BYU: Online Ecclesiastical Endorsement

[williamjackson]

Do any of you ward clerks work with <http://endorsement.byu.edu/>? I just found out about it today.

A prospective BYU student in our ward recently had an interview with a member of the stake presidency, and when said member of the stake presidency went online to enter some information, there was no record there. My bishop said he would do something about that today.

Is this something I can do so my bishop doesn't have to?

[aebrown]

Do any of you ward clerks work with <http://endorsement.byu.edu/>? I just found out about it today.

A prospective BYU student in our ward recently had an interview with a member of the stake presidency, and when said member of the stake presidency went online to enter some information, there was no record there. My bishop said he would do something about that today.

Is this something I can do so my bishop doesn't have to?

I'm an assistant stake clerk, but I have helped a bishop and two stake presidency members with BYU's new endorsement system. The way it works is:

1. The bishop interviews the student.
2. The student provides his/her NetID (that's the student's BYU login name) to the bishop.
3. The bishop logs in to endorsement.byu.edu using his LDS Account.
4. The bishop looks up the student by NetID (or by name) and enters his endorsement.
5. The stake presidency member interviews the student.
6. The stake presidency member logs in to endorsement.byu.edu using his LDS Account. He will see a list of all the students endorsed by any bishops in the stake and awaiting stake presidency endorsement.
7. The stake presidency member selects the student from the list and adds his endorsement for the student.

So I'm guessing that when you say "there was no record there" you mean that the bishop didn't enter his endorsement of that student in the system, so the stake presidency member could not see the student.

It's great that you would like to offload some of this burden from the bishop, but I don't think that's possible. As far as I know, only the bishop and stake presidency can login to BYU's system. But if the student provided the NetID, it should only take about 5 minutes to enter an endorsement (unless the bishop writes really long comments).

[crislapi]

Is this something I can do so my bishop doesn't have to?

This system is for all the church schools (BYU, BYU-I, BYU-H, LDS BC). I work mostly with LDS-BC.

The bishop has to endorse it first before the stake president can. My experience suggests that only the bishop and the stake presidency (president and 2 counselors only) can log in and provide an endorsement. Our stake exec sec was a little miffed he couldn't enter them, but then again, he couldn't sign the endorsements before either so I don't see this being any different.

[williamjackson]

Thank you for the explanation. It sounds like my bishop already knows what to do.

[greenwoodkl]

Does anyone know if this system is only for prospective students? It would be nice to save paper if this were also for continuing student endorsements and could be implemented in our Utah Valley YSA ward.

[lajackson]

Does anyone know if this system is only for prospective students? It would be nice to save paper if this were also for continuing student endorsements and could be implemented in our Utah Valley YSA ward.

Well, our prospective student still prints out two pages each for the interview with the bishop and stake president. The bishop and president (or counselor) just need to enter the information at the site instead of mailing or faxing in the two pages.

I would not be surprised if continuing student endorsements will work the same way, but I have no experience in that area. The on line prospective student endorsements are still very new.

[aebrown]

Does anyone know if this system is only for prospective students? It would be nice to save paper if this were also for continuing student endorsements and could be implemented in our Utah Valley YSA ward.

The online system is clearly only for new applicants. It uses the term "applicant" throughout. The online system requires both a bishop and stake presidency endorsement, which is only a requirement for a prospective student.

The Ecclesiastical Endorsement Form for continuing students only requires a bishop's signature, so it's a different process. I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually moved to an online process, but there is no indication of that at this point (of course, we had no advance warning of the online system for new applicants, either).

[Kowboyy]

It appears that you can now do the continued endorsement online. Once the bishop logs in all endorsements appear on the home screen and the endorsements can be updated for a new year or rescinded if needed.

[clport]

I am the District Clerk for a remote district (Central China Int'l District). We frequently have students that need an ecclesiastical endorsement while in one of our units in China. Even though their records are in our units, when they go to initiate the endorsement process they can not locate their unit leader. The 'No Results' box instructs them, if they are in a remote unit, to call for further instructions. This is problematic for someone in China. Also, when the unit leaders login they report that the unit name is wrong (name changed three years ago). What would it take to truly make it an online endorsement process, even for remote units?

[borenmt]

Looks like new applicants need a bishop and stake interview. For continuing students, there is only a place for the bishop's endorsement... so it looks like there is no stake interview for continuing students. Anyone confirm?