Primary/Sunday School Callings in Reports, etc.

I would like to request a change to the way the teacher/instructor callings are displayed within Leader & Clerk Resources reports, as well as within LDS Tools. It has been much easier with a fluid pool of Primary Workers to use the 'class' drop down within the calling in MLS to specify the specific course currently associated with the calling rather than using the Standard Position that includes the specific course (because it can be easily changed, without removing and re-inputting the entire calling). The only problem is that I have noticed that currently within Leader & Clerk Resources reports, as well as within LDS Tools it only shows the specific course (CTR4, Gospel Doctrine, etc.) if the standard position that includes the name of the course is used. It would be really nice if it could look at the 'class' drop down and display that class in combination with 'Primary Worker' or 'Sunday School Instructor' if there is one selected, otherwise default to just the standard position name. I hope this makes sense, and I hope this is posted in the right forum.

Thank you in advance,

Chris Jones
Ward Clerk

These forums are mostly community users like you and me. We can discuss it here but we cannot be assured that those who need to see this change request will see it. Your best chance of getting a change request to the development team is through the Submit Feedback link on the LDS.org page.

There has been discussion around supporting classes within the Leader & Clerk tool. Currently the details of the class information is only stored in MLS. But as managing callings and classes support is added to the online tools more of those details will have to be included.

JonesRK wrote:There has been discussion around supporting classes within the Leader & Clerk tool. Currently the details of the class information is only stored in MLS. But as managing callings and classes support is added to the online tools more of those details will have to be included.

The current list of Primary callings gives two options for specifying callings:

1. Select the calling of "Primary Worker" and specify the class.
2. Select a specific calling like "Primary Worker - CTR 6", in which case specifying the class is unnecessary (or redundant).

It always seemed odd to me that there were all those specific callings that included the class name, when MLS allowed you to specify the class, but given what you said about the current state of affairs where class info is only stored in MLS, it seems that those specific callings are the way to go -- at least for wards that want to record that level of detail on Primary Worker callings.

chrisleej,

welcome! Please submit your request to the developers via Feedback as has been suggested, but you are exactly right.

We want the courses an instructor is assigned to displayed on lds.org, because this is important info. How else will that parent look up who teaches their child? But these teachers change often...not released, just moved to another class assignment within sunday school or primary. Year-end can be crazy when the primary/bishopric makes that one change that starts the dominoes falling, and if you called them with the standard calling "primary worker - ctr 4" and now they will teach ctr 5, you must actually release them within MLS and recall them, remembering to record their original sustain date, because that will not change, but can get lost if you didn't think to run the report first....or, have a big long list of "generic" Primary workers with no class appearing in lds.org...

Moving teachers within their organizations can make BIG work for ward clerks under the present system.

kisaac wrote:We want the courses an instructor is assigned to displayed on lds.org, because this is important info. How else will that parent look up who teaches their child?

We're talking about Leader and Clerk Resources here. This is not available to the general membership. Parents will not be able to use the reports from that function if they do not have access. What you are talking about is the listed callings by organization provided in the organization directory. This is a separate recommendation/issue from the OP's.

jdlessley wrote:We're talking about Leader and Clerk Resources here. This is not available to the general membership. Parents will not be able to use the reports from that function if they do not have access. What you are talking about is the listed callings by organization provided in the organization directory. This is a separate recommendation/issue from the OP's.

But they are quite related since that data would have to be in CDOL for either or both of them to have it. And once it is in CDOL adding it to the organization directory would be fairly easy.

kisaac wrote:How else will that parent look up who teaches their child?

Our ward is quite small, this may not work for larger wards, but I walk my sons to primary and peek my head in the door to see who is teaching

In small wards, like mine, several primary classes may be combined, so the standard callings that include the class name are not as helpful. We end up created custom classes that are something like: CTR 6, 7 & 8. This way we can accurately show what class(es) the teacher is assigned to (since you can only assign one class per teacher).

jdlessley wrote:We're talking about Leader and Clerk Resources here. This is not available to the general membership. Parents will not be able to use the reports from that function if they do not have access. What you are talking about is the listed callings by organization provided in the organization directory. This is a separate recommendation/issue from the OP's.

As mentioned, the roots are in CDOL. And it feeds our online directory, for the whole ward to see. That's where I noticed it first, as I didn't see the benefit of having twenty instructors listed as teaching in Sunday School, without any indication of who taught gospel doctrine, and which three people had just been called as permanent "substitute instructors." I wanted the teachers to be able to view the list and see the class assignments!

It's not a big problem, but if you are talking about changing one aspect of it, change it all for the better!