Change in Recording Sacrament Meeting Attendance

Starting January 1, 2020, clerks are to record weekly Sacrament Meeting Attendance in LCR.

The number is to be recorded each week, not just the last month of the quarter. The attendance for the quarterly report will be calculated automatically.

There is no change in how the count is to be conducted (count everyone present - member or not. Do not count anyone not present.)

Details can be found in a letter from the Presiding Bishopric dated November 1 in the Official Communication Library

I love this new change for tracking sacrament attendance online in LCR. I was hoping they would do this attendance tracker for all the other organizational units also such as relief society and Elders Quorum. How have other wards been keeping track of attendance for the other organizations to update the quarterly report?

You can't just do a simple head count in Relief Society or Elders Quorum, since you are not allowed to count visitors and non-members in those counts. Your count would also not include members of your ward serving in Primary or stake positions. For that reason, I just ask each organization to give me a count of those ward members whom they consider to be "active" for the quarterly report.

As I recall, the attendance for other meetings are not just numbers, but include how many have missed all the meetings in a quarter. Having to go on-line to record that much detail each week would be more hassle than helpful. Plus, I doubt if the church wants to be recording that level of detail about it's membership on-line. There are legal ramifications to doing so. As for how it gets done, I'd assume it's a secretary or assistant secretary using a report printed from LCR.

I found this new process puzzling. With all the changes happening, why did this get priority? I'm suspecting the church will be changing how the average is calculated. A simple average is significantly impacted by outliers. (Single meetings that have an unusually high or low attendance.) The church may be switching to calculating the median or tossing outlier values in a quest to find a number that more accurately represents the "normal" attendance. This is all far harder to calculate and they may have choose to have the computer do it. Since this impacts the ward's budget, it's pretty important.

I have other theories, such as the church wanting to have a better understanding of the week-to-week variation in attendance. But my "calculation" theory seems the most likely.

russellhltn wrote:I'm suspecting the church will be changing how the average is calculated.

According to the letter the average on the quarterly report will be calculated using the numbers from the entire quarter rather than just the last month of the quarter. So there is at least one immediate change.

For most normal residential wards, averaging over the entire quarter will moderate most outliers. There is generally a limit to how far the outliers are off the average so more samples will keep them from mattering as much.

But for certain specialty wards like student wards, I can definitely see them applying some custom rules.

eblood66 wrote:For most normal residential wards, averaging over the entire quarter will moderate most outliers. There is generally a limit to how far the outliers are off the average so more samples will keep them from mattering as much.

I'm thinking about special situations such as a farewell causing a big turn out, or a bad weather/road closure that decimates the turn out.

For those not familiar, the median is the number where half of the meetings are above and half are below. It doesn't care about how high or how low. So for the events I mentioned, it will just be one meeting above/below and nothing more. Taken across a 11-12 week quarter, the effects would be minimal.

The only place I remember seeing median used in public is for housing prices. That way the sale of a mega-star's mansion doesn't skew the average by hundreds of thousands. It's just another sale above the median.

I agree student wards can be challenging. If nothing else, this will give CHQ a detailed view into that to see what should be done.

Although I am not crazy about counting attendance every Sunday, I am glad that we are counting all 12 months. March and September are good months to count, but June and December counts are usually not representative of the true activity level of a unit.

Where in the menu is the Sacrament Attendance entered now?

On Monday it was found at LCR > Reports > Sacrament Attendance. But today it appears it has been pulled for now since it is no longer there this evening.

jdlessley wrote:LCR > Reports > Sacrament Attendance

That is the location listed in the announcement. However, since the new policy isn't effective until January 1st, it may have been removed to prevent early adoption.

According to my calendar, January 5th would be the first day of actual usage.

This is now available online. But I don't quite understand how it will work properly.

When reading the points below, keep in mind that today is January 3.

1) At the bottom you enter the attendance number. To the left of this is the text "5th". 5th what? I assume it means January 5th, which is the upcoming Sunday. It would be nice if it said "January 5th", instead of just "5th".

2) But today is only January 3, and I don't know what our attendance will be 3 days in the future, so why can I enter the attendance for a future date?

3) When will it change to Jan 12th? If it changes to Jan 12 on Monday Jan 6, then this means that we MUST enter the attendance for Jan 5th exactly on Jan 5th, because we can't enter it before it happens, and we can't enter it the day after, so we can only enter it on the exact day of the meeting.

4) I hope that we will always have power and internet access between the end of Sacrament meeting and when it changes to the next week (midnight I guess). I've lived in places where we didn't always have reliable access 24 hours a day, or we had to go to a library (or a Starbucks) for access - are they open on Sunday evening so I can go there and enter Sacrament attendance?

5) When I am out of town, then I hope someone else will be in town that day to enter the number. This means we will need to to find someone reliable to enter the data on that specific date, rather than handle it when we return.

6) I see no way to correct a previous entry. I guess that I will just compensate on next week's entry by adding or subtracting the difference between what I entered and what I should have entered.

7) If we can't enter the data exactly when it needs to be entered, then a 0 will be used for that week, which is going to hurt our average, even if it is averages over the entire quarter - or will the average be a running average over all time that is never reset, so the longer you have been entering the data, the more stable your percentage will be?

8) I expect that the weekly average will be calculated based on the number of records in your unit on that date, so you will want to make sure your membership records are always up to date each week, rather than just at the end of the quarter when the average was calculated in the past.

jdan wrote:This is now available online. But I don't quite understand how it will work properly.

...

