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PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System To Track Church Members & Visitors And Print Reports And Mailing Labels A Shareware Product Of And Copyright 1990 By PRO DEV Software 545 Grover Road Muskegon, MI 49442 616-788-2243 M-F 8:00-5:00 USA Eastern Time _______ ____|__ | (tm) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 For PC Or MS-DOS A PRODUCT OF PRO DEV Software 545 Grover Road Muskegon, MI 49442 Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of PRO DEV Software. This is user supported Shareware software and copies are encouraged. Copyright 1990 by PRO DEV Software If you have a "Free" copy, are using it beyond the evaluation stage and are feeling "guilty", PRO DEV Software stands ready to "Forgive You" by accepting your Registration Fee of $25.00 plus $5.00 Shipping and Handling (for each copy in use) at the above address. LIMITED WARRANTY PRO DEV Software shall have no liability or responsibility to the purchaser or to any other person or entity with respect to any liability, loss or damage caused by this product, including but not limited to any interruption of service, loss of business or anticipatory profits or consequential damages resulting from the use of this product. Only the original disks supplied by PRO DEV Software will be exchanged within six months from the date of purchase if defective in manufacture, labeling, or packaging, but except for such replacement the sale or subsequent use of this series of programs is without warranty or liability. The above is a limited warranty and the only warranty made by PRO DEV Software. Any and all warranties for merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose are expressly excluded. "IBM PC" and "PC-DOS" are registered trademarks of the IBM Corp. and "MS-DOS" is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corp. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS PDS*MEMBER requires 512K of RAM (with little memory resident software), MS-DOS or PC-DOS, a hard disk drive and a printer. Page i Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Table Of Contents Forward ................................................ i 1. Introduction ......................................... 1-1 1.1 How to Use This Manual .......................... 1-1 2. Installation Instructions ............................ 2-1 The CONFIG.SYS File .............................. 2-1 Required Files ................................... 2-1 2.1 Two Floppy Disk Computer ......................... 2-2 2.2 One Floppy Disk Computer ......................... 2-2 2.3 Hard Disk Computer ............................... 2-3 2.4 First Time Program Set-Up Options ................ 2-4 Color/Monochrome Monitor ......................... 2-4 Data And Quote File Drive ........................ 2-4 .PRN File Drive & Path ........................... 2-4 Printer Action Table ............................. 2-5 Your Church Name And State ....................... 2-5 Change Field Titles .............................. 2-6 3. Creating a Member/Visitor Master ..................... 3-1 Member/Visitor ................................... 3-1 Spouse ........................................... 3-4 Children ......................................... 3-4 4. Modifying Or Deleting Member/Visitor Masters ......... 4-1 Modify One Record At A Time ...................... 4-1 Browse/Modify Records ............................ 4-3 5. Mailing Labels And Reports ........................... 5-1 Printing Options ................................. 5-1 Printing Labels .................................. 5-3 Printing Reports ................................. 5-4 6. Printing All Of The Member And Child Notes............ 6-1 7. Searching For And Printing Selected Notes ............ 7-1 8. What To Put In Your Member & Child Notes ............. 8-1 9. Pack, Reindex, Empty & Upgrade Data Base Files ....... 9-1 10. Giving Records ...................................... 10-1 11. Post Attendance ..................................... 11-1 12. Helpful Hints And Tricks ............................ 12-1 Page ii Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Table Of Contents (Continued) 13. Backing Up Your Data ................................ 13-1 Appendix A - Make Your Own Printer Action Table .......... A-1 Appendix B - Sample Talent List .......................... B-1 Appendix C - The DOS Environment Table ................... C-1 Screen Snow Elimination .................... C-2 Change Program Colors ....................... C-3 Change Date Format To Non-USA ............... C-5 Change Default Giving Day ................... C-5 Change Help Screens & Status Codes .......... C-6 INDEX .................................................... I-1 PRO DEV Software extends its Thanks! to Vernon Buerg for his allowing the use of his LIST.COM program on the PDS*MEMBER disk. Thanks! also to Michael E. Devore of Devore Software & Consulting for use of the Provl Professional Overlay Manager that allowed all of the PDS*MEMBER features to operate in the standard DOS amount of memory. With this Overlay Manager, only a portion of the program is in memory at any time. A SPECIAL Thanks!! to all of the PDS*MEMBER registered users and Beta Testers that have asked for a terrific list of features and have helped PDS*MEMBER continue to grow. Please do not hesitate to call PRO DEV Software both BEFORE and AFTER registering. If you have not yet decided to register as you wish/need additional features, I may already have added them as you may be evaluating an older copy of the system. These calls often cause me to add new features. I am usually in my office between 8:00 - 5:00 (Eastern USA time), Monday through Friday. iii Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 1.0 Introduction The PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System is designed to allow you to quickly and easily add and modify Members, Spouses, Children and Visitors to your Membership data files. You can track all talents and accomplishments. You can easily print a variety of Mailing Labels and Reports to help manage your church. If you are the Church Secretary, make sure the Pastor(s) understand the various fields on the member record screens and how reports are filtered by how certain fields are used. 1.1 How To Use This Manual First, read Section 2 on the next page, and follow the Installation Instructions. After glancing through the manual, BE SURE THAT YOU READ AND FOLLOW SECTION 3 ON LOADING THE MEMBERSHIP DATA BASE MASTERS. Section 4 will show you how to print the labels and reports. Sections 6, 7 and 8 will show you how to track almost any information on the people in your data files. Section 10 will be VERY IMPORTANT to your Treasurer. PLEASE NOTE - As you are building the Member/Visitor records, you MUST fill in the "Date Joined" to indicate to this system that the person is a member of your church. If you are not sure of the date, I suggest that you use 01/01/1999 so that the system will realize the person is a member. "Joined" may be changed to "Confirmed" or some other term by the "Change Field Titles" selection in the Tools Menu. This will be covered in Section 2. If the date is BLANK (" / / ") the system assumes the person is NOT a member of your church. If you wish to blank a date, locate the cursor at the beginning of the date field and press Ctrl/Y (while holding down the Ctrl key, tap the Y key). BE SURE you look at the bottom of the screen if you don't know what to do next. The messages there usually tell you all of the options available at any time. WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS - PRESS F1 FOR HELP! LASTLY - If you are new to personal computers, be sure you have a CONFIG.SYS file on your Boot-Up disk or hard drive. The MEMBER.EXE program will crash without following the instructions that are on Page 2-1. Page 1 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 2.0 Installation Instructions The CONFIG.SYS File IF THE MEMBER PROGRAM CRASHES with a "file open error" at the top of the screen when you try to Create, Modify or Print Labels or Reports, you will need to "re-boot" the computer with a CONFIG.SYS file as described below. It will contain information that tells the PC that there will be more than 3 files open at the same time. To create the CONFIG.SYS file, type the following: COPY CON:CONFIG.SYS FILES=20 BUFFERS=10 depress F6 depress Enter If you have a hard disk system, the CONFIG.SYS file MUST be in the root directory. If you boot-up with a disk in drive 'A:', you MUST have this file on ALL possible boot-up disks. Files That Must Be Present Please note that the PDS*MEMBER floppy disks or the hard disk sub-directory must contain the following files: Program Disk Data Files Disk MEMBER.EXE MEMBER.DBF MEMBER.MEM MEMBER.DBT *.PAT (Printer Files) CHILD.DBF COMMAND.COM CHILD.DBF WEEKGIVE.DBF GIVING.DBF SCRLIST.DBF BIRTHDAY.DBF HELP.DBF HELP.DBT ATTEND.DBF *.NDX (index files) The MEMBER.MEM and the *.NDX iNDeX files are created on the Data Files disk by the MEMBER.EXE program. The HELP.NDX file is also created by the MEMBER.EXE program, but is located on the Program Disk. You should have copied COMMAND.COM from your DOS disk to the Working PDS*MEMBER Program Disk as DOS will need to reload it to use the "Access DOS" Sub-Menu and may need to reload it after ending the MEMBER program. A hard disk system should have the files from BOTH columns in the C:\MEMBER sub-directory. Page 2 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 2.0 Installation Instructions (Continued) 2.1 Setting Up With Two Floppy Disk Drives *** WARNING *** It is almost IMPOSSIBLE to run this system with the older low capacity 360,000 byte (360k) floppy disks. The MEMBER.EXE program and COMMAND.COM exceed the capacity of a 360k disk. Further, the data files will soon exceed the capacity of a 360k floppy disk. If you have 720k, 1.2m or 1.44m disks, you should be able to operate without a hard disk. You will need to watch the data disk capacity, particularly if you post Giving and Attendance records. Using your DOS Master (containing FORMAT.COM), in drive A: (left or top drive) and fresh disks in drive B: (right or lower drive), format three (3) disks. Label the first disk as "Working MEMBER Program Disk", the second disk as "MEMBER Data Files Disk" and the third disk "PDS*MEMBER Documentation Disk". Format by typing the following: FORMAT B: (Enter) Before removing your DOS disk from drive A:, place the "PDS*MEMBER Working Program Disk" in drive B: and type COPY A:COMMAND.COM B: (Enter). It is very important that you have COMMAND.COM on the "PDS*MEMBER Working Program Disk" to be able to use several of the features in the MEMBER.EXE program. After formatting and labeling the (3) disks, place the original PDS*MEMBER System Shareware disk in drive A: and type INSTALL B: (Enter). BE SURE to include the colon (:) after the drive letter. This will run the INSTALL program that will instruct you to insert each of the (3) formatted disks in drive B: and then it will copy the proper files to each of the (3) disks. To run the PDS*MEMBER system, boot-up with your DOS disk, insert the "PDS*MEMBER Working Program Disk" in drive A:, your "PDS*MEMBER Data Files Disk" in drive B: and type MEMBER (Enter). 2.2 PC with one floppy disk drive. Due to the disk capacity limitations, you will NOT be able to operate the PDS*MEMBER system. You will need at least a second floppy disk drive (with the limitations above) or a hard disk. Page 2 - 2 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 2.0 Installation Instructions (continued) 2.3 Personal Computer With Hard Disk Drive. Insert the PDS*MEMBER disk in drive A: and type . . . INSTALL C: (Enter) . . . or whatever hard disk drive letter you desire if you have partitioned a large hard disk into more than one disk drive. BE SURE to include the colon (:) after the drive letter. This will run the INSTALL program that will create the C:\MEMBER sub-directory and copy (and unSCRNCH) all of the necessary files to the C:\MEMBER sub-directory (or whatever drive letter you type). To run the PDS*MEMBER system from the hard disk, type the drive letter of the hard disk followed by a colon. For example "C:". You should see the hard disk prompt (such as "C>"). Then, type: CD\MEMBER (Enter) MEMBER (Enter) Better yet, use Magee Enterprises AUTOMENU (Shareware) Menu System to run this program on your hard disk. Page 2 - 3 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 2.0 Installation Instructions (Continued) 2.4 First Time Program Set-Up Options The first time that you run the MEMBER.EXE program, the MEMBER.MEM file should not be on the "Working Program Disk" or your hard disk so the program will ask you for the program Set-Up defaults. Highlight the "Set-Up" Main Menu and the Sub-Menus with the cursor arrow keys and press Enter. You should see the following . . . +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +-------------------------+ \ | Monitor (Color/Mono) | | | Data Base File Drive | | | .PRN File Drive & Path | | <-- highlight | Printer Action Table | | and press | Establish Church Name | | Enter | Change Field Titles | | | Save New Set-Ups | | +-------------------------+ / Color/Monochrome Monitor Highlight the "Monitor (Color/Mono)" Sub-Menu and press Enter. Type a C for a color monitor or an M if you have a monochrome (non-color) monitor. Highlight "Save New Set-Ups" and press Enter to add this to the MEMBER.MEM file. Data Base File Drive Highlight the "Data Base File Drive" Sub-Menu and press Enter. Type the drive letter for where your "Data Files Disk" will be located. If you have a 2 floppy drive system, type B. If you have a single drive system, type A. If you have a hard disk, type C. .PRN File Drive & Path When you print any of the reports, you can elect to "print" to a disk file. This disk file report can be loaded into your word processor if your word processor can import ASCII files. If you have a hard disk you may wish to write these files directly to your word processor document files drive and sub-directory (path). Or you may wish to "print" to a disk in your B: drive. Page 2 - 4 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 2.0 Installation Instructions (Continued) 2.4 First Time Program Set-Up Options (Continued) .PRN File Drive & Path (Continued) For example, if your word processor document files are in the WP sub-directory on your C: drive, type C:\WP\ (Enter). If you wish to "print" the files to your B: drive, type B:\ (Enter). BE SURE you enter a valid drive and path (sub-directory) or the MEMBER.EXE program will CRASH! Printer Action Table Highlight the "Printer Action Table" Sub-Menu and press Enter. Using the cursor arrow keys, highlight the name of your printer. If you do not see the name of your printer and have a dot matrix printer, start with the EPSONFX file. Appendix A will describe how you can create your own Printer Action Table file if you have a printer not shown. Highlight "Save New Set-Ups" and press Enter to add this to the MEMBER.MEM file. The DUMBPRTR file is just that. Specifying this file will not send any codes to your printer to turn on Near Letter Quality printing (NLQ). You can get good results on most laser or Daisy Wheel printers with this file if the default setting for your printer is 10 characters per inch (Pica) printing. If