training requires me to log on to tis.ldschurch.org to
update sisters' training status each week, but I'm not able to log on. I'm not sure where to go for help with this. Perhaps someone can
assist me or direct me to another sight.
Thank you,
Pam Ferreira

[personal information removed]