Why isn't quarterly report available until the quarter starts?

June 26th was the last Sunday of the month. I wanted to start the 2nd quarter report since we have the attendance numbers but the 2nd quarter is not available in the drop down. I'm guessing it'll be there on July 1st but why the delay? It makes being proactive difficult.

One reason could be that you have until 23:59 to complete HT/VT.

sasgrw wrote:I'm guessing it'll be there on July 1st but why the delay? It makes being proactive difficult.

Well, we don't have our attendance numbers yet, because we have activities this evening that will affect our report. And we just transferred out some membership records based on home and visiting reports this week. I imagine a few membership records will drop in this evening, as well. So, essentially, the 2nd quarter is not over just yet.

Sometime, on the 1st or very soon afterward, LCR will take a snapshot of the ward to be used for the quarterly report. We prefer that it be as accurate as possible. If the picture had been taken last Sunday, it would not accurately reflect our ward at the end of the quarter.

The quarterly report is based on your unit membership as of the end of the last day of the quarter. Shortly after the end of the quarter (very early on July 1, in this case), the quarterly report baseline is calculated. At that point, the report is available for you to edit. If the report was available to edit before July 1, the "potential" numbers in the report could not be calculated since the quarter would not have ended.

I'm not only the ward clerk but a software engineer too. This is an easy thing to program. You can have the modifiable fields available before the end of the quarter and still take a snapshot of "potential" numbers when the quarter ends. The "save" button can be enabled but the "submit" button could be disabled until the snapshot is taken. Whether records are moved in or out or whether home/visiting teaching has been recorded yet doesn't matter when recording attendance. If the "potential" numbers change after I've recorded the attendance, that's fine. it doesn't affect what I recorded.

@lajackson, I'm not sure how a mid-week activity would affect the report. Attendance is for Sunday meetings. If you had a youth that was not there the entire month but then showed up for an activity at the end of the month, you'd count that as Sunday attendance?

While that is an option, that is not how the system has been designed to work.

sasgrw wrote:If the "potential" numbers change after I've recorded the attendance, that's fine. it doesn't affect what I recorded.

That's not necessarily true. You only report numbers for members who are actually members of your ward as of the last day of the quarter. That can change because of record moves. You don't control when records are moved in or out, so with your proposed change, it's possible that you would report numbers for people on the 26th who were then out of the ward by the 30th. Until the denominator is set in stone, you can't accurately report the numerator, since it is reported against a specific set of people.

I really doubt this change is as easy as you claim (and yes, I'm a software engineer, too, but neither of us work on the actual code that would be affected, so we're both just guessing). And it has the potential to create reporting errors. So I don't see the value.

Yes, I'm just guessing since I don't know the code, but I was commenting on the theory. I've been evaluating algorithms for four decades so was using my purely anecdotal experience to say "easy". But I understand where you're coming from.

sasgrw wrote:@lajackson, I'm not sure how a mid-week activity would affect the report. Attendance is for Sunday meetings.

You are correct. I misspoke. Attendance does not change for weekday events.

Our leaders and secretaries turned in their numbers this evening. We don't normally do that stuff on Sunday.

aebrown wrote:

sasgrw wrote:If the "potential" numbers change after I've recorded the attendance, that's fine. it doesn't affect what I recorded.

That's not necessarily true. You only report numbers for members who are actually members of your ward as of the last day of the quarter.

I meant to comment on this part. That's a good point.

In theory, I should not include numbers for those who moved out of the ward, even if it happened on the last day of the month. In practice, I've never done that. If the John Doe family was active the whole month and then moved out on the last day, the secretaries of each organization should, in theory, subtract from their total attendance if there was a member of the Doe family in that organization. The attendance of the Doe family that month would essentially be for naught. Their number would be subtracted from our ward but the new ward, whose "potential" numbers just increased, would not get credit for their attendance.

As a good ward clerk, if I notice the records got moved out, I should contact all the secretaries to let them know to reduce their numbers. If I'm really good, I'll contact the Doe's new ward clerk and let them know to increase their attendance numbers. That way the Doe's attendance isn't for naught.