you are using a laser printer that has Hewlett-Packard emulation, use the HPLASER.PAT file so that the Zone list can be printed with compressed print. Establish Church Name Highlight this Sub-Menu and press Enter. Type the name of your church. This will appear at the top of many reports. Although the screen field is only 35 characters wide, you can type up to 50 characters for your church name as the field will scroll. When you press Enter, you can type in the name or 2 letter abbreviation for your State. This is so the Pictorial Directory will only print the State if it is different than your own. Page 2 - 5 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 2.0 Installation Instructions (Continued) 2.4 First Time Program Set-Up Options (Continued) Change Field Titles The PDS*MEMBER system was originally developed for my home church, with the reporting requirements for that church. However, your church may have different needs, names and activities. Thus, the system allows you to change the names of 9 of the field titles. Highlight "Change Field Titles" and you will see the following screen. +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +------------ Add New Member Data Base Master ------------+ | | | Last Name First Name Zone Birth | | [Baptized] | | Address 1 Address 2 [Joined] | | | |[City] [State] [ZIP] Status Visited | | Home Phone Work Phone | |[Flier List] [POP List][Sunday School List] Env. # M/F | | [POP Giving] | +---------- Married ------------- Spouse Information ----+ | | | 1st Name M/F Birth [Joined] | | Spouse's Phone Baptized Anniversary | +----------------------- Record 1 -----------------------+ On the above screen, you will see 9 field names highlighted; "City", State" ZIP Code", "Baptized", "Joined", "Flier List", "POP List","POP Giving", "Sunday School List", and the "Joined" field in the Spouse portion of the screen. Since I can't print inverse video on this printed page, I placed [] brackets around the above 10 field titles. The blinking cursor will be located at the beginning of the "Joined" field name. AT THIS TIME, PRESS THE "Ins" KEY to place you into the insert mode. This is because, when you change the field title, you will want to push it to the right side of the inverse video window with leading spaces. This will improve the appearance of the Add and Modify screens by placing the title over against the actual field window. Page 2 -6 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 2.0 Installation Instructions (Continued) 2.4 First Time Program Set-Up Options (Continued) Change Field Titles (Continued) Over type the present title or press Enter to leave as is. If you over type a new title, and you are finished typing it, use the left arrow key to move the cursor back to the beginning of the title. Assuming that you are in the Insert mode (as described above), press the space bar to move the title to the right of the inverse video window. Then, press Enter. If your title fills the window, you don't need to insert leading blanks. The USA uses City, State and ZIP Code. Your country may use Town, County/Provence, and Postal Code. My church used "Joined" where your church may use the term "Confirmed". My church uses "Flier List" to indicate those that are to receive the monthly newsletter. You may wish to call it "Mail List". My church has a Program Of Progress that is essentially a building improvement fund. Although this title is short, you may want to call it "Bld Fund" or "Mem List" for a Memorial Fund list. When you get to Section 7 on Giving Statements, you will find that giving is tracked under 3 categories (General, POP Giving and Other). The title on the Post Giving screen and on the Statement could be changed from POP Giving to "Bldg Fund" or "Mem. Fund". The Sunday School list is used by my church to send letters or newsletters to the parents of Sunday School attendees. You may want to call it "Bus List" for those that should be picked up by the Bus each Sunday morning (children and/or adults). Hopefully, by now, you can see that I have put a lot of power at your finger tips on how to adapt my Shareware Membership system to the needs of your church. After you have established all of the Set-Up values, be sure that you highlight "Save New Set-Ups" and press Enter. Page 2 - 7 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 3. Creating Member/Visitor Master This Section of the manual (and the MEMBER.EXE program) is for Creating or Adding NEW Data Base Master records. If you wish to Modify an existing record, use the "Modify" program menu and see Section 4 of this manual. Highlight the "Create Member Record" Sub-Menu and press Enter. You will see the following: +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +---------------+ | Member Record | <--- Highlight and press Enter | Giving Record | +---------------+ +------------ Add New Member Data Base Master ------------+ | | | Last Name First Name Zone Birth / / | | Baptized / / | | Address 1 Address 2 Joined / / | | | | City State ZIP Status Visited / / | | Home Phone Work Phone | | Flier List POP List Sunday School List Env. # M/F | | | +---------- Married ------------- Spouse Information ----+ | | | 1st Name M/F Birth / / Status Joined / / | | Spouse's Phone Baptized / / Anniversary / / | +----------------------- Record 1 -----------------------+ F1 = Help Press the PgDn key when you wish to create the next record. If you press F10 or PgDn on a blank record, you will be returned to the Main Menu. Fill in each of the fields (or windows). If you do not fill a field, press Enter to move to the next field. You can use the down arrow to move to the next field and you can use the up arrow to move back a field. After the last Spouse field, you will move to the first field on the screen (Last Name). Press PgDn to move to the next new record. The "Zone" is a designation for a geographical area around your church. You may have certain persons designated to call on certain zone(s). Don't forget that you can press the F1 key to get help on each field. Page 3 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 3. Creating Member/Visitor Master (Continued) If a person has officially joined your church, you MUST show a "Joined" date. Many reports trigger on if this field has a date or not to tell if a person is a member or not. The same is true of the "Joined" field in the Spouse's and Child's section of the screen. If you wish to blank a date, place the cursor at the beginning of the field and press Ctrl/Y (while holding down the Ctrl key tap the Y key). If you wish to call this something other than "Joined" be sure to read Page 2-6 to find out how to change the title of this field. In fact, you can quickly blank any field by placing the cursor at the beginning of the field and pressing Ctrl/Y. For the "Status" (Member, Spouse or Child) I have assigned the following "Getting Started" Status Codes: A = Active Member I = Inactive Member V = Visitor. Also fill in the "Visited" date. R = Regular non-Member attender (adherent) S = Shut-In Member M = Missionary. You may wish on certain label runs. F = Flier Only. These are people that are not members or visitors to whom you wish to send the monthly flier. An example would be the Pastor's parents who live in another city. The Status of F filters out these records from the Church Directory lists. You CAN assign ANY Status Code that you wish. Read Appendix C, Page C-6, to find out how YOU can modify the F1 Help screens to contain YOUR list of Status Code definitions. Many reports allow you to dynamically specify Status Code filters based on YOUR reporting needs. A "Y" in the Flier List field will cause this member's record to be used when printing the Flier Labels. These are labels for your monthly (or other time frame) newsletter or flier. Page 3 - 2 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 3. Creating Member/Visitor Master (Continued) A "Y" in the POP List field will cause this member record to be included on the POP label run. The term POP stands for "Program Of Progress". My home church uses this for an ongoing building fund program in addition to the normal weekly envelope giving. Again, Page 2-6 shows you how to change the screen name for this field. A "Y" in the Sunday School List field will cause this record to be included in the Sunday School List label run. See Page 2-6 to change the screen name for this field. The M/F field is used to indicate the gender of the person. F=Female and M=Male. If the wife is shown on the upper part of the screen because the husband is not a member and he is shown on the Spouse portion of the screen, it is VERY IMPORTANT to put an "F" in the upper part of the screen for the wife. On certain label runs and reports, you will be given the option to print the husband's name first, even though he is on the lower or Spouse part of the screen. Only if an "F" is in the M/F upper field, when the wife is on the upper part of the screen, will the names be optionally reversed when printed. Note that there is a similar M/F field on the lower or Spouse part of the screen. Please note the instructions at the bottom of the screen: F10 = Finished Creating New Records F2 = Create Notes. If you press F2, much of the screen will be replaced with a word processing window. Just type as much free form text as you wish. Note the instructions at the bottom of the screen. F3 = Print mailing label for just this record. You will be asked for the left margin and if you change it to about 35, you can insert an envelop in your printer and print the address in the center of the envelop. F4 = Print Rotary File Card for just this record. Be sure you have complete the record INCLUDING any Child records for this member. If you have Rotary Card stock in your printer, this will print a new card for you. Page 3 - 3 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 3. Creating Member/Visitor Master (Continued) F9 = Delete This Record. You will be asked to confirm the Deletion with a Y. The record is only marked for deletion. It is not physically removed from the data file until you select the "Tools" Main Menu, "Pack Data Files" Sub-Menu. F6 = Child Records. Press F6 to Add or Modify Child Records. The next page details the Child Record. When you wish to create or modify a Child Record, press F6 WHEN you have the Parents member record on the screen. All of the information about children are kept in records in the CHILD.DBF data base file. You will see a screen like the following: +----------------------- Child Record ---------------------+ | | | Child's Name M/F Birth / / Joined / / | | Last Name Baptized / / Envelope Num | | Status | | School District Graduation / / | +----------------------- Record 1 -----------------------+ The Spouse portion of the screen is replaced with the Child record. A new blank CHILD record is displayed. Use the Last Name field ONLY if the child's last name is different from the last name on the upper part of the screen. You can PgDn to add additional records. If you PgUp, you can review/modify any previously added children. If the child (children) HAS JOINED and live(s) with NON-Member adult(s), BE SURE to put "F" as the Status for the ADULT part of the record. This will cause JUST the child name(s) to be listed in the Directory reports. The NON-Member adult(s) will NOT be listed. To get the Flier labels to list one of the child names, rather than the NON-Member Adult(s), place the name of the oldest child as the first name on the Adult part of the record. If you wish to add a note for a child, Press F2 to access the word processor screen. When finished adding child records, press F10. Page 3 - 4 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 3. Creating Member/Visitor Master (Continued) You are probably asking, if the Child records are in a different data file, how do you tie them to the MEMBER.DBF file record for the parent(s)? The answer is that I have a hidden field called Master Number in each MEMBER record and in each CHILD record. When a new MEMBER record is created, the program reads the last MEMBER record to find out the last Master Number used. The program adds one to this number, places it in the Master Number field. When a CHILD record is added, the Master Number from the parent record is used for the hidden Master Number field in the CHILD record. This way, I can easily relate the records in the two files. Page 3 - 5 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 4.0 Modifying Or Deleting Member/Visitor Masters The program options described in this section are for modifying EXISTING Member/Visitor or Child data base records. You desire to change one of the data values (or fields) in an existing record. If you wish to ADD NEW records of this type, that are not yet in the data base files, use the "Create" Main Menu options and see Section 3 of this manual. Highlight the "Modify" Main Menu and the "Member Record" Sub-Menu and press Enter. You will see the following: +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +----------------+ | Member Record | <--- Highlight and press Enter | Browse Members | | Giving Records | +----------------+ +------------- Modify Member Data Base Master ------------+ | | | Last Name First Name Zone Birth / / | | Baptized / / | | Address 1 Address 2 Joined / / | | | | City State ZIP Status Visited / / | | Home Phone Work Phone | | Flier List POP List Sunday School List Env. # M/F | | | +---------- Married ------------- Spouse Information ----+ | | | 1st Name M/F Birth / / Status Joined / / | | Spouse's Phone Baptized / / Anniversary / / | +----------------------- Record 1 -----------------------+ At first, you will just see the Last Name field. Enter the last name. Upper or Lower case is NOT important. In fact, if you are not sure of the spelling, just enter several letters of the Last Name. When you press Enter, the nearest matching record will be found. You can PgUp or PgDn to nearby records. Any changes you make on any of the records will be saved. If you wish to move a great many records, it is easier to press F10 or Esc and enter the new (or partial) Last Name. Press F10 or Esc when done modifying records. Page 4 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 4.0 Modifying Or Deleting Member/Visitor Masters (Continued) Please note the instructions at the bottom of the screen: F10 = Finished Modifying Records F2 = Create Notes. If you press F2, much of the screen will be replaced with a word processing window. Just type as much free form text as you wish. Note the instructions at the bottom of the screen. If you already have notes, you can type new notes, press Ins to insert notes and use the Del key to delete characters. If you place the cursor at the beginning of a line, you can delete the entire line with Ctrl/Y. F3 = Print mailing label for just this record. You will be asked for the left margin and if you change it to about 35, you can insert an envelop in your printer and print the address in the center of the envelop. F4 = Print Rotary File Card for just this record. Be sure you have complete the record INCLUDING any Child records for this member. If you have Rotary Card stock in your printer, this will print a new card for you. F6 = Child Records. Press F6 to Add or Modify Child Records. When you press F6 while on the Parent record, a new blank record will be displayed to add a new child. PgUp to view/modify existing child records for that Parent record. Press Esc or F10 to return to the Parent portion of the screen. F7 = Attendance. Press F7 to show an on-screen attendance report for all adults and children associated with this Member record. F9 = Delete This Record. You will be asked to confirm the Deletion with a Y. The record is only marked for deletion. It is not physically removed from the data file until you select the "Tools" Main Menu, "Pack Data Files" Sub-Menu. Page 4 - 2 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 4.0 Modifying Or Deleting Member/Visitor Masters (Continued) BROWSING RECORDS An interesting way of looking at or modifying the records is with the Browse option. +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +----------------+ | Member Record | | Browse Members | <--- Highlight and press Enter | Giving Records | | Attendance | +----------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------+ | Last Name First Name Gender Address1 | |========================================================= | | Abbott |George |M |545 Grover Road | | Anderson |Bill |M |123 Main Street | | Boop |Betty |F |321 Jones | | Brown |John (Red) |M |1 Astor Square | | Cat |Garfield |? |12 John's Lane | | Regan |Ronnie |M |142253 Somewhere | | Zebra |Stripes |? |Cage 12 | +--|Abbott, George & Jan|------Record 1 -------------------+ If the record is marked for Deletion the word ** Deleted ** will appear to the right of the record number. Note the instructions at the bottom of the screen: Ctrl/PgDn = Moves you to the last record (sorted by Last Name) in your Member/Visitor data base. Ctrl/PgUp = Moves you to the first record. Note that the first record may be Empty and Deleted. This is because when you are adding new records and press F10 on the next blank record, that record is marked for deletion so it can be used the next time you add new records. Since the Last Name is blank, it indexes to the top of the list. Ctrl/Right Arrow = Pan Right one field. Ctrl/Left Arrow = Pan Left one field. 