Talent and Skills tracking for Wards?

Hi Everyone,

I'm new here, and so if this is the wrong forum for this type of discussion, I apologize.

My Bishop has asked me to create a list of skills and talents for our ward members, that would be searchable and indexable for people seeking help.

I'm wondering if there are others here that have been asked similar things, and how they went about solving the problem?

Best Regards,
Stephen

A starting point is Custom fields (MLS)

RussellHltn wrote:A starting point is Custom fields (MLS)

The problem with Custom Fields is that they are almost completely removed from a members other information. They are very difficult to maintain because of this.

The only way to do anything with them is using a custom report. If they were accessible on the Individual Record screens, they might be useful.

rpyne wrote:The only way to do anything with them is using a custom report. If they were accessible on the Individual Record screens, they might be useful.

That all depends what direction you want to go. If you are looking for all the members with a particular skill, then it's great: just run a custom report filtered for the particular talent or skill you are interested in. Admittedly, having them appear on the Individual Record screen would make entering them much easier. Instead, you must go to Membership > Records > Custom Member Fields.

MLS has a default list of what appear to be mostly emergency prep fields already. You can see these under Edit > System Options > Member. The other tabs in that screen are where you can create your own fields.

It's a bit of work to get everything entered, but once it's in, it can become quite useful.

While the custom fields in MLS is far from perfect, keep in mind that any system needs to be regularly updated with the changes in membership in the ward. Using MLS makes that part easy.

It would be even easier if we could export a table of all the custom member fields for all the members, update them in spreadsheet form, then import the updated field data. Alternately, if MLS had a screen with all the fields displayed in editable form, that would be almost as good.

Perhaps I am missing something but when I do custom fields, a field update then dumps me back to the Main MLS screen and I have to go back in, find the member again, find the specific field again, then update, which dumps me back again to the main screen.

davesudweeks wrote:Alternately, if MLS had a screen with all the fields displayed in editable form, that would be almost as good.

You can see these under Edit > System Options > Member. The other tabs in that screen are where you can create (and edit) your own fields.

davesudweeks wrote:Perhaps I am missing something but when I do custom fields, a field update then dumps me back to the Main MLS screen and I have to go back in, find the member again, find the specific field again, then update, which dumps me back again to the main screen.

After the first time of selecting Custom Member fields (Membership > Custom Member Fields), you can use the magnifying glass in the upper right corner of the arrows to navigate through the records while staying in "Custom Field" mode.

RussellHltn wrote:A starting point is Custom fields (MLS)

I would go with custom fields, and customize those fields to whatever you want. Either use the "talent and interest" fields, or the custom fields and define your own. You'll then see them available in your custom reports you create. We use these for our fast offering routes, talks database, prayer database, etc. It's powerful, but not very well documented, so perhaps not used like it could be. While I often "save" my custom reports to file (csv) or to the clipboard for exporting to a spreadsheet for further manipulation or display, I would definitely avoid entering the data and keeping it in another application because I hate manually updating a database or spreadsheet every time there is a move.

crislapi wrote:After the first time of selecting Custom Member fields (Membership > Custom Member Fields), you can use the magnifying glass in the upper right corner of the arrows to navigate through the records while staying in "Custom Field" mode.

Thanks for the tip. I use Custom member fields for the general Emergency Preparedness (EP) groups, but have avoided the EP skills and equipment tracking because I hadn't broken the code on how to stay in the application after updating a field. I will give it a whirl and see how it goes.

Stephen,

The LDSJobs.org website allows a person to create a profile (including skills/talents) and then determine if they want to share that information with 1) employers and/or 2) Ward/Stake leaders. The Stake President/Bishop determine (see link bellow) which leaders (counselors, HPGL, EQP, RSP, & Employment specialists) they want to give access to those profiles. I think of it as "The Lord's Storehouse" with each member determining what they will (or won't) share with their leaders. We have several stakes in Oregon that are using LDSJobs.org for that (and other) reason(s).

