User s Manual for Church Secretary for Windows 2019

Transcription

1 User s Manual for Church Secretary for Windows 2019 Copyright 2019 Dennis Baggott and Sons Microsoft Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corpotation Copyright 2019 by Dennis Baggott. All Rights Reserved. dennis@dennisbaggottandsons.com

2 Table of Contents Contents Introduction... 3 About Church Secretary for Windows... 4 What's new... 4 Getting Started... 5 Installation... 5 Common Interface Components... 5 Administration Audit Log Calendar My Details Roles Users Main Files Attendance List View Attendance Detail View Attendance Count Only List View Attendance Count Only Detail View Contributions List View Contributions Details View Contributions Summary List View Contributions Summary Details View Expenses List View Expenses Detail View Families List View Families Detail View Library List View Library Detail View Member List View Member Details View Prayers List View Prayers Detail View Related Tables Class List View Class Detail View Expense Types List View / 90

3 Expense Types Detail View Fund Names List View Fund Names Detail View Groups List View Groups Detail View Important Dates List View Important Dates Details View Library Loans List View Library Loans Detail View Payees List View Payees Details View Prayers List View Prayers Details View Talents List View Talents Details View Reports and Dashboards Dashboards Reports Classic Reports - New Style Mail Merge Templates Introduction This help file will help you to use Church Secretary for Windows In addition to this file you will find videos on many components of Church Secretary for Windows 2019 on the web site at: Please evaluate the program for up to 30 days. If you decide during your evaluation that the program meets your needs you will need to purchase a license for your church to continue using the program. This license is Perpetual. You will be able to then use the program on as many computers as you like - this may be multiple computers at your church, perhaps on the same local area network - or you in those cases where you have a single user of the program that may on occasion want to work on the program at home. This person would need to copy the database file from the computer at church to a USB Stick and then copy to their home computer. NOTE: Registered users (those who have purchased a license) will receive a text file which would need to be copied to the program folder on each computer where they have installed the program. Now, in addition to being a single cost per church, there are also no maintenance costs. While technical support is limited to , there are no charges for technical support. In fact, unlike many companies you do not need to have purchased a church license in order to me with any questions during the evaluation period. I will also provide an additional address for licensed users of Church Secretary for Windows 2019 to help be double sure I receive their questions and can answer promptly. It has been many years since I developed and offered for sale what at the time was called Church Secretary for Windows 32. In all those years the most frequent compliments I have received has been for my prompt replies to s. NOTE: Please visit the web site where I will be posting many how to videos to help you understand and get the most out of Church Secretary for Windows Bottom line is if you try the program and decide the program meets your needs you will only need to pay for a license 1 time - no hidden costs. The initial price will be just $99. Version upgrades from 2019 to any 3 / 90

4 future version included. About Church Secretary for Windows There are many large church congregations and synagogues in this country and in fact around the world. Church Secretary for Windows was not really designed for these large congregations with big budgets and sometimes quite a few people on the church staff working full time. The original program, and every version developed, has had in mind the small to medium sized church. Often users of Church Secretary for Windows are a single person, sometimes an unpaid volunteer who may only work for a few hours a week in the church office. In fact, a few years ago I heard from a few customers who were actually the full time minister that also did the work of a Church Secretary. The main goal in developing the program was to be an affordable, easy to use program that would make a hard job a little easier. I have in the past provided a web based interface as an alternative. This web interface could have been used in congregations that had a small local area network and would have made it easier for those on a network (including those that did not use a Microsoft Windows based computer) to connect to the same database and update the data without installing the program on each computer. Others could have installed the program on a hosted web site to allow them to use the program from anywhere. The problem is many did not have the technical knowledge (or inclination) to set up one of their computers as a web server, or did not feel comfortable with the member data being on the Internet, and so on. So in this release the program is only being offered as a Microsoft Windows based application. If you have not already visited the Web Site you will find more information, including How To Videos, Download and Order Links and more, at What's new The changes to this latest version of Church Secretary for Windows include changes to the interface with additional theme options. One of what we believe to be the most welcome changes is an easy to use Mail Merge system to let you create customized letters to selected members. These letters can include rich text formatting and pictures (clip art). Important Dates for members include formatting for dates occurring in the current month. This version removes the optional web interface. The majority of our customers prefer the desktop edition. If there is sufficient demand we may in the future again provide a web based version of the program. Also, we are no longer providing a Lite edition. That version did not require any login at all so no roles, users and permissions. Those who preferred the lite edition were most often the lone ranger type with a single person (Church Secretary?) maintaining the family and member information, attendance and contribution and possibly even the church library records. If that is the case for your church you need only use the provided Admin account, but we do recommend changing the password from the default blank password after you have installed the program and used it for a while. We hope you find this new version meets your needs. If after evaluating the program for up to 30 days you decide you want to continue using the program you will need to buy a license to continue using the program. After receiving notification of your order from BMT MIcro, our registration service, we will you a text file - a license - to save in the same folder on your computer where the program is installed. The next time you start the program you will no longer see the days remaining reminder. The program is licensed on a Perpetual basis - that means forever. You will not need to pay anything else as long as your church congregation is in existence. This is not a per computer or per user license but a church license. This means if you have installed the program on a computer at the church but want to on occasion work on the program from home using your personal computer your license permits that as well. Just install the program on your computer at home, and save the license file to that computer in the installation folder. To take the program data home you would copy the.mdb file from the work computer to a USB stick then take that USB Stick (thumb drive) home and copy that file to the data folder on your personal computer overwriting the existing file. Repeat the process to take any updated data and put it back on your work computer. 4 / 90