4 - 3 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 4.0 Modifying Or Deleting Member/Visitor Masters (Continued) BROWSING RECORDS (Continued) Right Arrow = Move right one field without scrolling the screen to the right unless you are at the right of the screen. Left Arrow = Move left one field without scrolling the screen sideways unless you are at the left of the screen. Ctrl/End = Jump to the last field (Notes). Ctrl/Home = Jump to the first field. Note that this is the Master Number used to relate Parent and Child records. You are NOT able to modify this field. If you did, the relation between Parent and Child records would be lost. Don't let your dBASE guru play with this field with dBASE III Plus or dBASE IV. Esc = Done Browsing. Enter = Modify the current field. Thus, if you wish to modify a record, highlight the desired field and press enter. You will see the cursor start blinking on the field. When you fill the field or press Enter, the cursor will stop blinking and you can move to the next record or field. F3 = Print mailing label for just this record. You will be asked for the left margin and if you change it to about 35, you can insert an envelop in your printer and print the address in the center of the envelop. F4 = Print Rotary File Card for just this record. Be sure you have complete the record INCLUDING any Child records for this member. If you have Rotary Card stock in your printer, this will print a new card for you. F6 = Child Records. You will notice that when a Member record has associated Child records, a window pops up at the top of the screen showing the children. You can modify those child records by pressing F6. When you are finished modifying the child records, press Esc or F6 to return to the lower part of he screen. Page 4 - 4 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 4.0 Modifying Or Deleting Member/Visitor Masters (Continued) DANGER! - While working on the Child records, DO NOT press the Down Arrow past the bottom of the Child Window. If you do, the program may take some time to search all of the Child records to see if there are any more matching that Member record. Eventually, you will se a "Bottom Of File" message displayed. You haven't done any damage, it just causes an anoying delay. I will attempt to get rid of this delay in a future release. F7 = Attendance. Press F7 to show an on-screen attendance report for all adults and children associated with this Member record. F8 = Move To New Position. Press F8 and type at least part of the next Last Name you wish to view and press Enter. The screen will jump to that location. F9 = Delete Record. Pressing F9 will mark the record for deletion. It will be physically removed when you use the Tools Menu "Pack Data Files" Sub-Menu. The word "Deleted" will appear at the lower right corner of the screen while you are on a record marked for deletion. Another F9 will un-mark the record for deletion. Page 4 - 5 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 5.0 Reports And Mailing Labels Printing Options All Label runs and Reports will give you several printing options. The following describes most of the options that apply to almost all of the Label runs and Reports. Left Margin All Label runs and Reports allow you to set the left margin. For some reason, you may wish to increase the left margin for the way you set the tractor pins on your printer. You may have to experiment with various label stock positions and left margin settings. Most people will adjust the label stock so that printing starts right next to the left side of the paper with a zero left margin. For reports, you will usually just center the paper in your printer. If you have a wide carriage printer, the paper will be adjusted to the left. Care should be used when setting a margin with reports that almost fill the 80 columns, as your printer may wrap a long line to the next line and the report paging will be messed up. If you do adjust the left margin, you can highlight the "Save Setups" Sub-Menu and press Enter to save a new default margin value. P/S/D Another common option is "Printer/Screen/Disk". Select "P" to print to the printer. If you want to just view the labels or report without printing, use "S". The labels will be "printed" to a temporary disk file and then be loaded into the SCRLIST.DBF file and viewed on the screen. If you want to "print" the labels or report to a disk file for use in another program, select "D". This is useful when you wish to create a Mail-Merge address file for your word processor or load a report into your word processor. In fact, if you enter your word processor sub-directory name in the ".PRN File Drive & Path", the labels will be "printed" directly to a disk file in your word processing sub-directory. Refer to your word processor instructions for how to merge print form letters with personalized names and addresses. Page 5 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 5.0 Reports And Mailing Labels (Continued) Printing Options (Continued) Husband First For some Label Runs and Reports, you may want the husband's name printed first. However, there may be records where the husband has not joined the church and is shown at the bottom (Spouse) part of the screen for that record. The wife has joined and is shown at the top of the screen for that record. The only way that the program knows that the wife is on the top of the screen is IF an "F" is in the top M/F field for that record. Thus, if you answer "Y" to have the husband printed first, you had better have "F" in the top M/F field for all records where the wife is shown on the top part of the screen. ZIP/Name Sort If you are printing labels used for a mailing, you should specify the ZIP Code sort with "Z". You may be getting a U.S. Postal Service discount by pre- sorting by ZIP Code. If you wish to sort by Last Name, press "N". Status Codes Many of the reports and label runs ask . . . "Status Codes To Print (Enter=All)" You can type in up to 30 Status Codes. As the Member records are scanned for the report, it will be printed if the Status Code on that record matches one of the codes that you request. The Status Codes that you enter can be saved with "Save New Setups" so that they will be displayed as the default codes next time you run the program. If you want all codes printed, blank out all codes. If you press Ctrl/Y, all codes will be blanked. Be sure to read Appendix C, Page C-6 to find out how to edit your help screens to add any Status Code that you wish to use. This way, you have FULL control over your data and how it is printed. Page 5 - 2 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 5.0 Reports And Mailing Labels (Continued) Printing Options (Continued) Top-To-Top Lines You are probably using 3 1/2 inch by 15/16 inch label stock. This type of stock has a 1/16 inch gap between labels for a Top-To-Top spacing of 1 inch. If your printer prints the standard 6 lines to the inch, specify "6". If you are using some other type of label stock, you can adjust the Top-To-Top spacing to more or less lines. If you highlight "Save Defaults" and press enter, a new Top-To-Top spacing will be saved as the program default. There are 2 commonly used sizes for Rotary Card File cards; 2 1/6" x 4" or 3" x 5". The smaller card has 13 lines (6 lines per inch) and the larger card has 18 lines. 5.1 Printing Labels Highlight the "Report" Main Menu and the "Print Labels" Sub-Menu with the cursor arrow keys and press Enter. You should see . . . +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +---------------+ | Print Labels | <-- Highlight & press Enter | Print Reports | | Member Notes | | Attendance | +---------------+ This will display the second Sub-Menu to select the type of labels to be printed. +---------------+ | Print Labels | +----------------------+ | Print Reports +---+ Flier Labels | | Member Notes | | POP Labels | | Attendance | | Sunday School Labels | +---------------+ | Offering Envelops | | Rotary File Cards | Highlight & press Enter--> | Special Report | +----------------------+ Page 5 - 3 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 5.0 Reports And Mailing Labels (Continued) 5.1 Printing Labels (Continued) At this point you will see an option box where you can select various printing options discussed above. Press F10 to start printing. Special Report This option allows you to print a set of labels (or report if you use regular paper) on any ONE Status Code. 5.2 Printing Reports Highlight the "Report" Main Menu and the "Print Reports" Sub-Menu with the cursor arrow keys and press Enter. You should see . . . +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +---------------+ | Print Labels | | Print Reports | <-- Highlight & press Enter | Member Notes | | Attendance | +---------------+ This will display the second Sub-Menu to select the report to be printed. +---------------+ +--------------------+ | Print Labels |---+ Zone Report | | Print Reports + | Directory Report | | Member Notes | | Picture directory | +---------------+ | Data Base Dump | | Visitor Report | | Birthday Report | Highlight & press Enter--> | Joined Report | | Baptized Report | | Anniversary Report | | School Report | | Giving Statements | +--------------------+ At this point you will see an option box where you can select various printing options discussed above. Press F10 to start printing. Page 5 - 4 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 5.0 Reports And Mailing Labels (Continued) 5.2 Printing Reports (Continued) 5.2.1 Zone Report My home church divided the surrounding geographical area in to about 10 zones. Various people are designated to call on people in one or more zones. Thus, you can print a report that page heads each time a new zone is reached in the report. There may be people in the data base that are outside of the established zones. If you do not want to print the records with no zone, answer "Y" to the "Suppress No-Zone" question. 5.2.2 Directory Report Each year, you may publish a listing of names, addresses and telephone numbers. This is a fairly simple report compared to a Pictorial Directory that may be prepared every 5 or 10 years. This report prints a narrow page that will allow you to print 2 pages per sheet of 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper turned sideways. You first print on regular paper, and then cut and paste to assemble the final copy. In addition to answering the option questions, be aware that a record with a Status=F will not be reported. 5.2.3 Pictorial Directory This is the listing that is used when you have a Pictorial Directory company arrange to photograph the members and families and publish a rather slick directory. Usually, this is done only every 5 or so years. In addition to the other options, you can select to print a Multi-Line (M) listing or a Single Line (S) listing. These are the 2 main types of formats used by many Pictorial Directory companies. Try each listing for a page or two (press Esc to cancel) to see the difference. Page 5 - 5 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 5.0 Reports And Mailing Labels (Continued) 5.2 Printing Reports (Continued) 5.2.3 Pictorial Directory (Continued The directory company my home church uses, takes the printed output from us and scans it with an optical scanner. I called them and said that I could "print" the list to a disk file and send them the disk. They thought this was fantastic as their scanner is only about 80% accurate and they have to do a lot of manual editing. Thus, check with your directory company to see if you can send them a disk file (Print To Disk) of the IBM or MS-DOS format (IBM-DOS a trade mark of IBM and MS-DOS a trade mark of Microsoft). If they can't, you may wish to find another directory company and have a more accurate directory with less work. 5.2.4 Data Base Dump This report will be used by your Church Secretary and Pastor(s) to get a listing of the data base for editing purposes. Everything is listed with no filtering. 5.2.5 Visitor Report This report can be used by your calling persons to contact those that have visited your church. 5.2.6 Birthday Report This report will list by the Birthday. Members, Spouses and Children will all be included. 5.2.7 Joined Report This report will list by the Joined Date. Members, Spouses and Children will all be included. If you have changed the field title for "Joined" the report and sub-menu titles will also change. Page 5 - 6 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 5.0 Reports And Mailing Labels (Continued) 5.2 Printing Reports (Continued) 5.2.8 Baptized Report This report will list by the Baptism date. Members, Spouses and Children will all be included. 5.2.9 Anniversary Report My church Secretary really likes this report. Each month, she sends an Anniversary card to all couples that were married in that month. When you highlight this selection and press Enter, you will be asked if you want the report sorted by month rather than by the full date. If you answer "Y", all January dates will be listed, then all February dates next, etc. If you answer "Y" to the above question, you will be asked if you want just one month. If you press Enter without entering a month number, you will get a full years report. However, it is better to just print one month at a time. Thus, new additions will show that may not be on the once-a-year report. Enter 6 for June, 8 for August, etc. 5.2.10 School Report You are able to create a report sorted by Name, School District or Graduation Date. For a Child Record to appear in this report, you MUST have filled in both the School District and High School Graduation Date fields on the Child records. If a child has joined the church (been confirmed, etc.) and you have changed the child to a regular adult member record, that person will no longer appear on this report. 