MISSIONINSITE. Congregant Data Preparation and Upload Guide. The Next Generation in Mission Context Analysis

Transcription

1 MISSIONINSITE Congregant Data Preparation and Upload Guide The Next Generation in Mission Context Analysis

2 Congregant Data Preparation and Upload Instructions

3 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREPARING THE DATA...2 Congregant Data Requirements and Formats... 2 Preparing Congregant Data for Uploading... 2 Congregant Data Preparation... 3 Data Fields Required... 3 Data Fields Optional... 4 UPLOADING THE DATA...6 Uploading Steps... 6 Translation Tables... 7 Editing the Congregant File Field Translation Table... 8 Editing the Congregant Status Translation Table... 9 Editing the Member by Means Translation Table... 9 VIEWING THE DATA...10 Steps in plotting SUPPORT CONTACTS

4 Introduction Congratulations and welcome to MissionInsite! We are looking forward to assisting you and your church to better understand your communities, your congregants and your mission. This packet will provide instruction on how to upload your congregant data to the MissionInsite System (MI System). It will explain and illustrate how to prepare, upload and view your church s congregant data. Preparing the Data Congregant Data Requirements and Formats Congregant data is uploaded to the MI System by each individual congregation. An upload wizard will guide the church s technical person in how to upload and maintain Congregant data. Uploads can be done as often as the church likes. The value of the data will be directly tied to how current the church keeps the congregant records. How often should this be done? The goal would be minimally twice per year. To make the information most usable, it must be kept up to date. Congregant data is always changing. The more often it is refreshed, the more helpful it will be for missional thinking. NOTE: MissionInsite only keeps one set of congregant data. Therefore, be advised that when a user uploads additional data, the prior data is over written. So it is important that an upload is the complete congregant list each time, not a partial upload. To login go to and login using the username and password provided. Preparing Congregant Data for Uploading The first step is to upload your congregant data to the MI System. This will take some preparation for the data must be exported from the church s congregant information system and converted into CSV format. CSV means comma separated values. If the congregant database can be exported into an Excel spreadsheet (and most can) then CSV is a way to save the file. The file should be uploaded into the MI System in CSV format. NOTE: The MI System will only allow CSV file formats. If a user attempts to upload a straight Excel file, it will fail. Saving as CSV in Excel 1. Go to save as on the file menu. 2. Give the file a name 3. Click on the Save as type drop down box and scroll to CSV (comma delimited) 4. Click on that CSV type 5. Click save. 2

5 Congregant Data Preparation In order to upload data, the church will need to review this section. Required fields: These are data that must be provided in order to plot any congregants. Required data is address information. Without proper address information, the system can not geocode a congregant. Geocoding is the process of determining the latitude and longitude coordinates of any address/location. These coordinates are what allows the system to know where to plot a congregant on the MI map interface. Optional fields: There are several optional data fields for information that a church may provide on congregants. They can provide all, some or none. But the ability to do analysis is directly tied the number of these fields that are populated with data. Some of these fields require very specific data on congregants and so may not be available. Others however are very likely part of any church s congregant information system. Data Fields Required The following fields are required in order to actually plot any congregants. The system needs a complete address per this sample and the data MUST CONFORM to this model. A template to use can be downloaded from within the system. Please note the following: First and last names must be separated by fields. No combined name fields such as Brown, Mary or Mary Brown. Rather, the names must be separated into two different fields as in the example above. A separate record should be provided for each member of the family and each record must include the full address information. This will allow the system to plot each congregant. Again, see the example above where Mary Brown is separated from her husband, George. Apartment or unit numbers must be in a second address field. Failure to separate the addresses as instructed will result in an upload failure. The system requires a CLEAN street address. Additionally, no cross streets or other descriptions. The system will successfully geocode a clean street address only. 3

6 Data Fields Optional The following fields are optional. All or some may be appended to each record. The optional fields are: CongregantStatus MemberDate MemberByMeans Birthdate FirstAttendDate YearEnteredKindergarten BaptismDate NOTE: Please note the following: The CongregantStatus and MemberByMeans fields must conform to the following codes or else the user will have to use the Congregant Status Translation Table feature which will be explained below. These codes stand in for the actual values (aka label). The church will need to code the database for these two fields prior to uploading. CongregantByStatus Field Meaning and Codes This field allows the user to plot, do analysis and generate reports of the congregation by their status. Status means Member: Someone who has officially joined the church by whatever policy or procedure is followed by your tradition. Regular Attendee/Non-Member: Someone who regularly participates in the life of your church but has never officially joined. Non-regular Attendee: Someone who does not regularly participate in the life of your church and has never officially joined. Other: A Catch all for persons where the above three options do not seem to apply. Use this sparingly! Visitor: Some who is in the church database but who is/was a visitor with no further formal relationship. Codes Use these codes (numbers) to represent each status type. 4

7 MemberByMeans Field Meaning and Codes This field allows the user to plot, do analysis and generate reports of the congregation by the manner in which they became members. Profession of Faith: Someone who has officially joined the church by a profession of faith, perhaps for the first time. Transfer: Someone who has transferred membership from another church, most likely from the same denominational tradition Re-affirmation: Someone who has joined the church and who in doing so is reaffirming their faith, perhaps joining from another Christian denomination or faith tradition. Other: A Catch all for persons where the above three options do not seem to apply. Use this sparingly! Codes Use these codes (numbers) to represent each status type. Date Fields All Date fields must follow the standard date format of m/d/yyyy. Year Entered Kindergarten Field YearEnteredKindergarten, if available is a single, four digit year field. Many churches will not have this data but if they do, then the year in school of some youth congregants can be calculated. 5