5 Getting Started Installation The installation of the program is pretty straightforward but here are some notes that may be helpful. The program should run on just about any computer running MIcrosoft Windows but I recommend Windows 7 or Windows 10. The system requirements are technically no different than the system requirements to run Microsoft Windows but I do recommend a large monitor and if you have 8 megs of RAM the program will obviously run much faster than a computer with just 4 or 2 megabytes of RAM. The full installation is over 200 megabytes but I recommend at least 1 gigabyte free after installation. NOTE: Most computers will run this program just fine. Start up will take some time as many things are going to be loaded into memory before you login. This version, like past versions will run on either 32 bit or 64 bit versions of Windows. The default installation is to C:\Program Files (x86)\churchsecretary2019 with the database installed to C:\inetpub\wwwroot\db - this is important to know for 2 reasons. 1). If after evaluating the program you decide you want to buy a church license and continue using the program, after your order is complete you will receive a file that will remove the trial limitation when you save this license file to the same folder as the program executable (which is named ChurchSecretary2019.Win.exe ). 2) The location of the database is also important so you can take backups - copy the.mdb file to USB perhaps to work from home if you have the program installed on work and home computers, and if you will be using the program shared on a server for example on your local area network. In this case after each user has installed the program on their computer and you have copied one copy of the database file to a shared folder where each user has read/write permission and then edit the ChurchSecretary2019.Win.exe.config file with the new shared folder. So if for example you have a shared folder named like P:\public you would want to edit the config file to point to this location as in: "Data Source=P:\public\ChurchSecretary2019.mdb" While the documentation (this file and some videos on the web site) may show many families and members and related records, when you install Church Secretary for Windows 2019 these sample records will not be there. You will need to being adding your own family, member and other information. You should really add a few records to all the main files before you begin looking at the provided dashboards and reports. There won't be much to report on until you have added some data. Common Interface Components Throughout the program you will find many common features. Let's start with the Tool Bar menu at the top of the screen. The buttons displayed will change depending on the type of screen or view you are using. The next screen shot is of the tool bar when the Member Details view is open. It just so happens that the Family Name field is selected to so a button named "Open Families" is shown to allow you to view the Family record related to this member. Starting at the left item on the screen is the NEW button which will allow you to open a screen with all entries blanked out and ready to add a record. If you happen to click the bottom half of this button a menu will pop out letting you choose the type of data for which you want to add a new record. 5 / 90

6 NOTE: When you click the bottom half of a NEW button, a drop down menu will let you choose the type of Data you want to update with a new record. Next to the NEW button you will sometimes see a CLONE button. When you click the Clone button a details view will be shown with the same data as the record selected when you clicked the Clone button. Say for example you wanted to add several attendance records for the same Member of a Class. Click the Clone button and then just change the Attendance date for the new cloned or copied record. When you begin adding or editing a record the Save button will be enabled. In the screen shot above it is disabled because no changes have been made yet. The Save and Close button will commit the changes and close the screen you were editing returning to the List view. The Save and New button will save the changes but keep the screen open ready to add another record. The Deleted button will - after prompting, remove the selected record from the database. In many screens I have set rules, such as an item may not be blank or must be unique. These rules will be checked when you Save a record, but if a Validate button is visible you can check the rules by clicking the button. The Refresh button is most useful if using the program on a Local Area Network (LAN) for example to show changes others users may have made that were not yet shown on the screen. The Rest View Setting button is useful if you have made changes to the layout of a screen and it will restore the screen to the original design. The Show In Report button will be displayed if the Data Type has any reports set with Is In Place Report check box enabled. The report will be launched with the selected record(s) included in the Report. The next button, Show In Document is similar to Show in Report but is for Mail Merge Type documents. The Arrow buttons just let you move from one record to another and the Close button will close the screen and return you to the related view. 6 / 90

7 The Tool Bar above is slightly different, as it happens to be from a List View of records. Notice the Text to Search button. Enter a word or phase in this box and the list will be filtered to show only records with that text. After searching click the X button to remove the filter and show all records again. There are two additional tabs on the Main Tool Bar. The View Tab contains a number of features to let you change the appearance of the program to suit your needs. You can change the size of fonts, colors and styles and more. When you choose The Bezier theme from the Appearance box a Theme Options button will be displayed to let you choose from additional color palettes. The Tools option only has one button labeled Edit Model. The ability to Edit the Model of the program is very powerful but also allows you to make unintended changes easily. I strongly recommend making a backup of the Model file before using the Edit Model for any purpose. The next Tool Bar is shown when viewing a Report in Preview mode. The options on this tool bar allow you to zoom in or out, Export the report to a file and save it for later use, or Export a file and launch your program to send it as an attachment. 7 / 90

8 The new Mail Merge feature adds yet another Tool Bar, or actually multiple Tool Bars. Below is a glance at those buttons. Next lets look at the Navigation Bar. This vertical bar on the left of the screen allows you to move between the different parts of the program easily. The Bar has several sections with buttons under each section. The Admin section includes a button to access the Calendar of Events, change your password, and setup Roles and Users. The Main Files are the ones you will work with most often. They include Attendance, Attendance Count Only, Contributions, Contributions Summary, Expenses, Families, Library, Members, and Prayers. 8 / 90