Those are some very good answers. Because this is a user-to-user mutual-support forum, there is no guarantee anyone with correct answers will reply here. You might want to consider asking those questions via the 'Feedback' mechanism.

jdan wrote:TBut today is only January 3, and I don't know what our attendance will be 3 days in the future, so why can I enter the attendance for a future date?

While it might be the 3rd for you, it's already the 4th in places like Guam and Japan. So, a little bit of "ahead" might be preferable to adding all the code (and risking bugs) of making the application time-zone aware.

jdan wrote:1) At the bottom you enter the attendance number. To the left of this is the text "5th". 5th what? I assume it means January 5th, which is the upcoming Sunday. It would be nice if it said "January 5th", instead of just "5th".

The entry box that says "5th" is inside of a larger tile that says "Jan." If it said January 5th, that would end up being repeated on every line (January 5th, January 12th, January 19th, January 26th), which would widen the box and affect some of the layout design work that was done on that page.

jdan wrote:2) But today is only January 3, and I don't know what our attendance will be 3 days in the future, so why can I enter the attendance for a future date?

I'm not sure what logic they ended up implementing to determine when the entry box appears for a given week.

jdan wrote:3) When will it change to Jan 12th? If it changes to Jan 12 on Monday Jan 6, then this means that we MUST enter the attendance for Jan 5th exactly on Jan 5th, because we can't enter it before it happens, and we can't enter it the day after, so we can only enter it on the exact day of the meeting.

It won't change to January 12 -- you will see an additional box to record the January 12 attendance.

jdan wrote:4) I hope that we will always have power and internet access between the end of Sacrament meeting and when it changes to the next week (midnight I guess). I've lived in places where we didn't always have reliable access 24 hours a day, or we had to go to a library (or a Starbucks) for access - are they open on Sunday evening so I can go there and enter Sacrament attendance?

5) When I am out of town, then I hope someone else will be in town that day to enter the number. This means we will need to to find someone reliable to enter the data on that specific date, rather than handle it when we return.

6) I see no way to correct a previous entry. I guess that I will just compensate on next week's entry by adding or subtracting the difference between what I entered and what I should have entered.

7) If we can't enter the data exactly when it needs to be entered, then a 0 will be used for that week, which is going to hurt our average, even if it is averages over the entire quarter - or will the average be a running average over all time that is never reset, so the longer you have been entering the data, the more stable your percentage will be?

All of these are complaints based your invalid assumption about how you think the system works.

jdan wrote:8) I expect that the weekly average will be calculated based on the number of records in your unit on that date, so you will want to make sure your membership records are always up to date each week, rather than just at the end of the quarter when the average was calculated in the past.

It is possible that the development team anticipated that a clerk wouldn't be able to enter attendance every week and has designed it so that won't be a concern.

That spinner control would enable a clerk to use the web page as a tap counter if the spinner were large enough to tap. I use a tap counter app on my phone. The app uses large up and down controls, and it gives a vibrate feedback for each tap, so I don't have to look at the phone while I am tapping. Anyway, I think this is a valuable addition.

russellhltn wrote:

jdan wrote:TBut today is only January 3, and I don't know what our attendance will be 3 days in the future, so why can I enter the attendance for a future date?

While it might be the 3rd for you, it's already the 4th in places like Guam and Japan. So, a little bit of "ahead" might be preferable to adding all the code (and risking bugs) of making the application time-zone aware.

And don't forget parts of the world where sacrament meeting is held on other days of the week!

It doesn't look like the app is fully developed yet. There are provisions yet to be programmed in - like accounting for no-meeting-Sundays and for things like stake conference or general conference. I am sure we will see more changes to the app. Just sit back, relax, and watch. If necessary, provide feedback when things get rolling and your 'special need' doesn't appear to be considered.

I recommend keeping a tally for each meeting day, whether it is Sunday or some other day, outside the LCR app for reference should there be any issues. We will continue to use our clerk office calendar on the pin-board to record attendance in addition to the app.

I believe the letter that came out about this said that you can update the numbers within the quarter. So, I don't think you have to enter it only on that day and it can't ever be changed.

We've been counting attendance every week for 4 years and have a spreadsheet of those stats. I have a chart of attendance a week, avg by month, and avg by year and we can see the trend line. We had a question about the slight, yet consistent decrease over time. In digging into the data, we notice that it is tied to our high school graduation rate. Our youth are getting older and moving out and our senior members are staying and there isn't much of a turnover in the homes in our area (aging population with few babies being born).

drepouille wrote:That spinner control would enable a clerk to use the web page as a tap counter if the spinner were large enough to tap. I use a tap counter app on my phone. The app uses large up and down controls, and it gives a vibrate feedback for each tap, so I don't have to look at the phone while I am tapping. Anyway, I think this is a valuable addition.

Well that didn't work. I tried bringing up the web page on my Android phone today, but my phone did not display the spinner, so I couldn't even try to use it as a tap counter. No problem. I just used my old tap counter app, and entered the final count later.

Note I have already sent a feedback on this...

After going the the sacrament attendance page I cannot navigate to another page. It always jumps back to the sacrament attendance page no matter what other menu item I try to use.
To recover I have to close the browser (tab) then restart the browser (Firefox) and login the LCR again.

drepouille wrote:

drepouille wrote:That spinner control would enable a clerk to use the web page as a tap counter if the spinner were large enough to tap. I use a tap counter app on my phone. The app uses large up and down controls, and it gives a vibrate feedback for each tap, so I don't have to look at the phone while I am tapping. Anyway, I think this is a valuable addition.

