Ministering Assignments Deleted

Greetings russellhltn, scgallafent, et.al.,

I’ve been around this forum since my first few months as a ward clerk in my last ward in 2007, and around internet technology since well before that, so I’m 99% sure of the answer, but I told my bishop I would ask, to help him feel better.

I’m currently the 2nd counselor in the EQ presidency, and on permanent disability, so I have the time to work on things that my fellow ward leaders do not, especially my tech unsavvy bishop. My bishop wrote up a list with most of the ministering assignments for the elders and asked me to enter it on the Web site. I did so, and in collaboration via text with him and my EQ pres., I’ve been fine-tuning for about a month. An hour ago the bishop sent me a text saying that he “made some changes to the assignments but now they’re gone.” I assumed he meant the changes were gone, but I logged on and my heart sank. He managed to wipe out all of the men’s assignments! (Luckily he didn’t do anything to the RS assignments or we’d have another widow in the ward and the RS pres. would be under arrest!)

I told him that the assignments are unrecoverable, and with his handwritten pages and our text threads I can re-enter everything over the next few days. He tried to offer various suggestions, e.g. going back to the last restore point on his personal computer, which I told him has nothing to do with the Church’s servers, etc. I also told him to NEVER do anything but LOOK at the assignments online ever again.

So, because I told him that I would ask, is there a way to retrieve the deleted assignments? Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Terry Sackett
Desert Inn Ward
Las Vegas Nevada East Stake

Wow, apparently I’m a new member!

Perhaps the assignments were not correct and this is the modern-day version of a "stupor of thought".

I don't recall hearing anyone else got their assignments restored. I think that's more likely to happen if it's an IT error rather than user error.

The only thing I can suggest going forward is to "print" the assignments after any significant changes. I think most machines have a "print to PDF" feature.

TerrySackett wrote:Wow, apparently I’m a new member!

"New" is anyone with less than 50 posts.

I haven't had a calling with access to Leader and Clerk Resources for a few years, but I believe there's a draft/staging area where ministering changes can be made and saved, before they're published for everyone to see. When you saved it to send over to the bishop, was it in draft/staging mode, or published? (I don't know if it would make a difference, but it could be a point of failure.)

I realized that most of my posts were under my old user name “SRwardclerk”. I changed it after I was released. Well, the SR (Stewart Ranch) ward was dissolved, and so was my calling.

“Stupor of thought” is good!
I’ll tell my bishop that one, but since I’m the one that has input the data again, it’s not as funny as it might have otherwise been!

I just don’t know how he wiped everything clean, unless he clicked the button that says it’s going to delete everything, and then asks if you’re sure you want to do that! We need a face palm emoji.

sbradshaw wrote:I haven't had a calling with access to Leader and Clerk Resources for a few years, but I believe there's a draft/staging area where ministering changes can be made and saved, before they're published for everyone to see. When you saved it to send over to the bishop, was it in draft/staging mode, or published? (I don't know if it would make a difference, but it could be a point of failure.)

I didn’t make any changes. As I said, the bishop accidentally deleted everything while HE was trying to make changes.

TerrySackett wrote:I just don’t know how he wiped everything clean, unless he clicked the button that says it’s going to delete everything, and then asks if you’re sure you want to do that! We need a face palm emoji.

I've not had a calling that grants access to that area. But I get the sense there's a "draft" area and a "published" area. I'm not sure what the state of the "draft" area is after it's been published. But if "draft" is blank and the button to publish it is pushed ....

I do know you're not the only one this has happened to. So I think there must be some button sequence besides "delete" and "are you sure".

TerrySackett wrote:I realized that most of my posts were under my old user name “SRwardclerk”. I changed it after I was released. Well, the SR (Stewart Ranch) ward was dissolved, and so was my calling.

You've been re-united with your old posts. This badge is occasionally good for something.

I believe there are a sequence of button controls in the Proposed Assignments page that will result in all assignments being removed (accidentally?).

1. Click the Start Over button.
2. Do not make any new assignments, or remove the ones you make so there are no assignments showing.
3. Click the Show Changes button.
4. Then click the Publish Assignments button.

Note that toggling the Show Changes / Hide Changes button changes, or toggles, the Review and Publish Assignments / Publish Assignments button. When the Show Changes / Hide Changes button is displaying "Show Changes", which is the default mode, then the Review and Publish Assignments / Publish Assignments button will show "Review and Publish Assignments". Toggle to display "Hide Changes" and "Publish Assignments" will be active.

I can see how inexperience with hiding or showing changes can cause confusion with the technology challenged resulting in accidentally deleting all current ministering assignments.

jdlessley wrote:

1. Click the Start Over button.
2. Do not make any new assignments, or remove the ones you make so there are no assignments showing.
3. Click the Show Changes button.
4. Then click the Publish Assignments button.

I'm not following. If I click the Start Over button, I get a prompt to start over or cancel. Once I click the second Start Over button, the Show Changes button isn't visible.

scgallafent wrote:

jdlessley wrote:

1. Click the Start Over button.
2. Do not make any new assignments, or remove the ones you make so there are no assignments showing.
3. Click the Show Changes button.
4. Then click the Publish Assignments button.

I'm not following. If I click the Start Over button, I get a prompt to start over or cancel. Once I click the second Start Over button, the Show Changes button isn't visible.

I now can't replicate the sequence as I did last night and get to step two because the Start Over button does just as it is suppose to do now and start back at the point before any changes were made or with no data (if that is what was being displayed on the Proposed Assignments page at the start). Without any changes having been made the Show Changes button is not available. For some reason when another leader had made some changes and had clicked the Review and Publish button I was able to go through step 3 and end up with no data before clicking the Publish Assignments button in step 4.

I was doing last night what I thought someone not familiar with the Ministering > Proposed Assignments page would do and then try to clean up their changes. Those steps did result in no data just before step 4.

russellhltn wrote:

TerrySackett wrote:I realized that most of my posts were under my old user name “SRwardclerk”. I changed it after I was released. Well, the SR (Stewart Ranch) ward was dissolved, and so was my calling.

You've been re-united with your old posts. This badge is occasionally good for something.

Thank you very much! I appreciate you taking the time to do that. Sorry I didn't know about it sooner, or I would have responded more promptly.

Yes, because when you click the Start Over button, it literally erases all assignments, including the ones you just made. I'm looking for a restore function as well since we don't know how we lost everybody who was assigned, the Bishop had nothing to approve.