5.2.11 Attendance Report The Week Ending Date is very important. It controls the day of week attendance records that will be printed. If you enter a Sunday date, only Sunday attendance will be reported. If you enter a Wednesday date, only Wednesday records will be scanned. Press Ctrl/F1 to Pop-Up the Calendar if you are not sure of the desired date for the day you wish to report. Page 5 - 7 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 5.0 Reports And Mailing Labels (Continued) 5.2 Printing Reports (Continued) 5.2.11 Attendance Report (Continued) The program dynamically calculates the column headings and places the requested date on the far right of the page. A total of 52 weeks will be shown on the page with an "X" indicating attendance and a "-" for no attendance for that day. You can graphically spot patterns. The person's Status Code is printed at the far right. If you spot Members or Regular Attendars that have 3 or 4 dashes at the right, you may wish to have someone call them. If you see a V, particularily for several weeks, you will want to call on them. You can elect to print Attendance on A=Adults, C=Children or B=Both. You can filter by one of the 3 Service Types or A=All services will be reported for the selected day of the week. This is a very powerful report. Please let me know additional features that you need so that this report can grow. The printing of STATEMENTS is covered in Section 10.7. If you need a report not listed, contact Pro Dev Software. I may add the report to the PDS*MEMBER system and send you a free upgrade. Please submit a written request with a marked up report or a detailed sketch of how the desired report should look. Include all desired filter options so I don't have to second guess your desires. If I don't want to add the report to the PDS*MEMBER software, I will let you know your cost if you desire me to add it to a custom version for you. Page 5 - 8 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 6. Printing All Of The Member And Child Notes Highlight the "Member Notes" Sub-Menu and press Enter. Then, Highlight "Report All Notes" and press Enter. You will see the following: +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +---------------+ | Print Labels | +-------------------+ | Print Reports | | Report All Notes | | Member Notes +----+ By Search Word(s) | | Attendance | +-------------------+ +---------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Left Margin 0 Only Rec With Notes N Adult/Child/Both A | | | | Printer/Screen/Disk P | | | +----------------------------------------------------------+ You can adjust the printed Left Margin by typing the number of spaces desired at the left of the page. Don't exceed 5. If you wish to skip all Member and/or Child record that have no Notes, answer Y to the "Only Records With Notes". If you wish to also print the Member names for those with no Notes, press N. Press A to print Notes for only Member records, C for only Child Notes or B for Both Member and Child Notes. The last option is "Printer/Screen/Disk". Select "P" to print to the printer. If you want to just view the report without printing, use "S". The report will be "printed" to a temporary disk file and then be loaded into the SCRLIST.DBF file and viewed on the screen. If you want to "print" the report to a disk file for use in another program, select "D". This is useful when you wish to load a report into your word processor. In fact, if you enter your word processor sub-directory name in the ".PRN File Drive & Path", the report will be "printed" directly to a disk file in your word processing sub-directory. Refer to your word processor instructions for how to merge ASCII files into a word processing document. Press F10 to start printing. Page 6 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 7. Searching For And Printing Selected Notes Highlight the "Member Notes" Sub-Menu and press Enter. Highlight "By Search Word(s)" and press Enter. You will see the following: +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +---------------+ | Print Labels | +-------------------+ | Print Reports | | Report All Notes | | Member Notes +----+ By Search Word(s) | | Attendance | +-------------------+ +---------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Enter search words [ ] | | | | Left Margin 0 Verify Before Print N Adult/Child/Both A | | | | Printer/Screen/Disk P | | | +----------------------------------------------------------+ Type in the desired Search Word or Words and press Enter. You can adjust the printed Left Margin by typing the number of spaces desired at the left of the page. Don't exceed 5. If you wish to view any notes that contain the search words, press Y to verify. Each time a set of Notes is located that contains the search word(s), the Notes will pop up on the screen. If the Notes are larger than the screen window, you can PgDn and PgUp to view all of the Notes. When you are satisfied that you wish to print those Notes, you will press Esc to close the window and will be prompted to press Y to print those Notes. If you don't want to bother verifying each match, press N for the "Verify Before Print" question. Press A to print Notes for only Member records, C for only Child Notes or B for Both Member and Child Notes. The last option is "Printer/Screen/Disk". Select "P" to print to the printer. If you want to just view the report without printing, use "S". The report will be "printed" to a temporary disk file and then be loaded into the SCRLIST.DBF file and viewed on the screen. Page 7 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 7. Searching For And Printing Selected Notes (Continued) If you want to "print" the report to a disk file for use in another program, select "D". This is useful when you wish to load a report into your word processor. In fact, if you enter your word processor sub-directory name in the ".PRN File Drive & Path", the report will be "printed" directly to a disk file in your word processing sub-directory. Refer to your word processor instructions for how to merge ASCII files into a word processing document. Press F10 to start printing. IF you typed MORE than one (1) Search Word, you will be asked if the records to be printed MUST contain A=All of the words or S=Single word to print. The S option will print if ANY of the search words are found in a Note. If you answer A for All Words Required, you will be asked "Must ALL words be on the SAME Note text line"? If you are looking for all 1st Service Ushers, answer Y. This assumes that you will be searching for the words "usher 1st". There may be other talents that have "1st" that you want to ignore. You are just looking for "usher 1st" where BOTH words MUST be on the same line to qualify for a match. You can type PART of a word. You can type all lower case, all UPPER case or a mixture when entering the search words. Internally, the program converts the search word(s) to upper case and temporarily converts the Notes text to upper case for the word match test. The actual text in the data file is NOT converted to upper case. To make meaningful searches, you must have "meaningful" data in your Notes. Section 5 will give you tips on how to enter your Member and Child Notes so that you can answer many questions with this program. You will find that you can track much more information than just Talents. Page 7 - 2 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 8. What To Put In Your Member & Child Notes To create notes for the PDS*MEMBER records, you run the MEMBER.EXE program (you must have the PDS*MEMBER Shareware system), and highlight "Modify Member Record" and press Enter. +------------------------------------------------------------ | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER Ve +------------------------------------------------------------ +----------------+ | Member Record | <--- Highlight & Press Enter | Browse Members | | Giving Records | +----------------+ Type in at least part of the members name and press Enter. If the correct record is not on the screen, PgDn or PgUp to the correct record. If you wish to Add/Modify Notes for that Member record, press F2. If you wish to Add/Modify Notes for one of the Member's Children, Press F6. Then press PgUp to view the first Child record for that Member. If you want a different Child record, press PgDn until the desired Child record is on the screen. Then, press F2 to Add/Modify Child Notes. In any event, you should see something like what you see for my record Notes . . . +----------------- Modify Member Data Base Master ----------+ | | | Last Name [Abbott ] First Name [George ] Zone [5] | | | +------------------------ Member Notes ---------------------+ | | | George | | Computer - Software, hardware, guru, teaching | | Usher - 1st Service 1987, 1988, 1990 | | Occupation - Retired Engineer June 1990 | | | | Jan | | Usher - 1st Service 1987 | | Photography - 35mm Color specializing in wildlife | | Sewing - Crotchet Afgans, Knit Nylon Net Scrubbies | | Occupation - Retired Engineer May 1990 | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ Page 8 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 8. What To Put In Your Member & Child Notes (Continued) YOU will have to think about the structure of your notes. You should probably create a list of Talents AND other information that you wish to maintain in your Notes. I have provided Appendix A as a "Getting Started" list. In fact, I would appreciate getting a copy of your list so that I can expand my Appendix A. Please help me with this. Anyone that sends me a list will get a free upgrade to the latest version. Notice that I have a paragraph for myself (George) and a paragraph for my wife (Jan). I have not listed all of our talents as you would run out of paper {grin}. The search program will just locate records containing certain words, and you will need to be able to determine what notes go with which member. Remember that both the husband and wife are shown on the Member Master record. Notice that I have entered several levels of information on a subject. Jan isn't interested in all types of sewing. However, she has participated in projects to crotchet afgans for retirement home residents. She also loves to take 10 yards of nylon net, cut it into 3 inch strips and knit pot scrubbers. She can crack out one of those in about 20 minutes. They are popular for fund raisers. I wouldn't be caught doing dishes without one. We have both Ushered. However, we both prefer to attend the 1st Service. THUS, if our Pastor asked for a list of all people that are willing to usher, you could "Report By Search Word(s)" using "usher". If you wanted to narrow the list to the 1st Service potential ushers, you would enter "usher 1st" and specify that A=All words must match to print a record and that the words MUST be on the same Note text line. That will filter out the 2nd service preferences. Likewise, all retirees could be found with the Search Word of "retire". Even if the Notes contain "Retired", a match will be found on the first 6 characters of "Retired". If you were interested in all that retired in 1990, the search words would be "retire 89" and specify ALL words and that they must be on the same Note text line. If you didn't insist that the search words be on the same line, you would pick up someone that "retired" in 1970, BUT that was an Usher in 19"89". Page 8 - 2 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 8. What To Put In Your Member & Child Notes (Continued) Likewise if you were planning a fund raising event and you remembered that someone used to knit "nylon scrubbies", you could search for "nylon scr" and probably find Jan (and others that she may have trained). You can track those that teach Sunday School, what grade and the years that they taught. You may want to look for 3rd grade teachers that have not taught in the last 5 years. You could search for "teach 3rd". You will get all past and present teachers that taught/teach 3rd grade. Then, manually look for those from the printed list that haven't taught for several years. You could run many reports looking for "teach 3rd" and "yr" to pick up just those that taught that "yr". However, that may be more work than just printing one report and manually checking the years. You could look for children that sing as you want to put together a special event singing group. Search C=Children for the word "sing". That assumes that you are building your Child Notes with that information. I could probably go on for pages with examples. Again, if you want a free upgrade, send me examples of how you are using the Search so I can include it in this manual. CUT & PASTE If you are typing these records in a fairly fixed format with line and paragraph headings, you can type your blank "Form" on a record and press Shift/F8 to capture that text. Then, as you move to the new notes for other members, you can press F8 to paste that blank form into the new notes. Then, over-type or insert the exact details for that set of notes. This will help you be consistent on how you type the notes. If you "Save New Setups" before ending the program, the Cut text will be saved in the QUOTE.MEM file. That way, the text will automatically be loaded the next time you run the program. Page 8 - 3 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 9.0 Pack, Reindex, Empty & Upgrade Data Base Files The "Tools" Main Menu contains several selections to aid in the care and feeding of the PDS*MEMBER System data base files. The "Pack Data Files" and "Empty Data Files" selections will require a password to continue, as they are physically removing records from your files. The password is hard-coded into the MEMBER.EXE program by PRO DEV Software based on the password specified by you on the registration form. If you are registered and for some reason need a new password, please give me a call or write. I can tell you over the phone how to change your password. I don't publish this information in writing as you can also change the registrant's name and Giving Password. If you have not yet registered your copy of the PDS*MEMBER Church Membership system, the password is the word PASSWORD. Select the "Tools" Main Menu and one of the "Tools" Sub-Menus to perform the desired function. +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +----------------------+ / | Print Instructions | Highlight and --> | | Pack Data Files | press Enter | | Reindex Data Files | \ | Empty Data Files | | Upgrade Data Files | +----------------------+ 9.1 Pack Data Base Files As you work with the PDS*MEMBER data files, you may have pressed F9 to delete a record. That record is only marked for deletion. It is not physically removed from the data base. The PACK process actually removes the marked records and rebuilds the associated index files. When you highlight the "Pack Data Files" selection and press Enter, you will be asked for the password. Page 9 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 9.0 Pack, Reindex, Empty & Upgrade Data Base Files (Continued) 9.2 Reindex Data Base Files Data base systems are strange animals. On occasions, the index files may get out of wack. When this happens, the MEMBER.EXE program may crash with a cryptic error message at the top of the screen or you get weird reports. If you are on a Local Area Network, index files sometimes get out of order. If you use dBASE III+ or dBASE IV to mess with . . err . . work with the data base files, you may change records without opening all associated index files. Please note that dBASE IV index files are NOT compatible with the PDS*MEMBER index files. Thus, I have provided the reindex selection. When you highlight "Reindex Data Files" and press Enter, all files will be reindexed. If your files are large, this may take quite some time. I suggest doing it on your lunch break. 