Well that didn't work. I tried bringing up the web page on my Android phone today, but my phone did not display the spinner, so I couldn't even try to use it as a tap counter. No problem. I just used my old tap counter app, and entered the final count later.

Wouldn't be much use to me unless it has +10 and +5 buttons.
It would take too long for me with only a +1 button.

klricks wrote:After going the the sacrament attendance page I cannot navigate to another page. It always jumps back to the sacrament attendance page no matter what other menu item I try to use.

This used to happen to me all the time at the LCR Ministering page. Now, it only happens regularly. Other pages hang and reload, as well. Perhaps they have shared the effect across LCR. My calling does not give access to the sacrament meeting attendance report, so I cannot check on that one.

I got a reply from feedback that the problem had been solved, but I was stuck on the ministering tab at the time and not able to respond to the email.

klricks wrote:Note I have already sent a feedback on this...

After going the the sacrament attendance page I cannot navigate to another page. It always jumps back to the sacrament attendance page no matter what other menu item I try to use.
To recover I have to close the browser (tab) then restart the browser (Firefox) and login the LCR again.

Weird, my Windows PC with Chrome doesn't do that. I just tried it. 1. Navigate to the Reports -> Sacrament Meeting Attendance page. 2. Click the home menu button. I also tried other menus from that page and it seems ok.

klricks wrote:

drepouille wrote:

drepouille wrote:That spinner control would enable a clerk to use the web page as a tap counter if the spinner were large enough to tap. I use a tap counter app on my phone. The app uses large up and down controls, and it gives a vibrate feedback for each tap, so I don't have to look at the phone while I am tapping. Anyway, I think this is a valuable addition.

Well that didn't work. I tried bringing up the web page on my Android phone today, but my phone did not display the spinner, so I couldn't even try to use it as a tap counter. No problem. I just used my old tap counter app, and entered the final count later.

Wouldn't be much use to me unless it has +10 and +5 buttons.
It would take too long for me with only a +1 button.

I'd be nervous to use a web page to count rather than a local app. Any hick up with the web page and you get to start counting all over. Then everyone would chuckle seeing me start over thinking I can't count.

When I did counting, I had a piece of paper (perhaps the sacrament meeting program) and wrote my count by section. That way I could count each section twice to verify. Then, when done, I'd add all the numbers up.

chriswoodut wrote:I'd be nervous to use a web page to count rather than a local app. Any hick up with the web page and you get to start counting all over. Then everyone would chuckle seeing me start over thinking I can't count.

I did look at the Member Tools app, hoping the same "report" existed there, so I could use the app as a tap counter. Nope. No problem, really. My assistant and I both use a tap counter app, and we just take whichever count is the highest.

drepouille wrote:

chriswoodut wrote:I'd be nervous to use a web page to count rather than a local app. Any hick up with the web page and you get to start counting all over. Then everyone would chuckle seeing me start over thinking I can't count.

I did look at the Member Tools app, hoping the same "report" existed there, so I could use the app as a tap counter. Nope. No problem, really. My assistant and I both use a tap counter app, and we just take whichever count is the highest.

Do you have two people count at the same time? If so, I'm curious how much variance you see between the two of you. I swear my counts always seem lower on average on the weeks I do it vs the other clerk.

We are within 5 of each other.

chriswoodut wrote:

klricks wrote:Note I have already sent a feedback on this...

After going the the sacrament attendance page I cannot navigate to another page. It always jumps back to the sacrament attendance page no matter what other menu item I try to use.
To recover I have to close the browser (tab) then restart the browser (Firefox) and login the LCR again.

Weird, my Windows PC with Chrome doesn't do that. I just tried it. 1. Navigate to the Reports -> Sacrament Meeting Attendance page. 2. Click the home menu button. I also tried other menus from that page and it seems ok.

If I remember my conversation correctly with the lead for that team, the issue only affects Firefox.

Our stake had Stake Conference on January 12th. When I tried to report 0 (zero) attendance at sacrament meeting, the software accepted the entry, but after refreshing the page, the entry field was blank again. This makes it look like I have not yet entered a value. My suggestion is to add a check-box field next to each count entry field with a heading of "No Sacrament Meeting Held". Another option would be to accept AND DISPLAY a 0 (zero) in the count entry field AND be certain to exclude "zero attendance weeks" from the average attendance computation. (I have already made a similar request via LCR feedback.)

Just leave that week blank and move on. You don't want to include 0 values in your average.

There is no guidance, nor ability to add Stake Conf to the attendance date?
We had Stake Conf in the 26th, and it's still just hanging out there with a zero, if I post a Zero it will affect the average.
When we have Stake Conf in the month under the previous guidelines, you just remove that date and average the number of actual sacrament meeting days, and report that number.
How do I report it now??

Just leave that week blank and move on. You don't want to include 0 values in your average.

I hope the programmers drop all zeros from their formula when they calculate the average for the quarterly report. I'm trying to think of a scenario where a 0 would be a legitimate number to include the calculation for budget purposes....

chriswoodut wrote:I hope the programmers drop all zeros from their formula when they calculate the average for the quarterly report. I'm trying to think of a scenario where a 0 would be a legitimate number to include the calculation for budget purposes....

They do drop the zeros.

Recently we were asked to track specific families and names who partook of the sacrament. Does any know where in the handbooks it speaks to or against such a request?

mrteater wrote:Recently we were asked to track specific families and names who partook of the sacrament. Does any know where in the handbooks it speaks to or against such a request?