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10 Related tables are helpful because they provide the values for many drop-down lists to speed data entry in the Main Tables and insure data consistency. Lookup or Related Tables include Classes, Expense Types, Fund Names, Groups, Important Dates, Library Loans, Payees and Talents. 10 / 90

11 The final Navigation section is for Reports and includes buttons to access Dashboards, Classic Reports, New Style Reports, and new Mail Merge Templates. Grids in the List Views have many common features - most of which will only be available when you right click on a column header. If you click your left mouse button on a column header you can sort the list by that column in either direction. You can also access the filter feature by clicking in a column header. The filter will be different according to the type of data in the selected column, as in the screen shots below. 11 / 90

12 OR 12 / 90

13 OR 13 / 90

14 When you create a filter you can clear the Filter by clicking the button. Don't forget the filters you create are also show at the bottom of the grid screen. When finished you will want to click the X to remove the filter. When you right click on a column header the menu shown below pops up. We will go through the options available on that menu next. 14 / 90

15 The first 3 options an the grid menu are related to sorting for the selected column. The next set of options have to do with the columns in the grid. You can hide columns one at a time or use the Column Chooser to configure several columns visibility at one time. You can also use this menu option to set width of columns. Next you have the options to group on a column and can show the Group By box. This could be helpful to group members by type or status and so on. The above screen shows the list grouped on Status and Collapsed. Let's now add the Group By Box. Now when we click on the column we have grouped on additional options are available such as Full Expand, Full Collapse as well as the Ungroup option and the Hide Group By Box. 15 / 90

16 Note in the next screen shot I have added the Auto Filter Row. Here I can type a value and instantly filter the grid based on the value I types in the search area. You can also change the search or filter operator for example from Contains to equal. I have already filtered on Head of Household equals Yes and now I can add Include in Mailing = Yes to filter the grid even more. You get the idea. 16 / 90

17 Now the filter I created using the Auto Filter row is visible at the bottom of the screen. I can use the Filter Editor option to view or change this filter - or create an entirely new filter. 17 / 90

18 By default, the Filter Editor uses AND to string together conditions for a filter. I could click on the And and change it to or to show records where EITHER head of household or Include In Mailing is a Yes. I could click on the Contains operator in Green to change it to Equals, and so on. The Text tab just shows the filter you could create by typing the same values as you select visually. 18 / 90

19 Administration Audit Log The Audit Log feature is not really important unless you are using the program on more than one computer on your LAN (Local Area Network) with a shared database connection - or you have the program installed on a single computer but multiple users in different roles or without different accounts are logging in at different times. In these two cases the Audit Log available to only Admin accounts can be useful. You cannot delete log file items from within the program. It is intended to track any entries that might have been changed and should not have been. You can filter the log just like other grids. By person logged in and so on. The List View is shown below. When you double click a row, you can see more details of what was changed. 19 / 90

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21 Calendar While many users of Church Secretary for Windows 2019 may use their own dedicated Calendar program, I have included rudimentary Event Scheduler feature for those that might find it helpful. This calendar feature is similar to many other programs. A date navigator on the left allows you to quickly locate and go to the current date as well as go forward or backward to other dates. There are multiple views for the calendar. The first shown is a week view, but there are many other views available by just right clicking on the calendar. 21 / 90

22 Day View shown with recurring events. Monthly view. 22 / 90

23 There is an Agenda view. There is also a Time line view. 23 / 90

24 You can also use the print preview option to print your events. Just a quick look at creating a new Event. Let's say the Preacher and Church are booked for a Wedding. Let's add that appointment and set an alarm. Enter a subject, be sure to set the Start Date and time and the End Date and Time. Initially the end day may be the next day. Select Label, Status and Location. Then enter an description. Finally, choose a Notification from the drop-down list which may be days or hours or minutes If you set the Reminder then a notification like below will pop up to alert you to the upcoming event. 24 / 90

25 My Details This screen allows you to change your password. Because in the screen shot below I am logged in as an Administrator I have options "normal" users would not have. You do not need to do anything on this screen other than, if you like, Change Your Password. I think this is a good idea and recommend it. However, first you may want to create another user account for yourself and Link it to the Administrator role. When you click the Change My Password button, you will see a screen like below. Because when you first install the program the Admin password is blank or empty, skip the "Old Password" field and type what you want for your new password in the 2nd and 3rd boxes (entries must match) and click OK. The next time you start the program you will need to use this new password. 25 / 90

26 Roles If you are like the majority of users of Church Secretary for Windows 2019 are single users of the program, meaning they do not have the program shared on a Local Area Network (LAN) and they do all the work themselves. If you fit in that category you do not need to be concerned with Roles. You can just login as Admin (or an account you created after installation that is also an Administrator account) and do all functions in the program. However, if you are using the program on a LAN you may have users you want to have limited permissions, or if you want someone else to be able to login to your computer while you work on other tasks.. You may have someone you only want to be able to Add or Update Attendance records. Or you may have someone you wan to update the Church Library or Prayer List. This may be a temporary volunteer and you don't want that person to be able to view member data like contributions, pledge amounts and so on. For that reason I have provided a few roles with limited permissions. You as administrator can create additional roles and set permissions for these roles or modify permissions for other roles. The list below shows the Roles provided by default. NOTE: The Can Edit Model box is not checked for the Administrators Role, but the Is Administrative box is checked. An Administrator account can be default Edit the Model. I recommend not giving the Can Edit Model to anyone In fact, that option is so powerful I recommend you not Edit the Model unless you really need to - and have a back of the Model file just in case. Next let's look at the Prayer Leaders role. This is a very limited Role and users assigned to this role have very few options. I have only created one role and Linked it to this role. That user name is set as "Prayer" 26 / 90

