Staging ministering brothers assignments

With then new change of having one quorum of elders we are working on revamping companionship’s and families asssignments. We are doing it in excel because I believe if we make changes in LDS.org that the changes will be live and not have had a chance to get bishops approval first. Is there a way to make the changes in a staging or draft form so that we can use the website front end to make changes, get approval, then release to the quorum?

Thanks
Wayne

Currently there isn't a way to make the changes on the site without them being exposed to the members.

ok, thanks for confirming. Is that in the roadmap?

lewiswf1 wrote:ok, thanks for confirming. Is that in the roadmap?

I'm not sure, but it's a good idea to submit as feedback. I think there would be a lot of value for it.

lewiswf1 wrote:Is that in the roadmap?

I have heard from very unofficial sources that it is being considered. Still, send Feedback.

This is a great idea.

Agreed. I am newly called EQ president and I am struggling to find the appropriate way to stage all the assignments and changes for bishops approval. We recently had stake boundaries and have incorporated lots of new members into our ward, so this process feels like a complete overhaul of our current EQ ministering. Hope this gets on the roadmap and in play. Google sheets are great tools but some I would love some customized feature, like an interface for assigning and tracking who is assigned would be great with drag and dropable cards.

If it's on a roadmap, it's already been over a very long and winding road- send feedback if you think this feature would assist you.

*** Added on 7/6/2018: I didn't intend to sound gruff- I've edited my post slightly. I understand fully that the development priorities are set by church headquarters according to needs and resources across the vast LDS.org suite of applications- which are all continually changing- such as the new ministering changes. I've seen vast improvements over the last few years, and I congratulate those working toward future improvements. This post should still show that a requested feature is worthy of consideration...

From my post on 29 Jun 2009 when we were still using MLS...

kisaac wrote:Problem: Any changes to MLS Home teaching & VT assignments happen immediately. However, there are times when we need to make extensive Home teaching assignment changes, but need to wait before they take effect, such as the need to get bishopric approval, or finish last months reports.
How can we build a feature into MLS that would allow a presidency to make "proposed HT assignment changes," but do so without actually messing up the current assignments?

I'm no programmer, but I always imagined it would be easy to make a feature such as "make proposed changes effective on _____ date," or "make proposed changes effective now" once approved, or "submit proposed changes to bishop now," etc. Our problem was always making a change for the "new month" would skew the results of the report of the last month, and this will no longer be a consideration.

See that old discussion here, and some of the work-arounds mentioned are more limited now in the web-based LCR.
(at this stage in MLS in 2009, you couldn't see virtually any local MLS data on a home computer, so we had some greater flexibility to make changes, then restore the original if needed. Today any changes are rolled out to home users quickly.)
Make "proposed home teaching changes" report?

brmo wrote:Agreed. I am newly called EQ president and I am struggling to find the appropriate way to stage all the assignments and changes for bishops approval. We recently had stake boundaries and have incorporated lots of new members into our ward, so this process feels like a complete overhaul of our current EQ ministering. Hope this gets on the roadmap and in play. Google sheets are great tools but some I would love some customized feature, like an interface for assigning and tracking who is assigned would be great with drag and dropable cards.

I heard that the software used in the Mission offices for tracking missionaries is similar to what you are describing. A drag/drop card sort of thing. That would be helpful as long as we don't have to reload pages, etc. I find myself bouncing around trying to get enough information to make a suggestion or change. It would be nice if we didn't have to navigate so much. HTML5 would be great.

Please, create a "draft" version for the companionship assignments.

ssulz wrote:Please, create a "draft" version for the companionship assignments.

This is a much-requested feature that is not simple to implement. Nevertheless, other posts have indicated that it may be under consideration.

But the developers do not make the decisions on what features will become available at LCR, They implement the instructions of Church leaders using the priorities and resources they have been given.

It would certainly be appropriate to send Feedback, which is always reviewed by those who make these decisions.

5-4-2024: There is a great way to move people around and see what it looks like... all WITHIN Leader and Clerk Resources. Under the tab "Ministering and Welfare", it's called PROPOSED ASSIGNMENTS. I am using it - been moving people around for weeks. You can see all people to be assigned, OR click a button and only see those who are Unassigned.
I highly recommend this new tool within Leader and Clerk Resources. I think the Church's tech team did a great job on this one. Once I get approval from the bishop, then my presidency will work on contacting each companionship and making the new assignments.

The proposed assignments tab has been in place for a few years. It is handy to use as a sandbox and then the bishop can review the proposed changes before you publish them.

I did have to train my bishop several years ago to not hit the publish button until we were ready to communicate the changes to the quorum. Once the publish button is clicked, the proposed changes go live and there is no "undo" feature. I had to scramble once because we didn't want elders to find out about the changes when they showed up in MemberTools - we wanted to have a face-to-face chat about the changes with each ministering brother before we published the changes.

One question on using the Proposed Assignments.

If we have 1/2 of our proposed assignments put together with more to go, can we leave them and still make an actual adjustment to the Current Assignments?

Example - I have 10 proposed changes. I only want to execute one (1) of them in the system - not all. The only way to do that is go to the Current Assignment section, and make the one (1) change in the Current Assignments section so people can see it after I have the conversation with them.

Does it work that way? or do all of the Proposed Assignments prevent me from making any changes in the Current Assignment section?

colgatebkh wrote: Sat May 11, 2024 8:28 pm One question on using the Proposed Assignments.

If we have 1/2 of our proposed assignments put together with more to go, can we leave them and still make an actual adjustment to the Current Assignments?

Example - I have 10 proposed changes. I only want to execute one (1) of them in the system - not all. The only way to do that is go to the Current Assignment section, and make the one (1) change in the Current Assignments section so people can see it after I have the conversation with them.

Does it work that way? or do all of the Proposed Assignments prevent me from making any changes in the Current Assignment section?

It has been a couple of years since I used this part of the system, but if I recall correctly, the proposed tab is a sandbox where you can make any changes you want without affecting the current assignments. You can even scrub the proposed assignments and start over by pulling from the current assignments tab again.

You can change current assignments when you have pending changes in the proposed tab but I don't think you can push individual changes from proposed to current (I think it's an all or nothing push). If I'm correct, you will have to make individual changes in the current tab and then do the same in the proposed tab (so you don't overwrite those individual changes when you push all the proposed to current).

Thank you - that confirms my thoughts. I appreciate the help - have a good week!