It rubs me the wrong way, but I can't find anything about that.

Given that currently there are no meetings, this might be a desire to make sure everyone has been visited. Another factors is that bishops usually are able to take mental note of who is and isn't taking the sacrament from the stand. With so much of it being done via visits, they're no longer able to do that.

mrteater wrote:Recently we were asked to track specific families and names who partook of the sacrament. Does any know where in the handbooks it speaks to or against such a request?

Do you mean you were asked to track this while church has been cancelled due to COVID-19? It sounds like a ton of work. The church does seem to avoid tracking really specific things at the ward level like temple attendance, etc.

mrteater wrote:Recently we were asked to track specific families and names who partook of the sacrament. Does any know where in the handbooks it speaks to or against such a request?

Local leaders can ask for any data they desire. There is no mention of a requirement to track this particular set of data. Nor is there any prohibition against it. If you are concerned there is a desire to use this data to enter into the weekly sacrament meeting attendance then take a look at the General Handbook, 29.2.2, and more specifically 29.2.2.10. There is additional instruction for quarterly report sacrament meeting attendance here: Notice, 1 November 2019: Recording Sacrament Meeting Attendance. There is also an MLS email message dated 23 Mar, 2020, that states:

Beginning in April 2020, the Quarterly Report will automatically calculate the average quarterly sacrament meeting attendance based on what has been recorded in LCR. In weeks where no meetings are held, enter 0 in LCR (these weeks are not calculated in the quarterly average). The Quarterly Report requires that sacrament meeting attendance be recorded in LCR for at least four weeks during the quarter. If fewer than four meetings were held during the quarter, enter the average attendance from the 4th quarter of 2019 in at least four weeks of the 1st quarter of 2020.

This request may be part of the "return and report" principle, based off what's in GHB 18.9.1, which contains much instruction including "All who participate in preparing, blessing, and passing the sacrament must receive approval from him or someone under his direction." I can imagine a Bishop or Stake feeling that even though blanket approval might be given beforehand to their ward members, a Bishop's stewardship also includes the "return and report" aspect where he desires to know who actually did receive the sacrament based on his prior approval. Although not explicitly stated in the Handbook specific to the administration of the sacrament, the reporting back of assignments or approval to perform ordinances shouldn't be a new concept, and a leader may feel inspired that this is appropriate.

BrianEdwards wrote:This request may be part of the "return and report" principle, based off what's in GHB 18.9.1, which contains much instruction including "All who participate in preparing, blessing, and passing the sacrament must receive approval from him or someone under his direction."

Which is fine, but notably absent from that list is "partake".

If the leader wants to keep track of who is blessing and passing the sacrament, and whose house they visited and when, that's not an issue for me. But when they start reporting who took the sacrament, I think you're in a gray zone, in my non-authoritative opinion.

For example, GHB 25.1 says:

Leaders do not establish quotas or reporting systems for temple attendance. Each member determines his or her own level of participation in temple work.

I'm suggesting there may be a similar principles involved for this situation.

Anyone have hints on how 2020 Q1 report average sacrament meeting actual and potential attendance were calculated? I can't reconcile what was pre-calculated with our reported numbers and we had more than the four required meetings in the quarter and one meeting in March, so I don't think any 2019 Q3 or Q4 numbers should be in play. I can't control what is pre-calculated, but I do like to understand the calculated figures.

greenwoodkl wrote:Anyone have hints on how 2020 Q1 report average sacrament meeting actual and potential attendance were calculated?

Potential is the number of membership records at the end of the quarter, i.e., March 31.

Does attendance work if you average every Sunday reported during the quarter, not just March? Do not count any Sunday with zero or blank. Normally, it would have just been March. But I thought they were going to look back at the whole quarter because meetings were discontinued in March.

lajackson wrote:

greenwoodkl wrote:Anyone have hints on how 2020 Q1 report average sacrament meeting actual and potential attendance were calculated?

Potential is the number of membership records at the end of the quarter, i.e., March 31.

Does attendance work if you average every Sunday reported during the quarter, not just March? Do not count any Sunday with zero or blank. Normally, it would have just been March. But I thought they were going to look back at the whole quarter because meetings were discontinued in March.

I think I'm having the most difficulty with potential attendance count. It is lower than our March 31st membership count, so I assume it is also somehow an average of attendance across a portion of the quarter. I can reconcile all the other figures.

I have tried several methods all discounting weeks with blanks. I've tried to enter zeros and the system blanks them out:

• actual attendance each Sunday/potential attendance each Sunday (accounting for move-ins and move-outs) to get a weekly average. Then sum the weekly averages over the quarter and divide that by the number of weeks - that average percentage matches the pre-calculated value when rounded
• sum actual attendance counts for all weeks in the quarter, sum weekly potential attendance (membership as of each Sunday - accounting for move-ins and move-outs) for all weeks in the quarter, divide those two numbers (actual sum/potential sum) - that average percentage matches the pre-calculated value when rounded
• Instead of dividing the previous sums (actual sum/potential sum), average each of the sums across the number of weeks in the quarter. The actual sum averaged across the quarter (actual sum/# of weeks) when rounded matches the pre-calculated value. The potential membership sum averaged across the quarter (potential sum/# of weeks) is less than the pre-calculated by one. No decimals to round.