9.3 Empty Data Base Files You may wish to completely empty the data base files. Highlight "Empty Data Files" and press Enter. At this point, you must enter the password. Again, if you have not yet registered your copy of PDS*MEMBER, the password is the word PASSWORD. If you are familiar with Ashton-Tate's dBASE III+, this process is called ZAPing a data file. 9.4 Upgrading Old Version Of Data Files If you have just obtained a later Version of PDS*MEMBER software, there may be new features that require new fields in one or more of your existing data files. If this is a later Version, follow this Section and use the "Upgrade Data Files" sub-menu option. It will run a quick check and let you know if any files need to be upgraded. Hopefully, it will tell you that all data files are correct. Page 9 - 2 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 9.0 Pack, Reindex, Empty & Upgrade Data Base Files (Continued) 9.4 Upgrading Old Version Of Data Files (Continued If one or more files have had new fields added for additional features or the size of existing fields have been increased, you will be told which files need upgrading. For example, you may see the message: The following file(s) will have to be upgraded: BIRTHDAY.DBF MEMBER.DBF The files used by the PDS*MEMBER system are of Ashton-Tate's dBASE III + format. The "structure information" including field names is contained at the very front of the file. All of the new empty files are on the new Version "PDS*MEMBER" Shareware disk. DO NOT copy these new empty files to your existing data files disk or hard disk sub-directory or you will WIPE OUT (DESTROY, KILL, OBLITERATE, CLOBBER, ANNIHILATE, DECIMATE, DEMOLISH) your existing data that you spent hundreds of hours typing into the database. The theory of the Upgrade process is that you will copy the empty new files to a fresh disk that is different from the disk containing your live data files. If you have a hard disk, I suggest that the affected empty new files be copied to a sub-directory DIFFERENT from the sub-directory containing your live data files. I recommend C:\MEMBER\TEMP as the sub-directory for a hard disk. Then, you will run the MEMBER "Upgrade Data Files" sub-menu selection and the MEMBER program will append ALL of your existing live records to the new empty data file(s). The new fields will just be blank, but you will not loose any of your existing information. Lastly, the new (now no longer empty) data file(s) will be copied back on top of and replacing your existing data file(s). Thus, BE SURE TO BACK-UP YOUR EXISTING DATA FILES FIRST!!!! (in case of trouble). Page 9 - 3 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 9.0 Pack, Reindex, Empty & Upgrade Data Base Files (Continued) 9.4 Upgrading Old Version Of Data Files (Continued) Floppy Disk User Format a fresh data disk (see your DOS manual if necessary). Label this disk as "NEW Empty Data Files". Place this disk in drive B:. Place the NEW PDS*MEMBER disk in drive A:. Type the following: A: (Enter) INSTALL B: (Enter) Do NOT format your existing "PDS*MEMBER Data Files" disk or you will blast-away ALL of your data. Hold your OLD data files disk to use during the Upgrade process. Select Option 2 on the INSTALL program menu. This will un-compress the NEW Empty data files to the freshly formatted "NEW Empty Data Files" disk. Run the MEMBER program and select the "Tools" Main Menu and the "Upgrade Data Files" Sub-Menu and press enter. When you are asked for the Drive and Path for the NEW empty files, place the disk with the NEW files in drive A: and type A:\ (Enter). Hard Disk User If the present live data files total somewhat less than 360,000 bytes, you could follow the same procedure as described on the previous page and put the new data files disk in drive A:. However, if the files may fill the disk in drive A:, it is safer to make a temporary sub-directory on your hard disk to hold the NEW data files during the upgrade process. Place the new PDS*MEMBER disk in drive A:. At the C: prompt, type . . . A: (Enter) INSTALL C: (Enter) Select Option 2 on the INSTALL program menu. This will un-compress the NEW Empty data files to the C:\MEMBER\TEMP sub-directory. Page 9 - 4 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 9.0 Pack, Reindex, Empty & Upgrade Data Base Files (Continued) 9.4 Upgrading Old Version Of Data Files (Continued) Run the MEMBER program and select the "Tools" Main Menu and the "Upgrade Data Files" Sub-Menu and press enter. When you are asked for the Drive and Path for the NEW empty files, type: C:\MEMBER\TEMP\ (Enter) When the upgrade process is complete, all data files will automatically be reindexed in case a new index is to be used for one of the new fields. As the upgraded files in the C:\MEMBER\TEMP sub-directory were copied back on top of your old data files, you can delete the temporary new data files in the C:\MEMBER\TEMP sub- directory. Page 9 - 5 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 10. Giving Records There are 2 data base files for keeping track of giving. The WEEKGIVE.DBF is a transaction data base. It temporarily holds the information for a particular days giving. You can post the giving information for a day during several sessions. When you have finished posting that days giving records, the transaction records are copied to the permanent GIVING.DBF data base file. After the transaction records are copied to the GIVING.DBF file, the WEEKGIVE.DBF records are deleted to get you ready for the next time your church receives a giving. The GIVING.DBF file holds all giving records for the year. From this file the Quarterly and Annual statements are printed. This file can hold giving records for any number of years. However, after the Annual Statement is printed, the records for that year can be moved by this program to a floppy disk or another hard disk sub-directory. They can be selectively moved back, if necessary. 10.1 Post Weekly Giving +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +---------------+ | Member Record | | Giving Record | <--- Highlight and press Enter +---------------+ After you highlight the above selection and press Enter, you will be asked for the Giving Password. When you first receive the MEMBER program, the Giving Password is GIVING. Your treasurer has probably changed this password to keep giving information confidential. Section 10.4 explains how to change the Giving Password. When you enter the correct Giving Password, you will see the following . . . +------------ Post Weekly Giving For 01/07/1990 ----------+ | | | Envelope Number [ ] Last Name [ ] | | | | Giving Amount [ . ] POP Giving [ . ] | | Total 0.0 Total 0.0 | | | | Other Amount [ . ] Description [ ] | | Total 0.0 Grand Total [ 0.0 ] | +---------------------------------------------------------+ Page 10 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 10. Giving Records (Continued) 10.1 Post Weekly Giving (Continued) The program will try to guess the day of giving. If it is Sunday, that day will be shown. If it is later in the week, the program will back the date up to the last Sunday. You can over type a different date if desired. If your church has the normal weekly service on a different day, this default can be changed. At the DOS prompt type: SET MEMDAY=7 (Enter) This will change the default to Saturday (the 7th day of the week). You can use any number from 1 to 7 to set the desired day of the week. Run the MEMBER program and "Save New Set-Ups" so you will not have to type the SET command again. If you have already posted giving records for this day, the program will warn you and ask if you wish to continue. If the WEEKGIVE.DBF file already contains transaction records for a different day, you will have to transfer those records to the permanent GIVING.DBF file BEFORE you can post records for a new giving date. Notice that there are 4 "Total" figures on the screen. This gives you a running total for the 3 categories of giving and a grand total. Thus, while one person is posting the giving, several others can be entering the amounts on adding calculators. Thus, if the program and manual totals don't match, you can review what you entered before transferring the transaction records to the permanent GIVING.DBF file. Having the amount posted match the actual amounts received is VERY important to your church. The "money counters" must maintain a spotless record of accuracy. The point I am trying to underscore is that ACCURACY and ACCOUNTABILITY are very important. You have 3 ways of adding Weekly Giving records. (1) By Envelope Number; (2) By Last Name of a MEMBER data file record; (3) By new Name. Actually, there is a 4th way if you have already posted records for this day and wish to make a correction to one. Press F8 and enter a few letters of the last name. A Browse window will pop up. Highlight the desired weekly record and press Enter. Page 10 - 2 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 10. Giving Records (Continued) 10.1 Post Weekly Giving (Continued) To add a record, type in the Envelope Number and press PgDn. If you don't know the Envelope Number, or one hasn't been assigned to that giver, type at least part of the last name (case NOT important). The program will check the MEMBER.DBF data file for a close match to that name. You can PgDn or PgUp until the correct name is found. Press Enter. If an exact name match is not found, press Esc. If the program can find no match, you will be asked if you wish to add a "No Envelope Number new Name" Weekly Giving record. You can force this question by entering "ZZZZZ" when asked for the Last Name. If you answer Y, you will be asked for the full name. Type the Last Name, a comma and the First Name. If the spouse's First Name is also included, use the format as shown below: Abbott, George & Janice If a loose check is given, you can use the above method to post the giving. OPEN PLATE CASH Let the system keep track of the Open Plate Cash for you. When asked for the Envelope Number, press Enter. For the Last Name type . . . 1 - Open Plate Cash Obviously, the program will not find anyone with the last name starting with "1", and you will be asked if you want to create a "No Envelope" record. Answer Y. Why did I suggest the "1 -" ? Simple! When browsing the permanent giving records and the sort is by name, the special records will sort to the top of the screen. Likewise, when you print the Statements, the cash ones will float to the top. BE SURE to spell this record the same EACH week. If you use a different spelling, this will show up on a different printed Statement. This type mistake can be fixed with the "Modify Giving", "Modify/Add/Del Giving Data" Sub-Menu selection. Page 10 - 3 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 10. Giving Records (Continued) 10.1 Post Weekly Giving (Continued) SPECIAL COLLECTIONS Maybe a special collection is made. Maybe it is announced that the Open Plate Cash this Sunday will be for a special fund. Post this giving the same as above, except, use a different name . . . 2 - Hurricane Hugo Relief If you want the special gift to sort to the bottom use "ZZ1 - Special Fund Name". Use 2 Zs as you may have members whose Last Name starts with a Z. DUPLICATE GIFTS If you have already posted a gift this Week for the same Envelope Number or Name and you try to post another record for the same week, the existing Weekly Giving transaction record will be displayed on the screen so you can modify the amounts. OTHER DESCRIPTION If you have to post a lot of "Other" giving where the Description is the same for most or all records, type the Description and press Shift/F8 to capture that Description. On the remaining records, just press F8 to paste that Description into the record. 10.2 Transfer Weekly Giving To Permanent File When you are posting Weekly Giving and you PgDn without typing an Envelope Number, the program assumes that you are done posting giving. You will be asked if you wish to transfer the records to the Permanent GIVING.DBF data base file. If you answer Y, be aware that the Weekly records will be deleted after being copied to the permanent GIVING.DBF file. If, during the copy process, a record is found in the permanent file with EXACTLY the same Giving Date and Name, you will be asked if you want to Add the new amounts to the existing permanent record, replace the old permanent amount with the new Weekly amount, or Skip posting the new weekly record to the permanent file. Press A, R, or S. Page 10 - 4 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 10. Giving Records (Continued) 10.3 Modify/Add/Delete Giving Data +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +----------------+ | Member Record | +----------------------------+ | Browse Members | | Modify/Add/Del Giving Data | | Giving Records +--| Post Annual Giving Pledge | | Attendance | + Moved Records Drive & Path | +----------------+ | Move Range Of Old Records | | Change Giving Password | +----------------------------+ Highlight Main Menu "Modify" and Sub-Menu "Giving Records" and press Enter. You will be asked for the special Giving Password. On entering the correct password, you will see the menu shown at the above right. Press Enter on "Modify/Add/Delete Giving Data". A Browse Window will open with the records sorted by Name and then by Giving Date. Note the words "Sorted By Name" just above the Browse Window at the right. Sorted By Name +----------------------------------------------------------+ | Envelope Giving Date Name General Amt| |==========================================================| | |01/07/1990 |1 - Open Plate Cash | 123.45 | | |01/14/1990 |1 - Open Plate Cash | 87.51 | | |01/07/1990 |2 - Hugo Relief Fund | 75.00 | | 125 |01/07/1990 |Abbott, George & Janice| XX.00 | | 125 |01/14/1990 |Abbott, George & Janice| XX.00 | | 12 |01/07/1990 |Cat, Garfield | 5.00 | | 12 |01/01/1990 |Cat, Garfield | 4.50 | | 88 |01/07/1990 |Doe, John & Jayne | 150.00 | | 88 |01/14/1990 |Doe, John & Jayne | 15.00 | | |01/07/1990 |Zoo, Animal | .50 | +--|1 - Open Plate Cash|--- Record 1 ----------------------+ Use the Up, Down, Right and Left Arrows to highlight the field you wish to correct. Type the correction. PgDn or PgUp to locate the desired record. Press F8 to jump to a Name. Press F2 to change to a Date sort. You can F8 jump to a desired date. F2 will toggle back and forth between Name and Date sort. Page 10 - 5 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 10. Giving Records (Continued) 10.3 Modify/Add/Delete Giving Data (Continued) If you wish to Delete a record, highlight the record and press F9. The record will only be marked for deletion. Use the "Tools" Main Menu, "Pack Data Files" Sub-Menu to actually physically remove the marked records. If you wish to PRINT one STATEMENT, highlight the desired name and press F3. The Statement Print Window will open to allow you to print just this one Statement. See Section 10.7 for more detail on printing Statements. 