8 Uploading the Data Uploading congregant data into the MI System requires some experience with uploading data files. The steps that follow are intended to make this as easy as possible, but some aspects of this process can become complicated. Therefore, finding someone in the church who has some skill is probably wise. The ability to upload data is only given to the Church Administrator (CA) role. If your church is part of a regional agency that is a client of MissionInsite, then a regional agency staff person must designate this the CA person. NOTE: If your congregation has ordered this Congregant plot feature directly and paid for the service, you will automatically have access as a CA. When a person designated as CA logs in, a slightly different menu bar displays. Notice the menu item, Tools. Mousing over the Tools reveals the underlying menu options. The concern at this point is the menu item, Import Congregants. Select this item. Doing so will cause the import Wizard to display. NOTE: Remember, the upload file must be saved in a CSV format! Uploading Steps There are six steps to uploading a file. However, there are some specific tasks to do at each point. First the steps. Further explanation relative to the translation tables follows. 1. Select your church from the drop down menu. 2. Click on Edit Congregant File Field Translation table edit and save 3. Click on Edit Congregant Member Status Translation table if data included edit and save 4. Click on Edit Member by Means Translation table if data included edit and save 5. Browse to the file and upload the file with be on the user s system. 6. Upload The status of the upload will show in the upload status line. If the upload fails, a reason will be given in the Upload status box. 6

9 Translation Tables NOTE: There are three field name translation tables. THE FIRST ONE MUST BE OPENED, REVIEWED, EDITED IF NECESSARY AND ALWAYS SAVED. The other two only must be opened and edited if there is data in the congregant data file for those fields. File Field: Edit Congregant File Field Translation Table This table allows the user to inform the system of the field names in the data file to be imported if they differ from the template and therefore are different than the system expects. This table must be opened and saved! Congregant Status: Edit Congregant Status Translation Table This table allows the user to inform the system of the codes in the CongregantByStatus data field that differ from the codes the system expects. NOTE: If there is no congregant status data, nothing needs to be done with this table. If there is data, the user must add the codes. The default expected codes can be seen on the table. The codes in the user file must be added in the Actual column. (See examples below.) Member by Means: Edit Member by Means Translation Table This table allows the user to inform the system of the codes in the MemberByMeans field that differ from the codes the system expects. NOTE: If there is no member by means data, nothing needs to be done with this table. If there is data, the user must add the codes. The default expected codes can be seen on the table. The codes in the user file must be added in the Actual column. (See examples below.) 7

10 Editing the Congregant File Field Translation Table The Congregant File Field Translation must be opened, checked and saved. The purpose of this table is to make sure that the field names in the user s data file correspond to the field names the system expects. There are three possibilities for this table 1. All fields in the user s database correspond perfectly to all the expected fields. When this is the case, one opens the table, reviews the field names and saves it. 2. There are fields that are missing in the user s data file (this is usually the case). In this case, those fields that will be missing must be cleared and then the translation table saved. 3. There are fields in the user s database that differ from the fields the system expects. The field names must be changed in the Actual File Field Name boxes in the translation table to correspond to what is actually in the user s database. NOTE: There can be a combination of 2 and 3. Here is the table with the codes matching the template. Here is the table with some field names change. NOTE: Always click Save. 8

11 Editing the Congregant Status Translation Table If there is no congregant status data in the congregant data file, nothing needs to be done with this table. However, if there is, then the system must be informed of the codes to expect. If the data file has followed the template, then the user only needs to enter the codes in the Actual column and save, as in illustration number # 1. If the data file has different codes, then these need to be added to the actual column as in illustration # 2. NOTE: The system can only accept the number of fields indicated. For Congregant Member Status: 5 fields only. Illustration #1: Data fields match Template Illustration #2: Data fields differ from Template, actual codes provided. NOTE: Always click Save. Editing the Member by Means Translation Table If there is no member by means data in the congregant data file, nothing needs to be done with this table. However, if there is, then the system must be informed of the codes to expect. If the data file has followed the template, then the user only needs to enter the codes in the Actual column and save, as in illustration number # 1. If the data file has different codes, then these need to be added to the actual column as in illustration # 2. NOTE: The system can only accept the number of fields indicated. For Congregant Member Status: 4 fields only. Illustration #1: Data fields match Template Illustration #2: Data fields differ from Template, actual codes provided. NOTE: Always click Save. 9

12 Viewing the Data Once the data has been uploaded, the user should be able to view the data. On the menu bar, select Congregant Plot. Steps in plotting 1: Select Church: From the Church list, find the appropriate congregation. In this case, choose IPC. 2: Select plot type: Selecting all congregants will plot all records in the data file. Selecting Congregant Member Status will plot by status type as entered into the system. Distinctions will be indicated by different colored plot points. The following two maps show the difference. All Congregants Congregant by Member Status NOTE: Additional plot type choices will automatically display if other attributes were included in the congregant data file. 10

13 Support Contacts Formatting and Uploading Questions to: 11

14 The Next Generation in Mission Context Analysis Western US Office 7700 Irvine Center Drive, Ste. 800 Irvine, CA Eastern US Office 7600 Schomburg Road Suite L Columbus, GA ext. 323