There are two ways so far I can seem to reach the pre-calculated potential count is:

1. to average the potential attendance (membership count) on Jan. 5th with the potential attendance (membership count) on Mar. 8th (our last meeting). The Total Members counts from Unit Statistics on Dec. 31st and Mar. 31st match and are both higher than the pre-calculated potential attendance number.
2. to take the highest of the three monthly average potentials (sum potentials in month/# of weeks in month). In our case January was highest, since we net dropped members in the first half of January and net gained them back since our last Mar. 8th meeting.

I hope this makes sense verbally, I'm better with visual diagrams myself.

greenwoodkl wrote:I think I'm having the most difficulty with potential attendance count.

When I said potential is the number of membership records you had on March 31, I forgot a small detail, sorry. From that number, subtract the number of Members of Record Age 9 or Older. Does that work?

The only other thing I can figure is that I have heard the March 31 "snapshot" sometimes takes place a day or two later. Or the "snapshot" includes records that have been sent to your unit but that you have not yet picked up in MLS. The difference also is sometimes that MLS is out of sync, and a Membership Refresh is needed to get the numbers to match.

I told my bishop once that rather than trying to figure out the potential number to the tenth of a decimal place, I would rather just pick one of the names and go visit. He acquiesced to my altruistic desires and chose a name for me. Turns out they had moved out of the ward.

lajackson wrote:Members of Record Age 9 or Older

Do you mean:

Unbaptized members of record age 9 and over and those baptized but not confirmed are not included in unit statistics or Quarterly Reports.

If so, none of the numbers I was looking at included the 1 person that falls into that category. I've been using the Unit Statistics report run at the end of each month, which appears to exclude that individual.

I don't use MLS for reporting, I use LCR online from home, especially during social distancing for COVID-19. I've never heard of a need for a sync or refresh with LCR. Our last move-out was March 25th, our last move-in was March 22nd.

greenwoodkl wrote:Do you mean:

Unbaptized members of record age 9 and over and those baptized but not confirmed are not included in unit statistics or Quarterly Reports.

If so, none of the numbers I was looking at included the 1 person that falls into that category. I've been using the Unit Statistics report run at the end of each month, which appears to exclude that individual.

Yes, it was that to which I was referring. I believe Unit Statistics calculates totals a little differently than Quarterly Report, but I am not certain. I no longer have access to the quarterly report to do any checking.

If you took your Unit Statistics snapshot at the same time headquarters took their end of quarter snapshot, I do not believe there should be any difference. Other than that, I have no more ideas.

lajackson wrote:

greenwoodkl wrote:Anyone have hints on how 2020 Q1 report average sacrament meeting actual and potential attendance were calculated?

Potential is the number of membership records at the end of the quarter, i.e., March 31.

I don't know the exact formula but I do know that starting with this quarter the potential changed to be the average of the members in the ward each week (it might be the numbers at the time the sacrament attendance is submitted). We had to build a process to get those potential numbers from the new sacrament service (where the weekly information is stored) and add them to the quarterly report baseline information.

Thank you Ryan for the additional context. I figured the potential number was somehow average-based since it didn't match the monthly Unit Statistics counts. I'm still not sure how my calculations are off by 1, but I was trying to see if I could understand/reverse-engineer the math and logic behind the counts for this first quarter on the new system.

My stake requires a monthly statistical report and I've chosen to mirror the quarterly report format for my submission. Since the indicator numbers aren't calculated by the Church monthly, I've been trying to estimate the pre-calculated indicator counts for the two months between each quarterly report. The only indicator I have no way to estimate is the family history participation.

greenwoodkl wrote:My stake requires a monthly statistical report and I've chosen to mirror the quarterly report format for my submission.

If I were in your shoes, I'd ask the stake how to create the report they're asking for. Let them figure out the mechanics as well as getting a feel for how much work they're asking from the ward clerks.

If you don't ask, there is always a risk that whatever you do on your own will be wrong according to them.

russellhltn wrote:

greenwoodkl wrote:My stake requires a monthly statistical report and I've chosen to mirror the quarterly report format for my submission.

If I were in your shoes, I'd ask the stake how to create the report they're asking for. Let them figure out the mechanics as well as getting a feel for how much work they're asking from the ward clerks.

If you don't ask, there is always a risk that whatever you do on your own will be wrong according to them.

I started in November as a new Ward Assistant Clerk. I was provided an old Excel template titled "Member Progress Report" which I understand was the same title of the precursor to the Quarterly Report, though I don't have a copy of the old form to confirm it matched in format. It still was tracking home and visiting teaching instead of ministering. I created a new Excel template based on the quarterly report and have used that since. I felt for consistency I wanted to use the same format monthly and to not manage two different formats. I have received no feedback from my Ward Clerk or the stake either positive or negative on the change in format.

In my 40--plus years of experience in the church and military, I have found that detailed statistical reports are filed away and ignored, because raw numbers are meaningless to leadership. The numbers only have meaning over time, to show trends, which can be displayed in graphs and charts. I have found that the most useful and meaningful reports we have are the Key Indicators and Trends Report and the Family History Activity Report, because leaders can see trends at a glance.

lajackson's understanding ("Potential is the number of membership records at the end of the quarter, i.e., March 31.") was correct through the end of 2019. Beginning with 2020Q1, the potential value is calculated by averaging unit members over the quarter. I'm omitting a lot of complicated detail, but that explanation is close enough.

I went back and looked at the November letter that announced the change and it didn't really address the fact that the baseline calculation was also changed. Lots of people have been very ardent in their emails explaining that we're doing it wrong, but the new calculations are correct. There were several questions that came up at the end of the quarter and my team has verified that all of our calculations and services are correct. I'm assuming that the other teams involved have finished their checks.