10.4 Post Annual Giving Pledge Highlight "Post Annual Giving Pledge" and press Enter. +----------------------------------------------------------+ | Last Name First Name Spouse General Pledge Bldg Pledg| |==========================================================| | Abbott |George |Janice | XXXX.XX | XXX.XX | | Cat |Garfield | | 52.00 | 26.00 | | Doe |John |Jayne | 1234567.00 | 9876.00 | | Smith |John |Percill| 104.00 | 52.00 | +--|Abbott, George & Janice|----- Record 1 ----------------+ PgDn or PgUp to locate the desired record. Press F8 to jump to a Name. Use the Up, Down, Right and Left Arrows to highlight the field you wish to post. Enter the Annual Pledge. At this time, no pledges are tracked for child records. When the statements are printed, those records that contain pledge ammounts will show the amounts and the percentage toward the pledge. The end of the statements will give the treasurer the grand totals. 10.5 Change Giving Password Highlight "Change Giving Password" on the Modify Giving Records" Sub-Menu and press Enter. To get to this point, you previously had to have correctly entered the existing Giving Password. Type in the NEW Giving Password and press Enter if you don't fill the field. MAKE NOTE of the new password. Page 10 - 6 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 10. Giving Records (Continued) 10.5 Change Giving Password (Continued) As the MEMBER.EXE program actually modifies the MEMBER.EXE program on the disk to hard code the password within the program, the MEMBER.EXE file must be in the default DOS drive and path at this time. WARNING - If you have anti-virus software installed (such as FLU_SHOT+), you will be warned that the MEMBER.EXE program is attempting to modify the MEMBER.EXE program file. If your anti-virus software allows you to Ok that, then do so. If it doesn't, you will have to re-boot without the anti-virus software to change the Giving password. 10.6 Moved Records Drive & Path After the Annual Statements are printed in January each year, you will probably want to "clean out" those old records from the GIVING.DBF data base file. I don't like to just "throw away" this type of data. Highlight "Move Records Drive & Path" on the Modify Giving Records" Sub-Menu and press Enter. Type the letter for the floppy drive, or the sub-directory name if you plan to move the records to a different sub-directory on your hard drive. I suggest that you use one of the following: A:\ (ONLY if you have a hard drive) C:\MEMBER\OLD\ (If you have a hard drive) B:\ (With or without a hard drive) If you use a DIFFERENT sub-directory on the hard drive, use the MD OLD command to create it if necessary. If you installed this system with the SETUP command, the SETUP batch program already has created the C:\MEMBER\OLD\ sub-directory for you. 10.7 Move Range Of Old Records Highlight "Move Range Of Old Records" on the Modify Giving Records" Sub-Menu and press Enter. The program will try to estimate January 1 and December 31 of LAST YEAR for the Start and Ending range of Giving records that you desire to move. You can over type different dates if necessary. Page 10 - 7 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 10. Giving Records (Continued) 10.7 Move Range Of Old Records (Continued) Normally, you will move records To (T) the Old Record Drive and Path. However, you may wish to restore old records and you will type F (From). Press F10 when ready. If the old records (are to) reside on a floppy disk, be sure to have a formatted disk in the floppy drive. 10.8 Print Giving Statements +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +---------------+ +--------------------+ | Print Labels | | Zone Report | | Print Reports +---+ Directory Report | +---------------+ | Picture directory | | Data Base Dump | | Visitor Report | | Birthday Report | | Joined Report | | Baptized Report | | Anniversary Report | | School Report | Highlight & press Enter--> | Giving Statements | +--------------------+ Highlight "Giving Statements" on the "Print Reports" Sub-Menu and press Enter. After entering the Giving Password, you will see the screen shown on the next page. +---------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Quarter (1,2,3,4=Year End)1 Date 01/01/90 End 03/31/90 | | | | Left Margin 0 Printer/Screen/Disk P ONLY Ch. Totals N | | | | Start Line For Member Address 12 Starting Column 8 | | Treasurer's Name [ ] Telephone [ ] | +---------------------------------------------------------+ The program will show correct assumptions in most cases. It will guess the Quarter you wish to print based on your computers System Date. If you wish a different Quarter, type that Quarter number. If you wish a special range of dates, press 0 (zero) and over type the desired range of dates. Page 10 - 8 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 10. Giving Records (Continued) 10.8 Print Giving Statements (Continued) If you are using envelopes with a window for the address, you can enter the Row and Column to start printing the mailing address. After printing, highlight "Save New Defaults" and press Enter so the program will remember these values. The first time you print the Statements, you will have to enter the Treasurer's Name and Telephone Number. After printing the Statements and BEFORE ending the program, highlight "Save New Defaults" and press Enter. That way the program will know who to display as the Treasurer next time. If the Treasurer's Name and/or Telephone change in the future, over type he corrections and "Save New Defaults" again. When you press F10, the Statements will start printing. They will print in Name order. The actual data will start printing AFTER line 22. That way, you can tri-fold the paper and the figures will NOT be visible. If someone comes back to the Treasurer with corrections, use the "Modify/Add/Delete Giving Data" selection on the "Modify Giving Records" Sub-Menu to make the correction. When in that menu and the corrected name is highlighted, pressing F3 will reprint just that names Statement. At the end of the report, Church Totals are printed. If you want JUST the Church Totals WITHOUT actually printing any Statements, answer "Y" to the "Print ONLY Church Totals" question. If you wanted to see only the totals for this Sunday's receipts, Press 0 (zero) for the Quarter, type this Sunday's date for BOTH the Start and Ending Date, and answer Y to "Print ONLY Church Totals". If you just want to jot down the numbers, "print" to the Screen. If you wanted to see only the totals for the last month's receipts, Press 0 (zero) for the Quarter, type the Starting and Ending Dates for that month and answer Y to "Print ONLY Church Totals". Page 10 - 9 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 10. Giving Records (Continued) 10.8 Print Giving Statements (Continued) You may not find the exact type of totals that you, as the Treasurer, need. Please call me at PRO DEV Software on 616-788-2243 Monday through Friday from 8:00 to 5:00 Eastern USA time. You can write, but I have found that the phone calls result in a better solution for you, and instigate better new features for all users. If you have an "adoptable" suggestion, you get a free upgrade. If you write, give lots of detail, and if you are in the USA or Canada, include your phone number and the best hours to reach you. PLEASE don't hesitate to ask for new features. It is you users that are the drivers for the success of my Shareware. I get a lot of what I call "Flat Forehead" suggestions. That is where you explain the feature need and I slap my forehead with the palm of my hand and exclaim "I should have thought of that!" Page 10 - 10 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 11. Attendance Records First of all, your church has to have a way of collecting attendance data. My home church has little blue folders that contain a 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 pad of attendance forms and a pencil. The pad is entitled "The Act Of Friendship". These "Friendship" pads are placed on the shelf under the seat at the end of each row. Your church may have a pew-back rack to contain the pad. During the collection, the pad is passed down the row. Each family or person writes names, addresses and telephone numbers. Several Check Columns allow checking if a Member, Regular Attender or Visitor. The members are encouraged to write their address even though the office already knows their address. This is because, as the pad passes down the row, visitors will see that an address and telephone number is expected. They can also see that others in their row may live near them. The pad is passed back so that everyone gets to see who is in their row. Thus, if you spot a Visitor, you can introduce yourself after the service and make the visitor welcome. You can introduce them to others and invite them to stay for coffee. It helps me learn the names of others in the church. I really need all the help I can get in this area as I am terrible at remembering names. After each service, our ushers collect the top sheet from the "Friendship" pads and place them on the desk in the church office. On Monday or Tuesday, someone keys in the attendance data. It is NOT necessary to sort the sheets in any way. Let my program do the sorting for you. As you will find out below, you can F8 jump to any record very quickly. You can also F7 Add new records on-the-fly. I am a nut at programming data entry to be as painless as possible and am very willing to act on any suggestions you may have to make your job easier. Highlight the Modify Attendance menu selection and press Enter. A sample screen is shown on the next page. You will be asked for the "Attend Date". This is VERY IMPORTANT. Get it right so that you post attendance to the correct day of the week. Use the Ctrl/F1 Pop-Up Calendar to verify the day of the week for the attendance you are posting. I display yesterday's date as the default as I assume you will be posting attendance the day after the service. If the date is different than what you were last posting, the attendance fields in the Member and Child records will be cleared. Then, the program will load any attendance that you may already have posted for that day. Page 11 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 11. Attendance Records (Continued) +----------------------------------------------------------- | Create Modify Report Set-Up Tools Quit | PDS*MEMBER V +----------------------------------------------------------- +----------------+ Attend Date 01/14/90 | Member Record | 1 = Regular Service | Browse Members | 2 = Sunday School | Giving Records | 3 = Special Service | Attendance | +----------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------+ | Last Name First Name 1 2 3 Spouse 1 2 3 Address | |==========================================================| | Abbott |George |Y|Y| |Janice |Y|Y| |545 Grove| | Anderson |Bill |Y| | |Sally |Y|Y| |123 Main | | Boop |Betty | | | | | | | |321 Jones| | Brown |John (Red) |Y|Y| |Jayne |Y|Y| |1 Astor S| | Cat |Garfield | | | | | | | |12 John's| | Regan |Ronnie |Y|Y| |Nancy |Y|Y| |142253 So| | Zebra |Stripes | | | | | | | |Cage 12 | +--|Abbott, George & Jan|------Record 1 -------------------+ Notice that the screen includes the Last Name, First Name and the Spouse's First Name. After each First Name are 3 columns to indicate attendance. The columns are numbered 1, 2 and 3. Look at the top of the screen to see the titles that you have assigned with the Setup Menu to the 3 attendance events. Place the cursor with the Arrow keys on the desired column. Press Y to indicate attendance. LEAVE BLANK to indicate no attendance (Important!). You can use any character except the / (forward slash) to indicate attendance. You may have 2 Sunday morning services and will press a 1 or 2 to indicate the service attended. At this time, my Attendance Report looks for non-blank to indicate attendance. I need feed-back from you users to see if additional reporting filtering is required. By the time you register, I will probably have expanded the Attendance Report. The forward slash (/) is used to mark a record for deletion in case you have saved the posted attendance and wish to eliminate that record. Place a / in column 1, 2 or 3, and "Pack Data Files" to get rid of the un-wanted records. As you browse records, the Child window will show any children for that Member record. Access the Child window by pressing F6. Post Child attendance as desired and press Esc or F6 to return to the lower part of the screen. Page 11 - 2 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 11. Attendance Records (Continued) DANGER! - While working on the Child records, DO NOT press the Down Arrow past the bottom of the Child Window. If you do, the program may take some time to search all of the Child records to see if there are any more matching that Member record. Eventually, you will see a "Bottom Of File" message displayed. You haven't done any damage, it just causes an annoying delay. I will attempt to get rid of this delay in a future release. Jumping To Record Press F8 and type at least part of the desired Last Name. When you press Enter, the screen will jump to that part of the records. Use the Up and Down Arrow to move to the exact desired record. New Persons If you don't find the desired record, you probably have a New Visitor. Press F7. The Attendance Browse screen will be saved and you will see the good old Add New Member screen. Fill out all of the information you have. BE SURE to enter the Status Code of V for Visitor including the Status Code for the spouse if applicable. Press F10 when finished and the Attendance Browse window will be restored showing the new record and you can post attendance. You can also PgDn and PgUp through the records. All Done Press Esc. You will be asked if you wish to save the attendance records. To understand how you will answer requires that you know how I am handling the attendance posting. You may be taking a break and don't need to save them yet. First of all, I added 6 fields to the MEMBER.DBF records and 3 fields to the CHILD.DBF records. You are actually posting to those fields. This way, you can use the Browse screen to see names and the Address as well. However, that would only contain the attendance posting for ONE day. When you answer Y to save the attendance, each Member and Child record is scanned for non-blanks in the attendance columns. Page 11 - 3 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 11. Attendance Records (Continued) For each member record, two ATTEND.DBF records will be created for the Attend Date if any of the Spouse attendance columns are non-blank. One ATTEND.DBF record is created for each Child that has non-blank columns. If an ATTEND.DBF record already exists for that person for THAT DAY, the existing