27 and no password has been set. This role is set with the Change Password On Next Login is unchecked and Is Active checked. If the Is Active box were not checked nobody could login with that account. The Default Permission Policy is Deny all by Default. The next two tabs have to do with what screens or view the user can Navigate to (what is shown on the menu) and what permissions the user will have or not have for each type of Data. The type of data this user is going to deal with is just Prayers. To Edit Navigation permissions just choose the item from the Drop Down list an select either Allow or Deny from the Navigate drop down. The Only menu this user will be able to see is the Prayer list. I denied all by default so I did not have to specifically Deny Navigation permission for Contributions, Attendance and so on. Next consider the permissions for the Data Type. For this role we want users in this role to be able to do anything with the Prayers data - Read, write (edit), Create and even Delete. So for the Prayers Data Type we set is as below. The screen to set Data Type permissions is shown below. 27 / 90

28 Each Data Type (table) has Members (fields) and so we can specify the permissions for any and all items in the table. I can also set a Criteria so that permission can be allowed based on a certain condition. Let's now login as the user named Prayer. Notice the Menu Navigation is limited to Prayer List. Now, the tool bar does show the Show In Report button. There are reports based on the Prayers data type and they are set as In Place Reports so the user in this role does not need to have Reports in the Navigation menu. They can select the Prayers in the Grid and click the Show in Report button to show a report for those records. 28 / 90

29 Now let's look at another provide role, the Library role with a single user named Library as well. For this role I have given them permission to see reports, they can even modify the reports. However, notice they only see reports that are related to the job of Librarian. Read on to see how I did that and you can setup up the Prayer role the same way if you like. 29 / 90

30 The trick to limiting the reports list is by using a criterion. First, we deny read and write permissions to the Reports at the higher level, but then grant the access at a lower level. First we set up Navigation permissions. Next we set up Type Permissions. 30 / 90

31 Next I set Member permissions to Allow if the Report Data Type Contains the phrase "Library" Users Users need to be linked to Roles. One special role is called Default. If you want users to be able to change their own password, then link the Default role to the User - as well as any other role you want him or her to have. If you don't want the users to be able to change their password don't assign the Default role to the user. The next screen shows User Details NOTE: A similar user account I have provided is named Treasurer, the User account named Money may be shorter and easier to spell. For each of the user accounts provided the default password is no password, just blank. So, after you have installed the program and created your own Admin password and maybe a separate Admin account, you may want to change the password for any of these users or set the password to be changed at next login by checking the box Change Password on First Logon. 31 / 90

32 Main Files There are several files that you will use most often. Other files are just used to provide lookup values when updating the main files. The Main Files are: Attendance Attendance Count Only Contributions Contribution Summary Expenses Families Library Members Prayer List Attendance List View This screen shows attendance records in rows and columns like a spreadsheet in a grid style view. Click in the top row of the grid to add New Attendance records in the Grid. Drop Down boxes let you quickly select the Class Name and Member Name. Enter the Attendance Date manually or using the pop-up calendar. Select Yes or No and finally enter any notes. For example, if you have a Visitor you may want to enter First Time visitor in the Notes section on the first date they are present. As with other grids, you can easily sort on any column heading, filter the grid, and drag and drop to rearrange the columns. Attendance Detail View This screen can be used to add or update attendance records. Rather than typing in the grid, when you click the New button this form will be launched. You can also double click an item in the list view to edit and open this detail view. Certain fields are required as indicated by the asterisk (*). All you need to do is select the Class Name from the drop down list, then select the Member Name from the drop down. Enter the date for the attendance record you are creating then Choose Yes or No indicating whether or not the member was 32 / 90

33 present. THe Note field can be helpful, for es Attendance Count Only List View Some congregation will just take a "head count" for each class and that is alright. This screen will allow you to easily enter just the date of an attendance record, the class name and number of people present for the class that day. Attendance Count Only Detail View This screen is used to add or update a single record for Attendance Count Only table. Contributions List View This screen shows a list view of contributions. Contributions Details View This screen allows you to add or update Contribution Details. 33 / 90

34 Contributions Summary List View This screen shows a list of contributions by date. This screen does not allow you to keep detailed records of contributions. It is intended to let you enter a quick total of contributions by date. After you later enter contribution details with Member name, (envelope numbers if you use them), designated fund and so on. Contributions Summary Details View This screen is for a single record page to add or update Contributions Summary. This is just the date of the collection and the amount collected. Expenses List View This screen shows a list view of Expenses. The expenses option is new in this version of the Church Secretary for Windows. The program is not intended to be a full featured accounting program but for a small church this may be useful. Expenses Detail View This screen allows for adding or updating a single expense record. The Expense Amount, Date Paid and Payee are all required fields. the Payment Method, Date Due and Notes fields are not required. A drop down list is provided to select the person or company the expense is intended to Pay. 34 / 90