Unbaptized/unconfirmed members of record age 9 and older are not included in the statistics. There was a bug for not accountable members that was corrected part of the way through the quarter. There was also an issue that was causing out-of-unit members to be included in the baseline for the first couple of weeks of the quarter.

greenwoodkl wrote:Thank you Ryan for the additional context. I figured the potential number was somehow average-based since it didn't match the monthly Unit Statistics counts.

I am sorry to have misled you. Usually I am pretty much up to speed on things they have actually told us. [grin]

And my condolences that your stake requires a monthly report. There are so many issues with that requirement that I am so grateful to avoid. "Member Progress Report" was the title of the precursor to the Quarterly Report, and the reason you can no longer find it from the Church is because it was discontinued.

And if you have not been capturing weekly snapshots, I guess you will never be able to arrive at the previous potential number. You did well to get within 1.

scgallafent wrote:Beginning with 2020Q1, the potential value is calculated by averaging unit members over the quarter. I'm omitting a lot of complicated detail, but that explanation is close enough.

From the "just checking" department - how is the calculation being done? One of the pitfalls I've seen is trying to average an average. Usually, that gives inaccurate results. Are you adding the attendance and potential separately and then doing the percentage, or are you taking the percentage for each week and then averaging them?

The two methods will give similar results for most wards (because the divisor remains mostly static for the quarter), but for highly dynamic wards (such as student ward, or a ward that split) the answers will diverge.

I myself am a bit torn in the right way to do this as one way gives equal weight for each week while the other weights to toward the larger ward.

russellhltn wrote:One of the pitfalls I've seen is trying to average an average.

With the usual caveat that I have no clue (always a safe assumption) and that I have no computer programming skills (some may disagree), how about this?

Each Sunday that an attendance number is reported, throw that number into Bucket A.
Each Sunday that an attendance number is reported, throw the number of membership records into Bucket B.

At the end of the quarter, add up the total of Bucket A and divide it by the number of numbers in the Bucket, giving an average attendance number for the quarter.
At the end of the quarter, add up the total of Bucket B and divide it by the same number of number of numbers, giving an average potential number for the quarter.
Divide the number from Bucket A by the number from Bucket B.
Print all three numbers on the Quarterly Report.

The smart people at headquarters probably call the buckets registers, and they probably have a way of going back through their sandbox, which they probably call a database, at the end of the quarter to gather all of the numbers used to calculate the Quarterly Report. If they do that, they avoid the need of keeping buckets around all the time.

But what do they do with the shovels?

lajackson wrote:With the usual caveat that I have no clue (always a safe assumption) and that I have no computer programming skills (some may disagree), how about this?

Each Sunday that an attendance number is reported, throw that number into Bucket A.
Each Sunday that an attendance number is reported, throw the number of membership records into Bucket B.

At the end of the quarter, add up the total of Bucket A and divide it by the number of numbers in the Bucket, giving an average attendance number for the quarter.
At the end of the quarter, add up the total of Bucket B and divide it by the same number of number of numbers, giving an average potential number for the quarter.
Divide the number from Bucket A by the number from Bucket B.
Print all three numbers on the Quarterly Report.

This is something best done on a spread sheet. See attached.

Hopefully the labels are explanatory. The average reported on the right uses your method. The average shown underneath is an average of each week's percentages. Based on what I'm seeing here, I think an average of each meeting is the best way to go.

In a different situation, such as calculating Miles Per Gallon for a car would use your method.

Each group is "live" so you can substitute any data you wish to see what happens. Just note that this spreadsheet doesn't calculate missing meetings correctly unless you blank out all three numbers for the week.

Interesting. So my direct number calculation method returns a better percentage than your average of the individual weekly percentages. I am not a student of statistics, but is one method more statistically correct than the other? I was quite surprised at the size of the difference.

lajackson wrote:Interesting. So my direct number calculation method returns a better percentage than your average of the individual weekly percentages.

In this particular example. I could make it worse. What's happening is the larger potential size is having a larger impact on the results. So, if you make the first two weeks "worse" then then that method will result in a worse number.

lajackson wrote:I am not a student of statistics, but is one method more statistically correct than the other? I was quite surprised at the size of the difference.

In this case, i think the average of the individual meetings is more valid. I picked round numbers. You'll see that the number underneath is exactly halfway between the two sets of weekly numbers. That would be the result I'd expect. I suppose you could make an argument that you're more interested in weighting the stats to the larger potential - even if it's against the trend.

russellhltn wrote:From the "just checking" department - how is the calculation being done?

My team didn't write the code, but I believe it is something like this:

lajackson wrote:Each Sunday that an attendance number is reported, throw that number into Bucket A.
Each Sunday that an attendance number is reported, throw the number of membership records into Bucket B.

At the end of the quarter, add up the total of Bucket A and divide it by the number of numbers in the Bucket, giving an average attendance number for the quarter.
At the end of the quarter, add up the total of Bucket B and divide it by the same number of number of numbers, giving an average potential number for the quarter.
Divide the number from Bucket A by the number from Bucket B.
Print all three numbers on the Quarterly Report.

From your spreadsheet, that is the equivalent of "Average from columns." Using that number is somewhat like asking "given the number of opportunities for ward members to attend sacrament meeting, how many of those opportunities were taken."