ATTEND.DBF record will be updated in case you made any changes. The program saves the day you last posted in the file ATTEND.MEM. If you run the program later and you wish to post to the SAME day as the last time, the program knows that the Member and Child records already contain all of the previous attendance posting for THAT day. The program skips clearing and loading that day from the ATTEND.DBF. However, if you enter a different date than the last time, the program must clear the attendance columns in all of the Member and Child records. The program then checks the ATTEND.DBF file to see if any records exist with the selected date. If so, those existing records are loaded into the Member and Child attendance columns. This sounds complicated, but, it gives you a lot of security. Generally, as you move from one record to the next, the disk is updated from record to record. If the power goes off during posting, you will probably only loose the posting done to the record presently highlighted on the screen. When you restart the program, and you enter the SAME Attend Date, the program will assume that you wish to continue posting what is already in the Member and Child attendance columns. You probably noticed that I often give you a "warm fuzzy" progress status at the bottom of the screen when performing a long load or report. While loading ATTEND.DBF records, I don't do that as I don't know ahead of loading how many there are for that day. Sorry . . . Eventually, when you press Esc to indicate you are done, answer Y to save the posting to the ATTEND.DBF file. Page 11 - 4 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 12.0 Helpful Hints And Tricks 12.1 Navigation Keys. When you are entering data into the PDS*MEMBER screens, you have already discovered that you can fill a field or press Enter to jump to the next field. You can also press Ctrl/Home to jump to the first (sometimes second) field on the current screen. You can also press the Ins key to toggle the insert mode to insert characters at the cursor. The Del key will erase characters to the right of the cursor. The Backspace key will erase characters to the left of the cursor. Following are more special keys: Up Arrow Move to previous field Down Arrow Move to next field Ctrl/Left Arrow Word Left Ctrl/Right Arrow Word Right Home Beginning of field End Last character in field Ctrl/T Delete word to right Ctrl/Y Delete to end of field Ctrl/U Restore field to original value Page 12 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 13. Backing Up Your Data THOSE THAT DON'T BACKUP THEIR DATA ARE RISKING SNATCHING DISASTER FROM THE JAWS OF SUCCESS Read the above until you realize what it means. You may spends hundreds of hours building your membership data. It is not IF a disk will fail, but WHEN! Either by computer or people failure, you WILL eventually loose your data. If you have a hard disk, you should do a full backup from time-to-time. Read your DOS manual on how to do that. Better yet, there are many excellent Backup software systems available. You may even have been provided with one when you bought your computer. On top of full backups, I HIGHLY recommend the following MEMBERSHIP backup procedure. Format AT LEAST 3 disks without DOS. Consult your DOS manual on how to format disks. Label the disks "Church Member Backup Disk ____". Write "1", "2", "3", etc., after the word "Disk" on each label. You WILL backup your Membership data EACH time you add or change any records. Rotate the 3 disks so that you will have 3 levels of backup. Lightly write the backup date with pencil label on the disk when you perform a backup. Only backup to 1 disk at any particular time. By rotating your backup disks, and if the hard disk file is corrupted and you copy that bad file to 1 of the backup disks, the other 2 disks will have older (good) versions of the files. Backing Up Floppy Disk Files At the DOS prompt, insert the current "PDS*MEMBER Data Files " disk in drive B: (it may already be there if you were just using the PDS*MEMBER system). Insert the oldest backup disk in drive A: Type . . . COPY B:MEMBER.DB? A: (Enter) COPY B:CHILD.DB? A: (Enter) COPY B:WEEKGIVE.DBF A: (Enter) COPY B:GIVING.DBF A: (Enter) COPY B:ATTEND.DBF A: (Enter) Page 13 - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 13. Backing Up Your Data (Continued) Backing Up Hard Disk Files At the DOS prompt, insert the oldest backup disk in drive A:. Type . . . COPY C:\MEMBER\MEMBER.DB? A: (Enter) COPY C:\MEMBER\CHILD.DB? A: (Enter) COPY C:\MEMBER\WEEKGIVE.DBF A: (Enter) COPY C:\MEMBER\GIVING.DBF A: (Enter) COPY C:\MEMBER\ATTEND.DBF A: (Enter) If the above command does not work, consult your local computer guru. He/she may have installed the PDS*MEMBER system somewhere else than the C:\MEMBER sub-directory. RESTORING The Data Files If your hard disk crashes or the "PDS*MEMBER Data Files" disk crashes, find the latest backup disk. Restoring Floppy Disk Data At the DOS prompt, insert the latest backup disk in drive A:. Insert your "PDS*MEMBER Data Files" disk in drive B:. Type . . . COPY A:*.DB? B: (Enter) BE SURE to use the "Tools Reindex Data Files" selection on the MEMBER program BEFORE you do anything else. Restoring Hard Disk Data At the DOS prompt, insert the latest backup disk in drive A:. Type . . . COPY A:*.DB? C:\MEMBER (Enter) BE SURE to use the "Tools Reindex Data Files" selection on the MEMBER program BEFORE you do anything else. Good Luck! Page 13 - 2 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Appendix A Make Your Own Printer Action Table The purpose of a Printer Action Table (PAT) is to provide a file that contains many of the special codes used for your printer to turn on and off special printing features. These features include Near Letter Quality, Compressed, Double Wide, etc. printing. Unfortunately, there is little standardization in the printer industry. Thus, these special codes are different from one manufacturer to another and even between printers made by the same manufacturer. Various programs, like the MEMBER.EXE program, can read these .PAT files (they all have a .PAT extender for the PDS*MEMBER system), and know what ASCII codes must be sent to the printer. Take a look at Page 2-5 of this manual where you are told how to pick the Printer Action Table for your printer. All of the .PAT file names supplied with the PDS*MEMBER program disk will be displayed on the screen. By pressing the cursor arrow keys to highlight the name of your printer (and pressing Enter), you will tell the MEMBER.EXE program which printer you are using. If you don't see your printer displayed, this Appendix will explain how to create your own .PAT file. The following page shows what the EPSONFX.PAT file looks like. All of the .PAT files supplied on the PDS*MEMBER program disk have the same number of lines and the same format. The only difference between the files are the numbers on each line after the first Title Line. To insure that you follow the same format EXACTLY, you should copy the EPSONFX.PAT to a new file name for your printer. Insert the PDS*MEMBER "Working Program Disk" into drive A:. If you have a hard disk, CD (Change Directory) to the sub-directory containing the PDS*MEMBER program and .PAT files. Type the following: COPY EPSONFX.PAT yourpntr.PAT Substitute an abbreviated (up to 8 character) name similar to the name of your printer for my generic file name of "yourpntr" in the above COPY command. Page A - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Appendix A Make Your Own Printer Action Table Listing Of EPSONFX.PAT File EPSON FX 100 Printer Action Table EMPHASIZED ON, 27, 69, 260 EMPHASIZED OFF, 27, 70, 260 DOUBLE STRIKE ON, 27, 71, 260 DOUBLE STRIKE OFF, 27, 72, 260 LARGE LETTERS ON, 27, 87, 1, 260 LARGE LETTERS OFF, 27, 87, 0, 260 MEDIUM LARGE LETTERS ON, 27, 87, 1, 15, 260 MEDIUM LARGE LETTERS OFF, 27, 87, 0, 18, 260 CONDENSED LETTERS ON, 15, 260 CONDENSED LETTERS OFF, 18, 260 PICA 10/INCH, 27, 80, 260 ELETE 12/INCH, 27, 77, 260 NLQ ON, 27, 69, 260 NLQ OFF, 27, 70, 260 ITALIC ON, 27, 4, 260 ITALIC OFF, 27, 5, 260 6 LINE/INCH SPACING, 27, 50, 260 8 LINE/INCH SPACING, 27, 48, 260 SUPERSCRIPT ON, 27, 83, 0, 260 SUPERSCRIPT OFF, 27, 84, 260 UNDERLINE ON, 27, 45, 1, 260 UNDERLINE OFF, 27, 45, 0, 260 TAB PREFIX, 260 TAB SUFFIX, 260 RESET ALL CODES, 27,70,27,72,27,87,0,18,27,5,27,80,27,50, 27,84,27,45,0,260 Please note that I had to fold the last line above (RESET ALL CODES), as this paper is not wide enough to show it all on one line. In the actual .PAT file, the RESET ALL CODES are all on one file line. Now that you have made a copy of the EPSONFX.PAT file named for your printer, you need to load it into an ASCII file editor to modify the lines in the new file. You can use the EDLIN editor supplied on your DOS disk or better yet a Shareware editor like SCREEN. If you are using EDLIN and you have a 2 floppy disk computer, place the file containing your .PAT file in drive A: and the DOS disk that contains EDLIN.COM in drive B:. Type the following: B:EDLIN yourpntr.PAT Be sure to substitute your .PAT file name for my generic "yourpntr" in the above command. Page A - 2 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Appendix A Make Your Own Printer Action Table EDLIN will display the message "End of input file" and display the asterisk (*) as the EDLIN prompt. To list the first 23 lines of the .PAT file, type L and press Enter. EDLIN will add the line numbers and the colon before each line as the lines are displayed on the screen. Please note that the displayed line numbers and colons are NOT actually part of the .PAT file. The MEMBER.EXE program uses only 4 of the lines in the .PAT file. I use these .PAT files for a variety of applications that use the other features in the file. Thus, the other features. When you create your .PAT file, you should modify as many lines as possible; not just the 4 lines. The 4 feature lines used by MEMBER.EXE are: CONDENSED LETTERS ON, 15, 260 CONDENSED LETTERS OFF, 18, 260 NLQ ON, 27, 69, 260 NLQ OFF, 27, 70, 260 DO NOT CHANGE THE TITLES AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH FEATURE LINE. You should change line 1 to include the name of your printer, however. To change a line with EDLIN, type the desired line number and press Enter. EDLIN will list the line and list the same line number and colon just below. Press the right arrow on your cursor pad to retype all of the Feature Title and the comma after the Feature Title. THIS IS IMPORTANT SO AS NOT TO CHANGE THE FEATURE TITLE. Type each ASCII code required for that feature with a comma between each number. I include the spaces just to make the file easier to read. You can include spaces or not as you desire. After the last ASCII code number for your printer feature, type the number 260. Do NOT type a comma after the 260. Then, press Enter. Type L and press Enter to have EDLIN re-list the lines so that you can check to see if you typed it correctly. ONLY USE ONE CARRIAGE RETURN AFTER THE LAST LINE (Reset All Codes) Page A - 3 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Appendix A Make Your Own Printer Action Table You will have to dust off your printer manual and read the sections of the manual that discuss the ASCII codes used to program your printer. If they give a letter in place of the ASCII code, look in the back of your BASIC manual for a table of ASCII codes. An example of how to convert a letter (given in your manual) to the corresponding ASCII code is to look at the codes for NLQ ON (Near Letter Quality On) for the EPSON FX. NLQ ON, 27, 69, 260 Assume that the Epson Printer Manual said that the NLQ On code is: Esc + E Actually, the older Epson printers didn't have an NLQ feature, as such. I decided that, for my .PAT file, I would use Emphasized On for NLQ. The Emphasized feature sort of double strikes as the print head moves across the paper. So the Epson manual says to use Esc + E for Emphasized print. I looked in the back of my BASIC manual and in the ASCII Table, I found that the ESC key produces an ASCII code of 27. Likewise, the capital E produces an ASCII code of 69. You may find that your printer manual also includes an ASCII Table. Thus, I placed 27 and 69 (separated by a comma) in this line of the .PAT file. I placed another comma and 260 at the end of the line. After you have modified all of the lines for the features supported by your printer, type E and press Enter. This will save the modified file to your disk and exit the EDLIN program. EDLIN has renamed the original version of your .PAT file with a .BAK extender. You may wish to DEL *.BAK to get rid of the BAcKup files on your disk. The RESET ALL CODES line contains the "Turn Off" codes for each feature. You may be tempted to use the single Reset code that initializes your printer. However, that code also resets the Top Of Form memory in your printer. Doing this to a shared printer on a Local Area Network may not be a good idea. Please pry apart the covers on your DOS manual and read more about the EDLIN Editor. Better yet, obtain a copy of a Shareware editor like SCREEN, as almost ANY editor is better than EDLIN. Page A - 4 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Appendix B - Time & Talent Sheet Below is a list of service opportunities in the programs and ministries of our church. We invite you to share in the work of the Kingdom in the area that seems right for your gifts. WORSHIP - Normally will attend ____ 1st ____ 2nd Service ____ Usher ____ Play piano ____ Greeter ____ Play organ ____ Make a Banner ____ Provide a ride to church for someone ____ Work in Nursery ____ Assist in Children's ____ Share a Word of Witness worship service ____ Sing in a Choir or ____ Play in an instrumental Ensemble ensemble. I play the _______________________ ____ Arrange for flowers ____ Assist as sound technician ____ Help with a Children's Choir ____ Obtain special music ____ Drive the bus (chaffer's ____ Perform special music licence required) CHRISTIAN NURTURE ____ Teach a Sunday School ____ Assist with Vacation Class Bible School Preferred Grade _____ ____ Midweek children or youth group advisor: ____ Help with a Sunday School Class: ____ Grades 1-3 ____ Infants ____ Grades 4-6 ____ Preschool ____ Jr. High ____ Children ____ Sr. High ____ Youth ____ Lead a small group ____ Adult ____ Host midweek in-home study group ____ Help with Summer Sunday ____ Host midweek in-home School prayer group Page B - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Appendix B - Time & Talent Sheet FELLOWSHIP ____ Make coffee ____ Help plan programs for Couples groups ____ Kitchen crew for midweek events ____ Help plan programs for Singles groups ____ Set up volleyball courts ____ Special Breakfast helper ____ Help serve lunches for funerals, etc. ____ Serve Lenten Breakfasts ____ Make cake for funerals, ____ Help with refreshments etc. after concerts ____ Coach an athletic team CHURCH GROWTH AND MISSION ____ Deliver a tape to a ____ Write to a missionary shut-in ____ Bring a meal to a family ____ Transport Senior Citizens ____ Visit a shut-in ____ Call on a new family ____ Visit people in the hospital ____ Call on a new visitor ____ Participate in a Mission ____ Join Mission Guild Trip ____ Join Bible Study ____ Assist in prison Breakfast ministry ORGANIZATION ____ Serve on a Church Council: Worship & Music, Property, Christian Education, Fellowship, Church