Account Recovery

If a member doesn't have a mobile number or an email address associated with his/her account, is there any way to recovery his/her church account without calling the Church?

We've been helping our ward members with family history and we've had to help a lot of them recover their accounts. Unfortunately, many of those members don't have a mobile number or an email address associated with their account to recover their account. As a result, we've had to call the Church for help recovering their account. That's generally not a big deal; however, that's not a viable option for some of our members given their schedules relative to the Church's tech help hours, their tech prowess and/or their comfort level in calling the Church's tech team on their own.

It looks like the mobile number and the email address that are shown on the member's record are not the ones used to help recover their account (so we can't just update their info in LCR and then recover their account). Instead, the mobile number and the email address that are used to recover a member's account are those on the member's Contact Settings tab, which can only be accessed by going into the member's account. So a catch 22 scenario here.

If you change the email address in the membership record, it will attempt to update the church account to use that email address. As part of that process it will send a verification email to the address. If the member clicks in the link in the verification email, it should then update the church account to use that email address. (I haven't actually tried the case where the member does not verify the address but I assume it doesn't update the church account).

At that point it should be possible to recover the church account password via the new verified email address.

This does not work for mobile phone numbers. The number in the membership record does not get copied over to the church account.

eblood66 wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 1:46 pm If you change the email address in the membership record, it will attempt to update the church account to use that email address. As part of that process it will send a verification email to the address. If the member clicks in the link in the verification email, it should then update the church account to use that email address. (I haven't actually tried the case where the member does not verify the address but I assume it doesn't update the church account).

At that point it should be possible to recover the church account password via the new verified email address.

This does not work for mobile phone numbers. The number in the membership record does not get copied over to the church account.

Thanks, but unfortunately this didn't work. I updated the member's email address on his record in LCR today, but he never received a verification email (he did also check his spam folder). Are there any other possible solutions besides calling the Church or is there a number that I can call that's open on Sundays? The membership help option associated with the (801) 240-#### number isn't open on Sundays.

Thanks, but unfortunately this didn't work. I updated the member's email address on his record in LCR today, but he never received a verification email

I'd be interested to know if the email eventually arrived. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the internal Church system took a while (hours, if not an entire day) for something like this to process. Perhaps this is something that always occurs quickly, but it may be that this approach requires a bit more waiting than what we're used to with other commercial systems.

BrianEdwards wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 12:35 pm

Thanks, but unfortunately this didn't work. I updated the member's email address on his record in LCR today, but he never received a verification email

I'd be interested to know if the email eventually arrived. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the internal Church system took a while (hours, if not an entire day) for something like this to process. Perhaps this is something that always occurs quickly, but it may be that this approach requires a bit more waiting than what we're used to with other commercial systems.

No email yet.

I ended up calling the Church's IT number and the person that I spoke to told me that the aforementioned approach doesn't work.

I asked if there's any other way to recover a member's account besides calling IT if the member's recovery phone number and email aren't current/correct and she said there isn't. I wish said issue could be fixed on the ward level as having to call IT when this occurs is very inconvenient, especially when there are many members (since my initial message, I've come to realize that this issue is more common than I previously thought) who have this issue and most of them aren't tech savvy. It wouldn't be bad if I could call on Sunday, when the member and I are together in person, but as of a couple of months ago, IT is now closed on Sundays. For us, that means I have to get on a three-way call with the member and IT sometime during the week, often during my work hours.

Hilohi wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 12:47 pm For us, that means I have to get on a three-way call with the member and IT sometime during the week, often during my work hours.

You can just give the Global Services Department (GSD) telephone number to the member and let them make the call some time on a week day, if the member feels comfortable doing so and since the support people will only speak to the account holder.

jdlessley wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 3:13 pm

Hilohi wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 12:47 pm For us, that means I have to get on a three-way call with the member and IT sometime during the week, often during my work hours.

You can just give the Global Services Department (GSD) telephone number to the member and let them make the call some time on a week day, if the member feels comfortable doing so and since the support people will only speak to the account holder.

Unfortunately, most of the members who have this issue with their account won't call on their own.

I checked a bit ago, and if I click on "I forgot my username or password" at the login screen, recovery via MRN seems to be there.

russellhltn wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 5:44 pm I checked a bit ago, and if I click on "I forgot my username or password" at the login screen, recovery via MRN seems to be there.

You're correct - recovery via MRN is an option. The issue with that is after you enter the member's MRN, the following screen asks you if you want to recover the member's account by email address or text lol! On top of that, the MRN recovery method is very buggy. Sometimes, paraphrasing here, it'll say that a member's MRN is not found and direct you to create an account for the member even though the member already has an account. There's another bug that frequently occurs that I can quite recall at the moment, but succinctly, recovery via MRN is effectively unviable given how buggy it is.

It's possible some options are not available if the person has access to certain information, such as membership or financial information. Otherwise, "recovery" would be an obvious place for attackers to gain access to church systems.

To identify the caller, GSD will ask the member questions that may not be on the membership record visible to the local units. I will not say what they might be for obvious reasons, but there is something more to the call-in process.

russellhltn wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 6:16 pm It's possible some options are not available if the person has access to certain information, such as membership or financial information. Otherwise, "recovery" would be an obvious place for attackers to gain access to church systems.

To identify the caller, GSD will ask the member questions that may not be on the membership record visible to the local units. I will not say what they might be for obvious reasons, but there is something more to the call-in process.

Definitely possible, but in our case, all of the members that I tried to help didn't have callings where they have access to membership or financial information (one actually doesn't have a calling).