Privacy settings and Ministering

The EQ President called me last night to check on a ministering assignment. He was talking to someone on how they were coming with their ministering, and they told him the member assigned to them was not in the ward, so didn't show up in their assigned names. The president checked tools and said the member was in the ward on his directory so he called me to check on this. I discovered that the member has elected to set her privacy to Private-Leadership Only. This means that although the president and other leaders can see her listing, her name does not appear on the list of those assigned to minister to her, nor in any directories , (unless you are a leader) so they assumed she had moved from the ward and they had been assigned to her by mistake. This might happen more often when a member does not want to be contacted, but this sister is very active.

Just to be clear, it's not showing up in the teacher's LDS Tools under "ministering"? I'm not surprised it doesn't show under the Directory, but I am a bit surprised if it doesn't show under Ministering. (Of course, there's no way to for the average person to see their assignments on-line at this point.)

russellhltn wrote:Just to be clear, it's not showing up in the teacher's LDS Tools under "ministering"? I'm not surprised it doesn't show under the Directory, but I am a bit surprised if it doesn't show under Ministering. (Of course, there's no way to for the average person to see their assignments on-line at this point.)

Correct, the "minister" can see his other assigned members in Tools under Ministering, but not this person.

Best suggestion is to send feedback via the app. The developers can make sure it's not a bug and hopefully it gets passed to the decision-makers. I would have hoped that "Ministering" would have passed whatever the legal test there is to allow personal information to be passed along. But then I"m not sure what the legal statute is.

zaneclark wrote:Correct, the "minister" can see his other assigned members in Tools under Ministering, but not this person.

Unless the member changes the privacy setting, I do not believe the ministering brother or sister will be able to see them. This is one of the reasons it is so important that ministering assignments be made in person by the elders quorum or Relief Society presidency.

russellhltn wrote:Best suggestion is to send feedback via the app. The developers can make sure it's not a bug and hopefully it gets passed to the decision-makers. I would have hoped that "Ministering" would have passed whatever the legal test there is to allow personal information to be passed along. But then I"m not sure what the legal statute is.

I don’t think it’s a bug... Just something that wasn’t anticipated when the privacy option was created.

zaneclark wrote:I don’t think it’s a bug... Just something that wasn’t anticipated when the privacy option was created.

Nit-pick: The privacy option is several years old. Ministering is less then a year old. (Re-built from scratch, not from HT/VT) So, it would have to be the other way around: the effects of privacy wasn't considered during the drafting of Ministering.

russellhltn wrote:

zaneclark wrote:I don’t think it’s a bug... Just something that wasn’t anticipated when the privacy option was created.

Nit-pick: The privacy option is several years old. Ministering is less then a year old. (Re-built from scratch, not from HT/VT) So, it would have to be the other way around: the effects of privacy wasn't considered during the drafting of Ministering.

You win!

Is there any development towards allowing members to see the ministering assignments of others ? As the Bishop, I cN see all for each member, but most cannot and it is incredibly difficult to minister adequately when members cannot see this info.

mtolman5989 wrote:Is there any development towards allowing members to see the ministering assignments of others ? As the Bishop, I cN see all for each member, but most cannot and it is incredibly difficult to minister adequately when members cannot see this info.

I do not have any special privileges when it comes to local membership. Yet, in LDS Tools (Android) I can see the assigned ministering sisters of families I have been assigned to. I do not see any assignments for any other families or individuals.

mtolman5989 wrote:Is there any development towards allowing members to see the ministering assignments of others ? As the Bishop, I cN see all for each member, but most cannot and it is incredibly difficult to minister adequately when members cannot see this info.

All members can see other members of their unit (except those who have marked their information "private - leaders only"). They can also see who is assigned to minister to them and to whom they are assigned to minister to (if they are running current LDSTools).

I fail to understand the value of members seeing who others are assigned to minister to or who is assigned to minister to others. All of us can minister to anyone - knowing who is "assigned" makes no difference. If you are in a country with privacy laws that default members to private unless they make their record public, the problem is not with the ministering application as it is following the legal requirements in that country.

davesudweeks wrote:All members can see other members of their unit (except those who have marked their information "private - leaders only").

Correct.

davesudweeks wrote:They can also see who is assigned to minister to them and to whom they are assigned to minister to.

I can't. I can see it for those I've been assigned to, but I can't see for anyone else.

Clarify my understanding (I don't have a device that supports current LDSTools so I may be wrong).

If I had no special calling-directed access and if my device supported current LDSTools, I should be able to see the families I am assigned to minister. I should also be able to see my Ministering Elders who are assigned to minister to my family.

I may be incorrect in the above, but if correct, I wouldn't have any need to see who is assigned to minister to others in my ward if I did not have a calling that granted access. Other ministering assignments are a moot point.

Yes - that is the problem. They need to see the assignments of others. That way they know who yo call when someone needs assistance. It worked with HT/VT but now it is gone.

davesudweeks wrote:If I had no special calling-directed access and if my device supported current LDSTools, I should be able to see the families I am assigned to minister.

Generally, yes. However, it appears that if the family has set their privacy settings to "leadership only" then you won't be able to see them. That's still being confirmed.

davesudweeks wrote:I should also be able to see my Ministering Elders who are assigned to minister to my family.

Yes, but it might also have the limitation listed above.

davesudweeks wrote:Other ministering assignments are a moot point.

You can see who ministers to the people you minister to. To effectively deal with the needs of the family, there may be a need to coordinate between RS and EQ Ministers. As for the rest of the ward, I'm in agreement.

mtolman5989 wrote:Yes - that is the problem. They need to see the assignments of others. That way they know who yo call when someone needs assistance. It worked with HT/VT but now it is gone.

Would they not report the needs of families in the unit they are aware of who need assistance to the RS President or EQ President for them to direct the assistance? The Ministering secretaries and Compassionate Service coordinator can also see all the assignments if they are in standard callings (though this information is not on LDSTools - it is on lds.org).

Or maybe I'm completely misunderstanding what the problem is.

Yes - technically that is true. Practically, brothers and sisters are trying to respond to a myriad of issues ina ward our size and are encouraged to be empowered to work with each other. I will double check with my EQ And RS presidencies as we had a stake meeting last night and they were reporting that across the stake it is not functioning the way you describe. As a Bishop, i see it all but we need more visibility for all. Does that heck?

Help !!

mtolman5989 wrote:Yes - technically that is true. Practically, brothers and sisters are trying to respond to a myriad of issues ina ward our size and are encouraged to be empowered to work with each other. I will double check with my EQ And RS presidencies as we had a stake meeting last night and they were reporting that across the stake it is not functioning the way you describe. As a Bishop, i see it all but we need more visibility for all. Does that heck?

You should describe what you are wanting to accomplish in feedback from within the APP. Posting here will not necessarily find its way to those who direct the programmer's priorities. Bear in mind that the ministering application may function exactly as the brethren want it to and in that case you will not be able to have individual members pass information to other ministering elders and ministering sisters without coordinating though the EQ or RS presidency (unless you provide them each with multiple-page printouts when assignments change).

mtolman5989 wrote:I will double check with my EQ And RS presidencies as we had a stake meeting last night and they were reporting that across the stake it is not functioning the way you describe.

What are they experiencing? I don't have an iPhone, so I'm not sure how LDS Tools works on that.