Hypothetical example for a quarter with four sacrament meetings:

Week 1 52 / 92 = 57%
Week 2 84 / 122 = 69%
Week 3 81 / 122 = 66%
Week 4 84 / 122 = 69%

Average attendance is (52 + 84 + 81 + 84) / 4 = 75.25 rounds to 75.
Average potential is (92 + 122 + 122 + 122) / 4 = 114.5 rounds to 115.
Percent attendance is 75 / 115 = 65%.

Looking at it another way, there were 458 ward-member-opportunities to take the sacrament; of those, 301 were taken. In this case, 66% of the opportunities that were available to take the sacrament were taken. There is a 1% difference due to intermediate rounding, but that can't really be avoided because of the way values are reported.

scgallafent wrote:Looking at it another way, there were 458 ward-member-opportunities to take the sacrament; of those, 301 were taken. In this case, 66% of the opportunities that were available to take the sacrament were taken.

Interesting way of looking at it.

Although, I do question: "Each Sunday that an attendance number is reported, throw the number of membership records into Bucket B."

Is it really done that way or is it an average of all Sundays regardless of attendance reports? I noticed in your math you averaged each bucket instead of just dividing the two. The difference would only come into play if some Sundays are not reported. But it does make a difference in the complexity of the coding. The only issue I see there is that Sundays with no reports are not likely to have the memberships as up to date at the end of the day because there was no meetings. (Which brings up another question - is the count done at the end of Sunday or at the start of it?)

Who knew that such a simple concept could go so far into the weeds?

russellhltn wrote:(Which brings up another question - is the count done at the end of Sunday or at the start of it?)

Does the meeting start time of the unit play into the calculation?

greenwoodkl wrote:Does the meeting start time of the unit play into the calculation?

Good question. I have noticed that starting time tends to affect the numbers. It's most noticable when wards rotate their starting times at the first of the year. But I haven't seen how that enters into the calculations.

russellhltn wrote:Is it really done that way or is it an average of all Sundays regardless of attendance reports?

If there is no attendance for the day, that day is omitted and doesn't affect the calculation.

russellhltn wrote:(Which brings up another question - is the count done at the end of Sunday or at the start of it?)

I think they call the service to get the count when the clerk enters the number. If I understand it correctly, right now that creates an issue where entering the value weeks later could affect the denominator.

russellhltn wrote:Who knew that such a simple concept could go so far into the weeds?

/me raises hand

scgallafent wrote:

russellhltn wrote:(Which brings up another question - is the count done at the end of Sunday or at the start of it?)

I think they call the service to get the count when the clerk enters the number. If I understand it correctly, right now that creates an issue where entering the value weeks later could affect the denominator.

Let me guess - it's the number of people who moved in before that date and are still in the ward. (The move-outs after that date being persona non grata.)

russellhltn wrote:

scgallafent wrote:

russellhltn wrote:(Which brings up another question - is the count done at the end of Sunday or at the start of it?)

I think they call the service to get the count when the clerk enters the number. If I understand it correctly, right now that creates an issue where entering the value weeks later could affect the denominator.

Let me guess - it's the number of people who moved in before that date and are still in the ward. (The move-outs after that date being persona non grata.)

It would inflate the count by people who moved in and deflate the count by the number of people who moved out after the Sunday in question.

scgallafent wrote:It would inflate the count by people who moved in and deflate the count by the number of people who moved out after the Sunday in question.

So, it's recording the count at the time the attendance is recorded as opposed to any kind of "look back" to calculate the count for that day?

I guess clerks should process as many move-outs as they can before recording attendance.

russellhltn wrote:I guess clerks should process as many move-outs as they can before recording attendance.

We figure it won't take long for clerks to figure out how to game the system, although I'm still trying to figure out why. Budget is based on total attendance, not percentage.

scgallafent wrote:We figure it won't take long for clerks to figure out how to game the system, although I'm still trying to figure out why.

Look good to the stake?

I just remember my stint as a ward clerk and getting questions from EQ and RS that was all about making the numbers look better. Not by actually having better results, but my making the denominator smaller. Usually by trying to exclude the hard-core inactives from the HT/VT stats. It may not have been the birth of my clerk cynicism, but it sure was the fertilizer.

Statistics are interesting.

I was once asked in a bishopric training meeting what our ward home teaching percentage was. I turned to my counselors and neither of them knew the answer.

I turned back to the stake president and said, I don't know. I can look it up, or I expect that your clerk has the number. In fact, I'm almost certain you know what it is. Everybody laughed because we all knew it was true.

The stake president told us and then said, Bishop, if you don't even know what your home teaching number is, why does your ward have the highest home teaching percentage in our stake?

I said, President, I do not think that is a very good number. We'll try to do better. I spend most of my time encouraging our priesthood holders to visit the members. I never ask them if they visited their families. I ask them how their families are doing.

If they don't know, I ask them to go find out and let me know.

I will try to follow up better next month.

scgallafent wrote:

russellhltn wrote:I guess clerks should process as many move-outs as they can before recording attendance.

We figure it won't take long for clerks to figure out how to game the system, although I'm still trying to figure out why. Budget is based on total attendance, not percentage.

Sacrament meeting attendance percentage is used in computing the Young Single Adult number in the unit quarterly budget allowance computation.

jdlessley wrote:Sacrament meeting attendance percentage is used in computing the Young Single Adult number in the unit quarterly budget allowance computation.

Interesting and valid point. I had not thought of that because we have a YSA branch in our stake and the stake gives them all the budget.

lajackson wrote:

jdlessley wrote:Sacrament meeting attendance percentage is used in computing the Young Single Adult number in the unit quarterly budget allowance computation.