But I'm not a good ward clerk(*) . Actually, I shouldn't have to notify the secretaries because recently LCR was changed so that presidencies can view the move in / move out report. So they could review that report before putting their numbers together. What would be nice is if we could set up an "alert notification" (push notification) so that we could get an email when new records arrive or leave. Then it would a proactive thing instead of a reactive thing.

(*) Ok, I'm not that bad. When I move records out, I do look up the bishopric of the new ward and send them an email giving them a heads up of a new family in their ward and give them any history I have.

Well, this has been a nice discussion. I don't expect anything to change. But it did spark the idea of push notifications. I'm going to send feedback from the LCR page to suggest that.

In a military ward or a student ward, they have so many "move-ins" that push notifications would quickly become annoying and ignored.

That's why it would be an option that you'd have to subscribe to.

sasgrw wrote:In theory, I should not include numbers for those who moved out of the ward, even if it happened on the last day of the month.

That's more than just a theory -- those are the instructions on the form.

sasgrw wrote:The attendance of the Doe family that month would essentially be for naught.

That's a little harsh! Hopefully they were able to take the sacrament, worship, and experience some spiritual growth.

sasgrw wrote:What would be nice is if we could set up an "alert notification" (push notification) so that we could get an email when new records arrive or leave. Then it would a proactive thing instead of a reactive thing. ... But it did spark the idea of push notifications. I'm going to send feedback from the LCR page to suggest that.

We have had those discussions, but you're welcome to make the suggestion.

sasgrw wrote:That way the Doe's attendance isn't for naught.

An interesting dilemma. Are we really recording attendance or lack thereof? Are we monitoring the needs of the individual or "grading" the ward? In the case of HT/VT, I think we're making sure that member's needs are being met and making sure everyone is getting regular visits.

In the case of attendance, I suspect we're more interested in new names appearing on the "not attending any meeting" list, while trying to avoid any centralized tracking of member's attendance. The submitted stats are more of a way of supervising and making sure the organizations are going though the process of seeing if anyone new has "dropped out". I can remember a time when they were to actually submit the names of those not attending and note how many new ones had been added.

As far as "grading" the ward, if a active member moves out, the ward's stats are going to take a hit no matter what. It's just a question of "when".

scgallafent wrote:

sasgrw wrote:In theory, I should not include numbers for those who moved out of the ward, even if it happened on the last day of the month.

That's more than just a theory -- those are the instructions on the form.

Sorry, I meant in theory of practice, not instruction. I'm quite aware how the forms are to be properly filled out. But I suspect if you took a poll of this scenario, while everyone should be following the instructions to the letter, I'm guessing there would be very few who would fill out the report properly in this case.

scgallafent wrote:

sasgrw wrote:The attendance of the Doe family that month would essentially be for naught.

That's a little harsh! Hopefully they were able to take the sacrament, worship, and experience some spiritual growth.

Yes, yes, of course. Don't take me too literally I'm referring to "naught" from a reporting perspective.

russellhltn wrote:

sasgrw wrote:That way the Doe's attendance isn't for naught.

An interesting dilemma. Are we really recording attendance or lack thereof? Are we monitoring the needs of the individual or "grading" the ward? In the case of HT/VT, I think we're making sure that member's needs are being met and making sure everyone is getting regular visits.

Absolutely with respect to ht/vt. I was staying away from the "grading" philosophy and the whole concept of tracking attendance. We all know the numbers are just a small way to try to measure things and that it's people that matter. A great example is my home teaching this month. There was one family I couldn't visit because our vacation schedules didn't match up. They're an active family that I have a good relationship with. In this case, they weren't "officially" visited. However, we did stop by to drop a present off for one of the kid's birthdays, and we attended another one of their kid's baptism. So the family's needs were met and we stayed on top of it, but an official home teaching visit with a lesson was not performed.

But I don't want to digress into what counts as a home teaching visit and I didn't want my quarterly report discussion here to digress into what the numbers are measuring.

All I wanted to do was start recording the numbers that had been sent to me so that I wouldn't lose them. I was trying to do that after the last Sunday of the month but before the quarter was officially over.