Hope that helps.
Richard Pedersen

Can counselors in presidencies or other ward or stake leaders be granted permission to assist individuals on LDSJobs.org?
http://www.ldsjobs.ldswelfare.org/?p=567

Begin: a. Enlarge existing Talents and Interests(at Yearly
Tithing Settlement).
b. By survey, obtain a list of "Talents & Iterests" of Ward Members,then click on Custom & Interests.
c. Next Click on the "add" buttom at the top of
the screen.
d. "Add", one at a time, each "additional" Talent &
Interest from Ward List.

Then: Establish 4-6, or more, "Custom Fields", in box
provided. Select from the list shown below, with any
additions or modifications using the following steps.


Step 1: a. Go to System Options and Click on members
b. Next click on "Custom Fields"
c. Next will appear the "Add Custom Field" screen
d. Fill in the "name"and "description from the
following list, with any additions or
modifications as desired, using the
following steps:

Note: Make each title with only 1 capital letter
only, or the title may not be recognized by
the computer.

e. Select "string" for the ...date....or...string option

NAME DESCRIPTION

Sports ability String Like Tennis, Basketball, golf, etc
Music ability String Like Play/Teach violin,cello
sing, etc
Special training String Like Electronics, Barber, Nurse, Dr,
welder. CPR, etc
Food speciality String Home Made Ice Cream, cookies,
dutch oven cooking, etc
Heavy equipment String Back-hoe, tractor or dump truck
truck owner or operator,trailer,etc
Other String Cherry Picker, sizzer lift, fork- list operator/owner

Each of the above titles or NAMES will now become available to print in a MLS Custom Report.

Step 2: Add Talent/Interests "and" Custom fields for each member.

a. Click on "Membership Records", then click on "View and Update"
b. Click on "Custom Member Fields."
c. Select a Member, then select Talents and Interests, then click on "add".
d. Then select, from the list above, each talent or interest,
separately (one at a time).
e. Next select each of the Custom Fields (i.e. Sports ability, Music ability, Special training, etc) as needed and fill in the box what their sports ability, music ability, special training is forf each each Custom Field selected...by pressing OK. After filling this box,...press "SAVE".
f. Go to next individual.

Step 3: Prepare a "Custom Report to print a suitable report for review/editing, and then give to the Bishop or Council member requesting it.

a. Go to "Reports & Forms", then click on MORE.
b. Click on "Add" Report" on top right of screen
c. Then under the "Reports/Tools" column select "Custom Reports."
d. Under "Criteria" select age is greater than 18 years.
e. Under "Format" select: Preferred Name, Talents or Interests. Sports ability, Music ability, Special training, Food Speciality. Six columns of info is best. If more info is needed, make up an additional Custom Report.

To add a talent or interest to any ward member it must be placed in the list provided. Go to the bottom of the page and look for "ADD". Click on this and then "add" new talents and interests,l as needed, so that everyone is "included" among this this list. There are "additional" categories of information, about ward members, which MLS permits to be "added". These are called Custom Fields. For our ward I have Chosen: (see procedure below to input Custom Fields to store "any" addition info about ward members for use by Priesthood Leaders and council members...as needed.
Sports ability, Music ability, Special training, Food specialty, Heavy equipment, Other. A "sample" of "real" collected data (at yearly tithing settlements times) is given below:[/b]

colingardner wrote:Enlarge existing Talents and Interests(at Yearly
Tithing Settlement).

Welcome to the forum! Your post represents a great deal of work...thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Here is a version of the Talent and Interest survey that I redid to include some things that we wanted on the form also. We included the items that are default in MLS but weren't on the original form. The original official church form that this is based on can be downloaded as a PDF from the online catalog.

Tithing settlement would be a great time to start collecting this information from members if you want to have it. I think in our ward we are planning on keeping the original forms in a binder in the clerk's or bishop's office and the data will also be entered into MLS for use in custom reports, which will be better if you want to find out who has a skill instead of what skills a certain individual has, for example.

I hope it is helpful for someone here.

Wow, thank-you everyone for your replies and ideas. I will need to digest some of the information here, and will also share what we eventually used when it's all said and done.