35 Families List View This screen allows you to view the Family information you have entered or imported. As with all grids you can sort by clicking on any column heading, drag and drop columns to rearrange them. You can also filter on any column. Families Detail View This screen shows the details of Family record. The only actual required field on this screen is the Family name, however, you may want to record information in all the fields on this screen. This can be helpful when adding related Member records. If you enter the Family mailing address, city, state and zip code, as well as phone number when adding each Member record these items will be filled in for you automatically. You can of course type different information when editing member records. For example, if a family member is attending college you may want to enter different mailing information. While some congregations may want to just enter Member records without assigning them to a Family there advantages to using the Family records. For example, rather than printing mailing labels for Members, you may find it more beneficial in some cases to print Family mailing labels. Also, just as with the Member records, the Family record includes a field labeled "Including In Mailing", Yes or No. This can help you save labels when you want to print only certain records. The Family record allows for including a family photo. The program provides membership directories and family directory reports that can include member photos. Just right click on the Family Photo area and choose Load from the pop up menu. At the bottom of the screen is a grid with Members in the selected Family. Click the New button on the bottom grid tool bar to create a new Member of this family. 35 / 90

36 Library List View This list view shows the items you have record in your Church Library inventory. Library Detail View This Details View of Church Library items let's you record a variety of information about each item in the inventory in your church library. First, the Item Name which must be entered and must be unique is the Item Name. This may be the same as the Title of the item, but if you have multiple copies of the same book, CD, DVD etc. you can add Copy 1 of 3 or however many copies you have to be able to record all items. The Title Name and Author are self-explanatory. The Status most often will be available or checked out. The Location is where in the library the item is stored. The cost, if any, is how much the church paid for the item. Source may be donated by member, Amazon, etc. and the Media helps track what kind of item. The Condition is also self-explanatory. The Subject may be useful in grouping items of similar topics. The Summary field is variable length and can describe the item content. Finally, you can store an image of the item you took with your camera and ed to yourself. Right click in the Image area to Load an image file. The grid beneath the Library item details is for the Library Loans related to each item. 36 / 90

37 Member List View This screen shows the Members you have added. addresses are hyper links which means if you click the address in a row of member records it will launch your default program with that member set as the To value. You can sort on any column by clicking the column header. You can drag and drop columns to rearrange them. There are many options available for grids. You can group on columns which will show a count for the grouped records. 37 / 90

38 When you show the Group By box, additional options are shown in addition to the normal options you have when right clicking on a column header. When you click on a cell within the list instead of the column header at the top of the column you get a different set of options shown below. 38 / 90

39 These options include some of the options you get when you click the small triangle pointing down at the main menu, shown below. 39 / 90

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41 Member Details View This screen is used to add or update member information. There are three Tabs along the top of the page for recording a variety of information about the member. At the bottom of the screen there are 7 Tabs with grids displaying data from related tables that are linked to this person. The only item required on this screen is the member's full name. This field is used when entering other data throughout the program.. To Add a Photo to a Member (or Family) record, right click inside the Photo square and a menu will pop up. Choose Load and then browse to the location on your computer where the photo is stored. The second tab labeled Contact Info is for recording mailing address, phone numbers and address for each member. 41 / 90

42 The third tab allows you to quickly enter a lot of information about each member. The Member Type, Member Status and Marital Status fields should be self-explanatory. The Include In Mailing field and the Head of Household fields can be helpful in filtering data for reports and mailing labels. A numeric field is provided if your church tracks member pledges and an Envelope Number field is provided for those that use Envelopes for member contributions. The Important Dates tab will let you enter dates like Birth Date, Baptism Date and so On for the member. The Groups tab let's you link Members to Groups. The Contributions Tab will let you view or add contributions made by this member. The Classes tab will let you view or link the member to Classes that he or she belongs to so you can print class rosters, etc. The Attendance tab will let you view, add or edit class attendance records for the member. The Talents Tab let's you view the Talents the member has or click the Link Button to assign the Member to Talents. Finally, if your church allows members to borrow items from the Church Library, the Library Loans tab will let you launch the screen to record or update items loaned to the member or returned. You can print a record of the Member Information with all related items easily. Just click on the Triangle that points down in the upper left of the main screen and click on the Print Preview menu option. 42 / 90

43 Prayers List View This screen shows a list of prayers that have been requested. Prayers Detail View Prayer Details can be recorded in the screen shown below. Just enter a unique name for each prayer, the Date it was Requested and the Details of the prayer request. Later, you can enter the date the prayer was updated and add Update information. 43 / 90

44 Related Tables Many of the Main Files you will edit have drop down lists to choose from saving you time and insuring consistent data entry. These are often "related" to the Main Files. For example, Contributions may have related Funds. Each Fund may have many related Contributions. This is a 1 to Many type of relationship. One church member may make many contributions again 1 to Many type of relationship. However, a Contribution may not be attributed to more than one member. Consider a different relationship - Many to Many. The Talents related table is such an example. Many members of your church may have the same Talent while that Talent may have many members that have that talent. So when first starting to use Church Secretary for Windows 2019 it might be good to start by setting up the Related Tables, like Classes. Then when you begin recording attendance records the class names will already be available. However, if you prefer you can add related tables "on the fly". When adding a new Attendance Record, for example, if you have not yet created the Class Name you can click the New button to add it right then. 44 / 90

