Wasteful Transmission & Printing of Unchanged Records

Our former Stake Memb Clerk, myself the current Stake MC, and some of our ward MC’s have been increasing concerned about the curious and wasteful transmission & printing of full and IOS membership records to our ward systems. When you make changes to a member’s record, of course MLS will send you updated membership records (both full and IOS versions). But for the past year+, with increasing frequency we are being sent these records unrelated to any changes we have made to the members’ records (together with a transmission report showing no rhyme or reason as to why they’re being sent). These seem to consist more often for sisters of our ward, including those for my wife, the bishop’s wife, etc., but very often includes less-active members. Oftern they come for both husband and wife, meaning typically that’s five wasted sheets of paper that we have to print out and shred; because when the MLS message comes up asking if you want to print, including for the bishop, one can’t tell which transmission reports he wants to print out and which ones he doesn’t. Our previous stake MC indicated that he wrote to the Memb Dept last year on this matter and was told that the primary reason (maybe they even implied the only reason) this happens is when someone is accessing that particular member’s record thru MLS, and it’s designed to “tell the Bishop” that this is happening. That was curious, and quite concerning to him and us. He has assumed this refers to unauthorized persons, because “I see no need for automatic printing (of these records) when an authorized person accesses an MLS record”.

I apologize if this discussion has been made previously (as I assume it may have); but I couldn’t readily see a thread on it in the past few months on this wiki-site. Maybe this has nothing to do with anyone accessing MLS records at all. Any ideas?

jhigbee wrote:... increasing concerned about the curious and wasteful transmission & printing of full and IOS membership records to our ward systems.
...
I apologize if this discussion has been made previously (as I assume it may have); but I couldn’t readily see a thread on it in the past few months on this wiki-site.

The general topic has indeed been discussed previously:

• MLS Send/Receive Questions and Enhancments
• Printing Suggestion
• reports, reports, and more reports

As you can see, you're not alone in your concerns.

jhigbee wrote:When you make changes to a member’s record, of course MLS will send you updated membership records (both full and IOS versions). But for the past year+, with increasing frequency we are being sent these records unrelated to any changes we have made to the members’ records.

One thing to be aware of is that membership record changes can be initiated multiple places besides the ward. Certainly the CHQ departments can record information such as temple ordinances and missionary service. The stake can now record MP ordinations. Also, with the new Directory, members can update some of their own household and individual information, such as phone numbers and email addresses.

Any of these changes will trigger the transmission of a new record to the ward, with its corresponding prompt to print out a new record. Although it doesn't sound like the above ideas would explain all the record transmissions you are reporting, it is helpful to consider that many of these transmissions may indeed be initiated by someone else.

jhigbee wrote:Our previous stake MC indicated that he wrote to the Memb Dept last year on this matter and was told that the primary reason (maybe they even implied the only reason) this happens is when someone is accessing that particular member’s record thru MLS, and it’s designed to “tell the Bishop” that this is happening. That was curious, and quite concerning to him and us. He has assumed this refers to unauthorized persons, because “I see no need for automatic printing (of these records) when an authorized person accesses an MLS record”.

That theory is rather difficult to believe. If someone can log in to MLS, then they can see records as their MLS permissions allow. There is no way that someone can attempt an unauthorized access of a membership record -- about all that an unauthorized person could do is try to figure out someone's login. If they fail, they fail and will be unable to see any membership records, and if they succeed, they will appear to MLS as if they are an authorized person. Membership records get accessed all the time by authorized persons, and there is clearly no link between that access and the printing of records.

jhigbee wrote:But for the past year+, with increasing frequency we are being sent these records unrelated to any changes we have made to the members’ records (together with a transmission report showing no rhyme or reason as to why they’re being sent).

Any Changes made either in MLS, at CHQ, or from the new web applications at lds.org (directory, Leader and Clerk Resources for example) will trigger a print notice. Others have noted this increasing number of print notices in many other threads. Most of the increase can be traced to changes made by members or authorized leaders on the new web applications.

There several action options when the print notices arrive.
1) Print each and every print notice as they are received. As noted this can create a lot of wasted printed paper. This only happens to those unwilling to take any of the next options listed.
2) Print preview each print notice to see whether or not the document needs to be printed. If not cancel the print job. If unsure whether the document needs to be printed there is still another option.
3) Print to PDF instead of paper to permit further examination at a later time or date. If this option is used, be sure the document is not saved on the computer hard drive. If the PDF file is to be saved it should be saved on a removable media, such as a USB memory stick, and stored in a secure place, such as the clerk office locking file cabinet.

Thank you very much Bro. Brown and Bro. Lessley for those prompt and thorough replies. The fact that members can now change their MLS info for ind phone numbers and email addresses online seems to provide a good explanation for many of these record transmissions, even though as you indicated, there appears to be several that are still unrelated to any record info changes. I will relay your suggestions for avoiding having to print out the reports to our ward membership clerks.


Thanks again
- Brother Higbee