Growth, Mission (please circle one or more) ____ Serve on special short- ____ Decorate a bulletin term committee board ____ Staple, stuff mailings ____ Publicize a special event ____ Typing ____address envelopes Page B - 2 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Appendix A - Time & Talent Sheet PROPERTY ____ Shovel snow ____ Masonry ____ Mow grass ____ Concrete ____ Paint ____ Carpentry ____ Set up tables and chairs ____ Heavy construction ____ Plant flowers ____ Light Construction ____ Plant shrubs & trees ____ Cupboards/cabinets ____ Trim shrubbery ____ Drawers ____ Rake leaves ____ Flooring ____ Electrical ____ Ceilings ____ Electronics ____ Pole Barns/Garages/ Decks/Sheds ____ Help with cleaning ____ Picnic Tables, etc. ____ Roofing ____ Licenced Inspector ____ Plumbing Other __________________ OTHER ____ Indicate some other service or talent, not listed above, that you are already doing or would be willing to help with: ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Please be sure that you indicate your normal Service preference (1st or 2nd) on the first page of this survey. Signed _____________________________ Phone _______________ THANK YOU! - PLEASE RETURN THIS SHEET TO THE CHURCH OFFICE Page B - 3 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Appendix C DOS SET Commands C.1 The DOS Environment Table Before you read this Appendix, you should read the section in your DOS Manual that describes the SET command. Briefly, the SET command allows you to place commands into a special portion of your computer's memory called the DOS Environment. To see what is currently in the DOS Environment, at the DOS prompt, type SET (Enter). You may see something like: COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\PCTOOLS;D:\ARC;D:\CLIPPER PROMPT=$p$g The above is what my DOS Environment looks like. When I booted up my computer, I didn't have a disk in my A: drive, so the computer booted on the C: drive. After loading the (2) hidden DOS files, DOS (which is now running), loads the COMMAND processor (COMMAND.COM) so that DOS will be able to handle keyboard commands. DOS needs to know the location of COMMAND.COM in case DOS needs to reload it later in the computer session. Thus, the first entry in the DOS Environment is the location of COMMAND.COM at boot time. If I had booted on a disk in the A: drive, it would be "COMSPEC=A:\COMMAND.COM" After DOS looks for the CONFIG.SYS file and loads any commands (like FILES=20 and BUFFERS=15) and loads any device drivers (like DEVICE=C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS), DOS looks for and executes the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Since I wish to access programs in various sub-directories, I list those sub-directory paths in the PATH command. Thus, if I am in the C:\WP sub-directory, I can type PCTOOLS (Enter) to run Central Point Software's PCTOOLS.EXE program. DOS looks for the program first in the current path (the C:\WP sub-directory). Not finding it, DOS checks the DOS Environment table and finds "PATH=". DOS scans each path listed until it finds and runs PCTOOLS from the C:\PCTOOLS sub-directory. Page C - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Appendix C DOS SET Commands B.1 The DOS Environment Table (Continued) I placed the "PROMPT=$p$g" in my AUTOEXEC.BAT file so that I would have a DOS prompt that shows both the Drive and Path (sub-directory). Thus, if I am in the D:\ARC sub-directory, so as to be able run Phil Katz's file compression software (PKWARE), my prompt looks like "D:\ARC>". It is possible to place other commands in the Environment Table. For instance, I could type SET PDS=WONDERFUL (Enter) and then type SET (Enter) and I would see: COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\PCTOOLS;D:\ARC;D:\CLIPPER PROMPT=$p$g PDS=WONDERFUL My command (somewhat silly) was added to the table. If I wrote a program to check the Environment Table for PDS, my program would find a value of "WONDERFUL". The point of this discussion is that the MEMBER.EXE program DOES check the DOS Environment Table for (4) Environment Variables; MEMCOL="Color Command", MEMDATE="Country", MEMDAY="Day" and MCLEAR="Y". More to follow - Film at 11:00. B.2 If You Have Snow On The Screen The old IBM PC's and XT's and close clones would often show snow in the screen during screen updates. The latest CLIPPER compiler can now eliminate the snow with a SET command. It does slow down the screen updates slightly, however. Place the following command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file as it must be in place before you run MEMBER.EXE each time: SET CLIPPER=S1 The command must be exactly as shown above with NO spaces either side of the = sign and with upper case "S" and a number one "1". I have had mixed results on various older CGA computers. Page C - 2 Version 4.08 PDS*QUOTE Tracking Program Copyright 1990 Appendix C DOS SET Commands B.3 Changing The Program Colors I have written code into the MEMBER.EXE program to check the DOS Environment Table for a "MEMCOL" command. This Environment variable can be set to the standard COLOR commands used by Ashton-Tate's dBASE III and the Nantucket Software CLIPPER compiler that I used. The general form for the "SET MEMCOL=" command to change the screen colors is: SET MEMCOL=(Standard Foreground/Standard Background), (Data Window Foreground/Data Window Background), (Border), (Not Used), (Unselected Foreground/Unselected Background) The (up to 5) parameters are separated by commas. The Foreground/Background portions are separated by slashes. Standard = The screen box lines and messages. Data Window = The location of the field input areas Border = The border of your Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) screen. This feature is not available on an Extended Graphics Adapter (EGA) screen. Not Used = Just that, it is not used by CLIPPER at this time. Unselected = The data field windows that are not selected by the cursor at a particular time. This makes it easy to see what field you are currently on. The default colors that I like (so call me weird) are: SET MEMCOL=BG+/B,BG/R I am only using the first (2) parameters; Standard and Data Window. BG Stands for Blue-Green and the + sets high intensity ON for the BG. Thus, the lines and text are high intensity Blue Green. The B is Blue. Thus, the blue background on the major portion of the screen. Likewise, the data window text is BG (normal intensity) and the window background is R=Red. Page C - 3 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Appendix C DOS SET Commands C.3 Changing The Program Colors (Continued) Following are all the colors available for the CLIPPERized program (Reference: CLIPPER Summer 87 Manual page 5-129): Letter Color Letter Color N Black GR Brown B Blue W White G Green N+ Gray BG Cyan GR+ Yellow R Red X Blank RB Magenta U Underline I Inverse Video On monochrome monitors, color is not supported. CLIPPER, however, supports the monochrome attributes reverse video (I) and underlining (U). Here are several combinations that I tried (with varied success): GR+/B,BG/R,B GR+/BG,GR+/BG,BG GR+/B,GR+/R,B G+/B,BG+/R,B W+/B,W+/R,B How To SET Your Colors Before running the MEMBER.EXE program, type (at the DOS prompt) SET MEMCOL=GR+/B,BG/R,B (Enter). Then type MEMBER (Enter) and see if you like the colors. If you don't, Quit the program and try another SET MEMCOL=command. DO NOT PUT ANY SPACES EITHER SIDE OF THE EQUAL (=) SIGN! When you find a color combination you like, highlight the "Save New Setups" sub-menu and press Enter. Your new color command will be saved to the MEMBER.MEM file so that the new colors will automatically be used when you run the MEMBER.EXE program. Page C - 4 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Appendix C DOS SET Commands C.4 Date Formats For Various Countries To change the way the Date is displayed, type the following command at the DOS prompt before running the MEMBER.EXE program: SET MEMDATE=Country (Enter, NO spaces after the =) For the word "Country", as shown above, substitute one of the following: SETting Format Displayed AMERICAN mm/dd/yy ANSI yy.mm.dd BRITISH dd/mm/yy FRENCH dd/mm/yy GERMAN dd.mm.yy ITALIAN dd-mm-yy When you find Date display you desire, highlight the "Save New Setups" sub-menu and press Enter. Your new Date command will be saved to the MEMBER.MEM file so that the new Date format will automatically be used when you run the MEMBER.EXE program. C.5 Normal Giving Day The Default Giving Day for the MEMBER program is day "1" or Sunday. If your church normally has services on Saturday, the Giving Day will probably be "7" or the 7th day of the week. When you post Giving data, the program tries to calculate the correct day. If you wish to chang the default to Saturday, type the following at the DOS prompt: SET MEMDAY=7 (Enter) Run the MEMBER program and "Save New Setups". Page C - 5 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Appendix C DOS SET Commands C.6 Edit The Help Screens The PDS*MEMBER system ships with Status Codes and pre- written F1 Help screens for those Status Codes. You can use your own Status Codes as long as you modify the F1 Help screens so you know your new codes. Modifying the Help screens is very easy. At the DOS prompt of C:\>, type . . . SET EDITHELP=YES (Enter) Run the MEMBER program and access any Help screen with F1. You can NOW, change the text. After you finish editing the Help screens, BE SURE to return to the DOS prompt and type SET EDITHELP= (Enter) . . . to remove the EDITHELP variable from the DOS environment table. You will want to turn off the Help Edit so that the regular users won't accidently modify your Help screens. DO NOT put the above SET command into your AUTOEXEC.BAT file or you will ALWAYS be in the edit mode. While in the edit mode, you can NOT use Alt/F1 to print the Help screen. The Help screens for the Status Codes can best be accessed by highlighting "Modify Mamber Record" and pressing Enter. Continue to press Enter or the down arrow until the cursor is on the Status Code field. Press F1 to pop-up the Help screen. Add/Modify or Delete Status Code descriptions as required. Press F10 WHEN FINISHED MODIFYING Move to the Spouse Status field and make the same changes. Remember to press the Ins key to place yourself into the Insert mode. Press Enter at the end of a line to insert a new blank line. Ctrl/Y will delete an entire line. End will jump to the end of a line and Home will jump to the beginning. The Backspace key gobbles up characters to the left and the Del key eats characters to the right of the cursor. Likewise, select the "Report" Main Menu and select to print the Birthday Report. Move the cursor to the "Status Codes To Print" field and press F1 to edit this Help screen. This one Help screen is used by ALL reports and label runs that ask for Status Codes. Page C - 6 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Index Active Members 3-2, 5-2 Delete Member Record 3-3, 4-2 Add Child Record 3-3, 4-2 Directory - Pictorial 5-5 Add New Record 3-1 Directory Report 5-5 Add Status Codes C-6 Disk Drive For Files 2-4 All Info Report 5-6 Drive & Path PRN Files 2-4 Anniversary Report 5-7 Drive For Data Files 2-4 Annual Statements 10-1 Empty Data Files 9-2 Attendance Posting 11-1 Establish Church Name 2-5 Attendance Report 5-7 F1 Help 1-1 Attenders - Regular 3-2, 5-2 F1 Help Modifications C-6 Backing Up Your Data 13-1 Female Member 3-3 Baptized Report 5-6 Field Title Change 2-6 Birthday Report 5-6 File Packing 3-3, 4-2, 9-1 Browse Giving Records 10-5 Files Required 2-1 Browse Member Records 4-3 First Time Options 2-4 Cash - Open Plate 10-3 Flier List 3-2 Change Colors C-3 Flier Only Person 3-2 Change Date Format C-5 Floppy Drive Installation 2-2 Change Field Titles 2-6 Getting Started 2-1 Change Giving Password 10-6 Giving Day - Change C-5 Change Giving Day C-5 Giving Password Change 10-6 Change Giving Records 10-5 Giving Records - Permanent Child Notes 3-4, 4-2, 6-1, 10-1, 10-5 7-1, 8-1 Giving Records Deletion 10-5 Child Records 3-3, 4-2 10-7 Church Day Of Week 10-1 Giving Statement Printing 10-7 Church Name 2-5 Giving Weekly Records 10-1 Clean Out Old Giving Hard Disk Installation 2-3 Records 10-7 Help 1-1 Collections - Special 10-4 Hints 10-1 Color Monitor 2-4 Husband Non-Member 3-3 Color - Change C-3 Inactive Member 3-2, 5-2 COMMAND.COM 2-1 Index Data 9-2 Correct Giving Records 10-5 Install On Floppies 2-1 Create Child Record 3-3 Install On Hard Disk 2-3 Create Member/Visitor Installation Options 2-4 Record 3-1 Installing The System 2-1 Cursor Movement 4-3, 10-2 Joined Date 1-1, 3-2 Cut & Paste Keys 8-3, 10-4 Joined Report 5-6 Data Backup 12-1 Label Lines 5-3 Data Base Dump Report 5-6 Label Printing 5-3 Data File Emptying 9-2 Last Name Sort 5-2 Data File Packing 3-3, 4-2, Left Margin 5-1 9-2 Lines On Label 5-3 Data Files Drive 2-4 List Codes 3-2, 3-3 Data File Upgrade 9-2 M/F Code 3-3 Data Restoral 12-2 Margin 5-1 Date Format - Change C-5 Master Number 3-5 Date Joined 1-1, 3-2 Member - Inactive 3-2, 5-2 Delete Giving Records 10-7 Member Indication 1-1 Page I - 1 Copyright 1990 PDS*MEMBER Church Membership System Version 1.07 Index Member Modification 4-1, 4-3 Relating Files 3-4 Member Notes 3-3, 4-2, 6-1, Remove Records 3-3, 4-2, 9-1 7-1, 8-1 Report - Anniversary 5-7 Member/Visitor Record Report - Baptized 5-6 Creation 3-1 Report - Birthday 5-6 Members Active 3-2, 5-2 Report - Directory 5-5 Membership Flag 1-1 Report - Joined 5-6 Missionary 3-2, 5-2 Report - Attendance 5-7 Modify Attendance 11-1 Report - Zone 5-5 Modify Child Record 4-2 Report All Information 5-6 Modify Giving Records 10-5 Report Printing 5-4 Modify Member Records 4-1, 4-3 Required Files 2-1 Modify Status Codes C-6 Restore Data Files 12-2 Monitor Color/Monochrome 2-4 Rotary Card File Printing 3-3 Move Cursor 4-3, 10-2 4-2, 4-4 Move Old Giving Records 10-7 Saturday Giving 10-2 Name Sort 5-2 Save Setups 2-5 Name Your Church 2-5 SET Command C-2 New Record 3-1 SETUP 2-1, 2-3 Notes 3-3, 4-2, 6-1, 7-1, 8-1 Setup Options 2-4 Notes Cut & Paste 8-3 Shut-In 3-2, 5-2 Number Of Lines 5-3 Software Installation 2-1 Open Plate Cash 10-3 Sort ZIP/Last Name 5-2 Options 2-4 Special Collections 10-4 Options - Printing 5-1 Starting Installation 2-1 Other Description State 2-5 Cut & Paste 10-4 Statement Printing 10-7 Pack Data File 3-3, 4-2, 9-2 Statements - Giving 10-1 Password Change - Giving 10-6 Status Codes 3-2, 5-2 PAT 2-5, A-1 Status Codes - Modify C-6 Permanent Giving Records 10-1, Sunday School List 3-3 10-5 Talent Tracking 7-1, 8-1 Pictorial Directory 5-5 Title Of Field Changes 2-6 Pledge Posting 10-6 Top-To-Top Lines 5-3 POP List 3-2 Transfer Weekly To Post Weekly Giving 10-1 Permanent Giving 10-4 Print Statement 10-7 Treasurer Name & Telephone Print Labels 5-3 10-8 Print Notes 6-1, 7-1 Tricks 12-1 Print Reports 5-4 Upgrade Data Files 9-2 Print Rotary File Card 3-3 Visitor Code 3-2, 5-2, 5-6 4-2, 4-4 Visitor Modification 4-1, 4-3 Print Single Label 3-3 Visitor Notes 3-3, 4-2 4-2, 4-4 Visitor Record Creation 3-1 Printer Action Table 2-5, A-1 Visitor Report 5-6 Printer/Screen/Disk 5-1 Weekly Giving 10-1 Printing Options 5-1 Weekly To Permanent Giving PRN Files 2-4 10-4 Quarterly Statements 10-1 ZAP Data Files 9-2 Record Browsing 4-3 ZIP Code Sort 5-2 Record Modification 4-1, 4-3 Zone 3-1 Regular Attenders 3-2, 5-2 Zone Report 5-5 Reindex Data 9-2 Page I - 2