45 Class List View This list view shows classes you have already set up in CSW Class Detail View This detail view of Classes is use to add or update the Class Name, Teacher or Teachers Name and the Room where the class is held. Tabs at the bottom of the screen show related Attendance Records, Members and the Attendance Count only list views. Expense Types List View This list view allows you to add and update Expense Types. You can click the New button on the tool bar or type in the top row of the grid to add a new item. These items are used when entering a new Expense record. 45 / 90

46 Expense Types Detail View This screen shows the Expense Type and any related expenses in a grid the bottom of the screen. Fund Names List View Fund names are used to provide the drop-down values when adding a contribution record. This list shows the Fund Names available. Fund Names Detail View The Fund Name details list view is shown below. The Fund Name is required and must be unique. The grid list view underneath the details shows the related contributions. 46 / 90

47 Groups List View The list of Groups Names is shown below. You can link members to a group and groups to members. Groups Detail View The screen below shows the members linked to a group. The first button on the grid below is used to link members to the group, while the next button to the right of that button will de-link members from a group. Important Dates List View This list view shows Important Dates for each member. Dates that are in the current month are highlighted in Red. Now once a month, or at whatever interval you want, just highlight the members in the list with a birthday 47 / 90

48 during the month and you can use the Mail Merge feature to send a personalized letter to each member with a birthday. When you select Birthday Letter the letter shown below will be ready to send. You can customize this mail merge template to your liking, or clone and edit a copy of the letter. You can also filter on the wedding date, then right click the column heading and choose to output an anniversary letter. 48 / 90

49 The provided mail merge template will produce a customized letter like the one below. 49 / 90

50 Important Dates Details View The details view of the Important Dates table is shown below. Just select the Member Name from the list and enter the appropriate dates. A Notes field is also needed for nay notes you would like to include for the member. If a date is in the current month it will be formated to show these dates in Red text. Library Loans List View This list view screens library loans, by default items that have been loaned as well as returned items. Library Loans Detail View This detail view screen is used to add or update records of loans from the church library. Just record the date the item was loaned. Select the Library Item being loaned or returned. Select the Member the item is being loaned to from the drop down list. The other date fields are for the Date Due (if any) and the Date Returned. NOTE: Remember when you update a Library Loan item also update the related Library item with a Status or either Loaned or Available as appropriate. Payees List View The people or organizations you pay expenses to are called Payees. This list shows the Payees you have set up so you can choose them when entering expense records. Payees Details View This screen is for adding or editing Payees. If you have already entered expenses for this payee, they will be shown in the grid (list view) at the bottom of this detail screen. 50 / 90

51 Prayers List View This list view screen shows the prayers that have been requested. Prayers Details View This screen is used to record prayer requests. The Prayer Name is a short description of the prayer. The next item is the date prayer was requested followed by the date updated (answered?). A large block is provided to enter the details of what the prayer is about and another large block is for recording Update (answer) to the prayer. 51 / 90

52 Talents List View This list shows the talents you have entered and you can assign or relate to members. Talents Details View This detail view screen shows the name of the talent at the top and a list view (grid) at the bottom shows the members linked to that talent. Click the first button at the left above the grid to select Members with that talent. Selection list for linking members to a Talent shown below. Press and hold the CTRL key while clicking names to select members with that talent then click OK to save. 52 / 90

53 Reports and Dashboards Church Secretary for Windows 2019 includes a lot of ways to analyze and report on your contributions, attendance and membership. In addition to Dashboards which can provide a lot of information at a glance, reports and mailing labels are included, in addition to the new Mail Merge Templates. There are two report options. The Classic Report option includes a better Report Wizard than the new Style Reports, in my opinion. The Classic Report Wizard not only allows for selection of the fields, columns to include in a report, it also includes the options to choose the order from left to right, Orientation, and several styles. The New Style Report Wizard has a different look and style which some may prefer. I include both options so you can decide. NOTE: It is possible to export from one style and import to another style, however, that can be complex and is not included in this help file. Dashboards Dashboards are composed of 1 or more items that may include grids, pivot tables or charts of various types. Some of the dashboards are interactive and provide ways to filter the data displayed. You can export dashboard contents, for example to include an image in a Presentation to church members. Although several Chart style reports are included in Church Secretary for Windows 2019 and you can create your own charts using the Report Designer, I think you will find it much easier to create attractive charts using the Dashboard Designer. 53 / 90

54 More than a dozen dashboards are providing covering many data types. Launch a dashboard by double clicking the Name of the Dashboard. This name is taken from the Title of the Dashboard. Rather than edit an existing report in the Designer let's click the New button to create a new Dashboard from scratch. When you click the New dashboard button you will first see the screen below. Choose the bottom option in the list called XAF Object DataSource and click the Next button. From the next screen choose the data type Contributions and click Finish. 54 / 90

55 Now we are at the designer screen. Choose an item from the tool bar and then the data items list where we will drag and drop the items for the component appears. Whatever we drag to the Value box will be the basis for the chart and then we customize it by adding Arguments and/or Series items. Then we can use the other options to change the appearance of the item. By dragging the contribution amount to Value and the Fund Name to the Series we get a chart like below. If we had dropped the Fund Name on Argument the chart bars would all be the same color. 55 / 90

56 Now let's customize the chart a bit. When we click the Chart icon next to the Amount item we get a menu with three tabs. The last tab will let us customize point labels. 56 / 90

