Ordinances Ready: Select the number?

Went to the temple to do baptisms with my son today. When we click on ordinances ready, it automatically pulls 4 names. Is there any way to select a different number? When I get to the temple, they tell me that we are allowed to do up to five. Would be nice if we could select that rather than having to do four and then four and have eight. Only to make the temple mad that I brought too many names.

Or even be able to select up to 20, print them out and then give them to a couple of my kids. Or is there already some way to do this? Thanks.

jimlaudie wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 8:33 am Went to the temple to do baptisms with my son today. When we click on ordinances ready, it automatically pulls 4 names. Is there any way to select a different number? When I get to the temple, they tell me that we are allowed to do up to five. Would be nice if we could select that rather than having to do four and then four and have eight. Only to make the temple mad that I brought too many names.

No, there's no way to select numbers of ordinances for Ordinances Ready. The number of ordinances provided for each type is specified by the Temple Department and can't be adjusted by individual patrons. However, when Ordinances Ready gives you a set of names, you have the option to deselect however many you'd like. So in your example, in the second batch of 4 (which must have been requested by a different person), you could uncheck all but 1 card, so that you would have 4 from the first batch and 1 from the second batch, if you want exactly 5.

jimlaudie wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 8:33 amOr even be able to select up to 20, print them out and then give them to a couple of my kids.

The idea of Ordinances Ready is that it is an individual process. If your kids would like to serve in the temple, help them to get a FamilySearch account and teach them how to do Ordinances Ready themselves. Teach them how to fish, so to speak....

Thanks for the feedback!

Well, my feedback to the church IT group would be that they set this number higher if temples are allowing a higher number. Not sure if any of them see these threads. And potentially to be able to select more than one batch of names at a time. I realize that this is possible manually through FamilySearch (reserve as many as you want). But we're talking specifically through Ordinances Ready where you're looking for quick access to names.

And I copy you on the teaching a man to fish. You know how it is with the youth remembering passwords, etc. Sometimes the easy way is the lazy way to just be able to print them some.

I'd suggest trying to submit that Feedback through the Church's standard feedback mechanism, or through the FamilySearch feedback process (never done that myself, I know others have). Any suggestions logged here are very unlikely to ever be read by somebody at Church IT, practically everyone here on the Forum is a regular member like yourself with no special connection to Church decision-makers.

And I'm not a temple worker, but my experience is that temples vary from time to time on how many baptisms they want members to perform. Recently our local baptistry workers provided a slip of three "temple file" names if you didn't bring your own, but if you brought your own names you could do up to ten. It seems like there's too much variability to be able to programmatically account for how many names a specific temple might accept. But again, I'm not "in the know", and perhaps there is a global standard for temple names in the baptistry.

Thanks for the ideas. I'll go share the feedback. Maybe they have some idea for how best to work this.

Remember, the quantity is only restricted by using Ordinances Ready. Individuals can reserve as many names as they want via the regular method (up to 300 total). Also, FamilySearch provides other tools to share names to family and ward members.

BrianEdwards wrote: Mon Apr 03, 2023 10:20 am And I'm not a temple worker, but my experience is that temples vary from time to time on how many baptisms they want members to perform.

When you bring your own family names to the temple, the limiting factor is usually the length of time reserved at the temple to perform the ordinances. The temple may only give you three or five names from the temple file because those names are limited. But you will normally be able to do as many of your own family names as you are able to accomplish during the time you are scheduled to be there.

And in our temple, if the next group is late or cancels, you are usually able to keep right on going with as many of your own names as you brought with you to the temple.

Good to know. Sounds like the way is really to do your own reservations and work outside ordinances ready to have that flexibility. Because I think I can only reserve 4 names today and I can't even do a second batch, unless I'm missing something.

jimlaudie wrote: Mon Apr 03, 2023 4:29 pm Because I think I can only reserve 4 names today and I can't even do a second batch, unless I'm missing something.

I believe this is correct. You can reserve 4 more names only when the currently reserved 4 have had the work done. You cannot reserve 4 and then go back in and try to reserve 4 more (for example) as it will just pick the original 4 that are ready for ordinances that are not yet completed. You could have other family members reserve 4 names each with their unique FamilySearch login and then provide those names to you.

I have no special knowledge, but it appears to me that this tool was primarily designed for a single temple trip based on the number of ordinances the sponsor of the app told the developers members could reserve with it (for whatever ordinance was selected). If you feel that 4 names are not enough, providing feedback from within the app is the main official way to get your desire for more names in front of those who direct the developer's priorities. The other official way is to ask your stake president to bring it up for discussion in the coordinating counsel he attends with his general authority.

When the app first came out, reservations could only be made for the same gender as the one reserving. But now you can reserve either gender. I'm not sure, but suspect this change was due to user feedback so I believe feedback is read and considered (though you likely will not receive a personalized reply).

You can also use other tools to find names like manually searching for the green temple symbol or using an app like Take a Name which hooks up to your familysearch account and lets you search for up to 20 names at a time!

Does anyone know why 'ordinances ready' or 'temple file name lists restrict the numbers of baptisms?
I understand appointment lengths and time constraints but even in the absence of these, 'shared temple name lists' are clearly restricted to 4 or 5 per youth>

neil125 wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2024 9:13 am Does anyone know why 'ordinances ready' or 'temple file name lists restrict the numbers of baptisms?
I understand appointment lengths and time constraints but even in the absence of these, 'shared temple name lists' are clearly restricted to 4 or 5 per youth>

The second post in this thread indicates the number is specified by the Temple Department. We can speculate, but it's likely no one on this user-to-user discussion forum really knows why they set this number. I believe the tool was built to help an individual get names for a single session when they cannot find any on their own or they don't have them printed when they arrive at a temple (as it pulls first from their own reservation list). You can reserve up to 300 names individually on FamilySearch if you want to get more to share with a group.