MLS Companion Database

[mbsteed]

Fergie34,

I have sent you a private message. My contact information is also on the web site.

http://web.me.com/marlo.steed/MemDbase/Welcome.html

[fergie34-p40]

mbsteed

I got you message and have sent you an email with the information. Thanks for all your help.

[mbsteed]

Fergie34,

Here is why your hometeachers are not showing up:

The problem is in how the Hometeaching Families names are entered in MLS, it seems those are not the ward directory names but those are being generated independent of the MLS names. The only way that the MLS Companion Database can link the membership file to the hometeaching information is by using identical names to to those in the ward directory. Most people use the browse option and just assign hometeachers from the list but whoever is assigning hometeachers in your ward, is generating new names. For instance they combined spouse names into one.

I can't fix that problem because the only way the MLS Companion Database can make the link between the person and their Hometeacher is through using identical names - the Hometeaching file does not contain anything else (e.g. it does not have their membership record number). The only solution is for the person in your ward to choose Hometeaching names from the ward directory and not to customize those.

If the Hometeaching.csv file would have contained the member record number, I could have gotten around this problem. However, it is not there so the only solution is to do things a bit different for your Hometeaching lists. For instance, instead of putting spouses together, just add each individual separately by browsing the ward directory and automatically selecting the names from there. If you do that all the Hometeachers should show up.

[fergie34-p40]

mbsteed,

Thanks for the help. I can fix the problem with the home teaching file. The EQ President was the one who entered the info for the home teaching but I can fix the data so that is will work.

[mkmurray]

A few people are asking about MLS Companion in other languages in the MLS Support, Help, and Feedback forum:

http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2831

[mbsteed]

On closer inspection, the problem with Hometeachers not being assigned was in the MLS companion program not in the assignments made in MLS. Actually the real problem is in the data that gets exported from MLS; some of the exported files are missing key information (e.g. MRN or HofH id).

The latest upgrade (2.6) should fix that problem.

http://web.me.com/marlo.steed/MemDbase/Welcome.html

It seemed that in a family ward, the Hometeachers were only getting assigned one family. This version addresses that problem (searched for common Head of Household and then made the match). This version also modified the import function to address duplications on the stake database importing (I hope).

Caveat: this programs are becoming increasing difficult to maintain as the complexity increases. One of the problems is that I don’t have access to all the different types of data files that I need to test the reliability of the system (e.g. family ward and stake csv files), I only have access to YSA ward data, so I can only hope that my changes aren’t causing more problems than they are fixing. I only know there are problems when folks report that, so if you run into problems let me know..

Once I think all the bugs are squashed, I will turn my attention to creating a Spanish version.

[mbsteed]

...or Portuguese version? Maintenance will be a real issue - updating all the different versions of the program is a real pain now but if I add different languages it will be nightmare. I can't commit to multiple language versions. I thought Spanish might be a good one to do because my sense is there quite a few folks who could use that. If Portuguese is equally popular, I could look at that. ...but again, I am concerned about stretching myself too thin, I am only one person with a finite amount of time to spend on this.

I guess one of my questions should be directed to LDSTech. Will LDSTech move in this direction, of supplying a MLS companion database for laptops and mobile devices? If not I will continue to work on this but if LDSTech plan on moving into this area then they could use whatever ideas I have developed and expand on that.

[mbsteed]

Update:

Latest version is 2.8 - added the option of inputting voice through a microphone for confidential comments.

http://web.me.com/marlo.steed/MemDbase/Welcome.html

[jltware]

Just to clarify, this is only for pc, isn't it? It won't allow me to do these things on my windows mobile ppc?

[mbsteed]

This application will work on Windows (XP and Vista) - untested on others versions. It also works on Macs (OSX 10.x) with intel or PPC chip sets. I have not tested on Windows mobile systems. Try it and see if it works - please post your experience here.

Hope that clarifies things.