57 First we add Content, displaying the Value and Series Name. Then we can change the position of the labels. See the result next. 57 / 90

58 Suppose we change out mind and want a pie chart instead? We just choose the Convert To option on the tool bar and choose Pie. Once we choose this Option our Fund Name will be moved automatically from Argument to Series. See next screen shot. If we put Fund Name under Series instead of Arguments, we would have multiple pies - one for each Fund. Also note that when converted from Bar chart to Pie chart switched from the dollar amount to a Percentage. We can easily change that. Click on the Design Tab then from the drop down under data labels choose Argument, Value and Percent and the chart is changed accordingly. 58 / 90

59 Now if w don't change anything else our new Dashboard will just be listed with the Name - Dashboard. We want something more descriptive and unique. We also want to include the word Contributions so we know at a glance the Data Type our dashboard displays. We just go back to the Tab labeled Home and click on the Title word on the Tool Bar and enter Contributions by Fund Pie Chart. Then Click Save and we can close the dashboard. 59 / 90

60 Our new dashboard is now available on the list. NOTE: If you wind up with a row on the list with no Title, just select and click Delete. 60 / 90

61 Lets look at the next dashboard which uses a Calculation - that isn't really calculating. Consider the case where we want to consider the amount contributed each week with the amount budgeted. We don't have budget field like we do a pledge amount per member. So, we will use a Calculated field set at 4,000. Right click the Goal Per Week to see the menu pop out. 61 / 90

62 We will change the amount - the weekly goal or budget amount from $4,000 to $4500 Now the chart has more Red than with the 4000 amount. See below. 62 / 90

63 Reports Classic One of the main differences in the Classic and New Style Reporting feature is the Report Wizard. Editing an existing report is not that different, but let's look at using the Report Wizard to create a brand new report using the Classic designer. The first step in the wizard is to give your report a name (this will be shown on the list to select a report so make it meaningful), select a Data Type - in this case Contributions. Finally choose the report type. The Choices is Standard and Labels. Most of the time you will choose standard. 63 / 90

64 In the next step of the wizard you will choose the fields you want on the report. Unlike the new style report wizard the fields will appear in the order you select them. Top to bottom will be left to right on the report. The next step in the wizard is to select an fields to group on. In this case we will group on date. If you 64 / 90

65 choose not to pick a grouping level on this screen you will have the option to create a Column style report as opposed to Tabular style report. Column style is better for a record at a time report style. When you group on a field you can easily add summary options like Sum, Avg, count and so on. 65 / 90

66 Next you have options such as Orientation of the report and other style type of choices. Next you choose color and fonts for the report. 66 / 90

67 When we click Finish we get to choose a Title that will appear on the first page of the report, unlike the name that will show on the Reports List. Now the report will first come up in Design view as below. Trust me, it may look good but in most cases you will have to do some work. For example, most related tables use a very long string of characters for the unique ID which is not really readable or useful. So you will have to make change to those items to select the actual field in a table you want to display. 67 / 90

68 Notice the tool box on the left side. At the bottom are Sorting and Grouping options. Contribution Date grouping has already been set up. Let's look at the report in Preview mode. Now I need to edit the report so click back on the Designer button in the top right. 68 / 90

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71 Next let's use the New Style Version 2 Reports. Reports - New Style There are some advantages to the New Style Reports, primarily things like Parameters that allow easy lookups from related tables and other things. However, the Report Wizard is in my opinion not as good as the Classic Report Wizard. You decide for yourself. The Report Wizard starts off like the old style, you give the report a name, this will be shown in the list of reports when finished so give the name something meaningful. This will be a Contribution list so I include that in the name. You select the data type from the drop down. Then choose either Standard or Label report types. 71 / 90

72 In the next Step you select the data source on the left by checking the box. Once you check the box data fields will be displayed on the right side of the page. (Contributions are not a "parent" table to related tables so you will only see one data source.) 72 / 90

73 There is no moving fields up or down in order to place them on the left or right of a list. When you click next you will be able to choose Grouping (or not) but if you don't choose to Group there is no Column option. The reports are always list style. For this example we will group on Contribution Date Now when we click Next we can choose a field and summary operation. The only choice from the fields drop down is Amount, it is the only numeric field. If we just wanted to just count the number of contributions on a date we would have to do that in the designer rather than using the wizard. 73 / 90

74 The final step is for the Report Title and will default to the name you gave the report. There is no style selection, or orientation selection. 74 / 90

75 Now just like the Classic Report Wizard when we finish the report opens up in Design View and just like the Classic Reports we will have to make a number of changes for our report to be finished. First the initial design view. Now when we preview with no changes you see that the fields are left to right in Alphabetical order. Date fields will have to be formatted to remove the time portion and things like Fund Name and Member name initially display the unique, and unreadable value that is used to relate tables rather than a field from the table that we want to use. We click the buttons on the upper right to switch between Design and Preview mode and back again. 75 / 90

76 The first thing I will change is the Date Formats. I select the small arrow near the contribution date, then from the menu that pops up I choose the... next to Format string which pops up a box labeled Format String Editor, choose the Date Time Category on the left then a format I like on the right and click OK. 76 / 90

77 Next I want to choose a field from the related tables for Member an Fund Names. As in the next screen shot I click the little arrow field I want to change and then click the arrow next to the table name, and I can scroll to find the field I want to use, in this example the member's Full Name. I can also resize some of the field labels and names. 77 / 90