Interesting and valid point. I had not thought of that because we have a YSA branch in our stake and the stake gives them all the budget.

Our stake leaves the unit budget amount for YSA for the records that remain in the ward. Almost all those records are inactive.

jdlessley wrote:

scgallafent wrote:

russellhltn wrote:I guess clerks should process as many move-outs as they can before recording attendance.

We figure it won't take long for clerks to figure out how to game the system, although I'm still trying to figure out why. Budget is based on total attendance, not percentage.

Sacrament meeting attendance percentage is used in computing the Young Single Adult number in the unit quarterly budget allowance computation.

I think the math is actually attendance times percentage of the ward that are young single adults (attendance -> percentage of YSA instead of percent attendance -> YSA), which is why I have never looked at it as being based on attendance percentage. The two functions were equivalent, so I stand corrected. They're not exactly equivalent now. Sounds like a good excuse for me to poke the finance guys.

scgallafent wrote:The two functions were equivalent, so I stand corrected. They're not exactly equivalent now.

I think they're still equivalent.

One is "Attendance x (YSA count/Member count)" the other is "(Attendance/Member count) x YSA count"

Either way, the end result is (Attendance x YSA count)/Member count.

The question is when is the snapshot of YSA percentage is taken compared to the member count?

I'm not sure how much the YSA percentage changes for ward. I suppose a ward of just the right age could have a surge of \YSA returning home for the summer months. Student ward of course have a big surge, but that's in the overall count.

scgallafent wrote:Sounds like a good excuse for me to poke the finance guys.

But don't let me spoil your fun. <grin>

russellhltn wrote:

scgallafent wrote:The two functions were equivalent, so I stand corrected. They're not exactly equivalent now.

I think they're still equivalent.

One is "Attendance x (YSA count/Member count)" the other is "(Attendance/Member count) x YSA count"

They could be different now because it would either be (attendance / potential attendance) x YSA count or attendance x (YSA count / number of members). Since potential attendance is now independent of number of members, the values could be different.

scgallafent wrote:Since potential attendance is now independent of number of members, the values could be different.

Aside from Members of Record over 9 years old, what else would be the difference?

Potential attendance is calculated by averaging across the quarter. Number of members is the number of members in the unit at the end of the quarter. Unbaptized members of record age 9 or older are now included in either total.

scgallafent wrote:Potential attendance is calculated by averaging across the quarter. Number of members is the number of members in the unit at the end of the quarter.

That would have quite an impact on student single wards. I'd expect the YSA amount to be about half of the ward's total allocation. And the ends of the quarters tend to fall on school breaks.

russellhltn wrote:That would have quite an impact on student single wards. I'd expect the YSA amount to be about half of the ward's total allocation. And the ends of the quarters tend to fall on school breaks.

It will typically be much higher than half. The "adult" leaders (bishopric, clerk, high councilor, and spouses) are out-of-unit members, so they aren't included in the membership count.

scgallafent wrote:It will typically be much higher than half.

I'd expect the YSA headcount to be pretty much equal to the membership count in a single student ward. Is the per-head amount for YSA higher than general membership?

russellhltn wrote:

scgallafent wrote:It will typically be much higher than half.

I'd expect the YSA headcount to be pretty much equal to the membership count in a single student ward. Is the per-head amount for YSA higher than general membership?

By general membership do you mean the head count at a sacrament meeting? That count includes anyone attending (members, members not in the unit, and non-members). The capitation amounts are 12 for sacrament meeting attendance and 6.25 for YSA 'attendance'.

For the quarterly budget allowance both the sacrament meeting attendance number and the YSA attendance number could, in theory, exceed the potential number for each category.

jdlessley wrote:By general membership do you mean the head count at a sacrament meeting?

No. In theory, a YSA is counted twice. Once as a member and again as a YSA.

russellhltn wrote:In theory, a YSA is counted twice. Once as a member and again as a YSA.

This would be the same as a Primary child being counted as a member and also as a Primary child.
Or a youth being counted as a member and also as a Young Man or Young Woman.

In each case, there are not really two of them. They just count in two different categories.

I have a quick question: how and where do we count the attendance of Stake leaders from our ward that do not attend our meetings because they are visiting other wards or missionaries serving missions. If we do not count them they lower our attendance percentage as they are existent in our records, but if we do count them they are counted twice as are they counted in the wards they attend also? In the records let's say of Elder's Quorum attendance the names of Stake visitors and full-time missionaries does not appear but we add them as visitors. What about for sacrament meeting? An what about "our" Stake leaders from our ward and "our" full-time missionaries?

General Handbook 33.5.1.1 - Attendance Reports

Sacrament Meeting.
Attendance at sacrament meeting is recorded each week by the ward clerk or an assistant ward clerk. The count is the number attending the meeting in-person or by streaming, including visitors. Ward members who are not present because they have another assignment or are attending another ward are counted in the ward they attend.

alejolores wrote: Sun Feb 23, 2025 7:12 am An what about "our" Stake leaders from our ward and "our" full-time missionaries?

Also from General Handbook, 33.5.1.1:

Sunday Quorum and Organization Meetings. Attendance is recorded each week by quorum and organization secretaries and advisers. Youth leaders may also assist in recording attendance. The count is the number attending the meeting in-person or by streaming, including visitors. Members who are serving in the Primary or as youth leaders within the ward are also included as attending. Members who are attending another ward are counted in the ward they attend.

The last sentence covers the situation for stake leaders and missionaries attending other wards.