78 One final thing I don't like in the New Style Report Wizard is the summary date include the Text Contribution Date along with the date field. So the Date Formatting won't work unless I take out the Mail Merge and change it to an expression with Contribution Date selected by itself. 78 / 90

79 Below is the modified report. 79 / 90

80 I am not through yet. First I want to move the column headings above the Contribution Date group header and I want a page break after each date group footer to put each contribution date's contributions on a new page. Back to the Design View. When I click on the Group Header and choose the Edit Reorder Group sections box I get the screen below. I selected Group 2 and the arrow at the bottom to move it to the top. I can then also change No to Yes for Repeat every page. I then select the Footer section and change the Page break to none to After the Band. The results are shown next. But wait, then I will show how to add Parameters. The final page shows a Sum for the total report while other pages just show a contribution total for the Date. 80 / 90

81 Now sometimes it is helpful to filter the data in a report and we can do that using Parameters and the Report Filter property. In this report we will include parameters to select the Funds we want to report on also Member Names. The first thing we will do is click on Parameters under the Field List and choose Add Parameter. When we choose Add Parameter, we can choose String, Numeric, or Date Fields, or as in this case as Data Type. We will start with Fund Names. We first enter a name for the parameter and then a Description which will be a label when we run the report. From the Type we scroll down to the Funds type. We check show in the Parameters panel, and Support the Selection of standard values (that will activate the Dynamic Values tab item. Since we may want to choose more than one fund, we check the Allow Multiple Values. Further down we select the Data Source from the drop down then choose Fund Name for both the Value Member and the Display member. 81 / 90

82 We will add a new parameter for the Member name and follow the same procedures. So when we switch back to Preview mode we can select from the Parameters (sorry, they are not sorted) but right now when we click Submit we will see all records. Next, we need to set a filter for the report that limits the report based on our selections. 82 / 90

83 So now in Designer view we first Select the Report then click the... next to Data Filter and then use the Filter Editor to select the values on the left, the Is Any Of operator, and the Parameters on the Right. Now the below Report is pretty much working as expected. 83 / 90

84 Please visit the web site where I will be posting many How To Videos - and if you try the program and have questions that might help you and others understand certain functions and features just me your suggestions for videos or questions. Mail Merge Templates New in Church Secretary for Windows 2019 is a basic Mail Merge capability. This included capability may save you some switching between a database or spreadsheet program and word processing program. Several templates are provided and you can create your own. I suggest Cloning an existing template and modifying that copy. Now because this is the first time to introduce this feature there may be some limitations or anomalies (tech talk for bugs). If you have any problem in using or creating mail merge templates please do not hesitate to me with any comments or problems you can share. I try with each new version to make improvements and I always try to be responsive to s from licensed users as well as those just evaluating the program. The list below shows the variety of templates provided. You can sort this list view by Name or Data Type. Double clicking an item in this view launches the template for editing of viewing. When you want to print a mail merged document you select it from the menu for the data type grid view you want to generate a letter or document from. In the screen shot below I am editing a member record and 84 / 90

85 highlight a record where that member was absent then I can choose the We Missed You Document template and preview and print it. Similarly when viewing a grid you can select multiple rows (holding down the CTRL key while selected multiple rows in different places or the Shift Key while selecting several rows one after another. Then select the Show in Document Option and the letter will be generated for all the records you selected. 85 / 90

86 So back to the list. In some templates I included text that you might want to edit - for example if I have place holder text that says "Your Church Name" etc. you will want to replace that by typing over it with your actual church name, address and so on. However, you may want to instead just delete the Church Name and Address and print documents on your own letterhead. Or you may want to spice up a plain looking document by adding clip art, using different fonts, and so on. In fact in one provided template you see I have the document in Landscape instead of Portrait mode and formatted for two columns. So there are quite a few things you can do with the new Mail Merge Templates. NOTE: Because the document template is so new there may be some issues (bugs) I may have missed. Don't hesitate to me if you find any problem. Your comment or suggestion may help me improve the next version of Church Secretary for Windows. One known issue is any time you close a template you will be prompted to Save the item even if you have made no changes. So with the Mail Merge Templates list on the screen, click the Clone button and a copy of that report will be displayed. We are going to first change the name of the report but leave the data type and template text unchanged right now. After changing the Name we click Save and Close. 86 / 90

87 Next we will double click the new copy of this attendance report. When we click inside the large Template box where the mix of field name and text is the tool bar buttons will change. The View Merged Data button switches between showing the field codes - place holders - and the actual field data. We can type at this point and I am going to make room to type in Church Information and add a graphic at the top. 87 / 90

88 Above you can see I have typed in Church Information. Clicking the View Merged Data button again just switches between viewing the field codes. Since Now I want to get a little fancier, I click the editing Tab on the Tool Bar. In the below I have added a graphic (this is under the Insert tool bar tab) added text for the Church Name and address and change the font for that part of the letter. I also chose to Show the Paragraph marks so you can see that at the bottom of the page I inserted a page break. Useful so when printing a document for many people a new page starts for each member in the merged document. 88 / 90

89 Now I can click back on the Merged Data button to see the completed template. Then click the Home button and click Save and Close. NOTE: This new report will not show on the Show in Document drop down until I exit and restart the program. I hope to correct this is in a future version. 89 / 90