User Support Forum

I have all of our current members in PC and am ready to start plugging in the historical records from our church's register. I was wondering if anyone has any tips, suggestions, advice before I start, maybe things they wished they would have known or thought of before they started inputting their historical data?

Since I have only been here going on six years, I do not know a lot of these folks listed in the register, so will definitely need to call on members to help me out, but thought people on here might be of help too.

Any suggestions, tips, or advice would be appreciated.

Will check back next week.

Have a great weekend everyone!

CCPC wrote:I have all of our current members in PC and am ready to start plugging in the historical records from our church's register. I was wondering if anyone has any tips, suggestions, advice before I start, maybe things they wished they would have known or thought of before they started inputting their historical data?

Since I have only been here going on six years, I do not know a lot of these folks listed in the register, so will definitely need to call on members to help me out, but thought people on here might be of help too.

Any suggestions, tips, or advice would be appreciated.

Will check back next week.

Have a great weekend everyone!

It depends on what you're calling 'historical' records? Are these members who have left or have passed on ??

If so, I would not put them in Powerchurch, as they will probably not be referred to in future, other than an occasional look up maybe once a month. If they are in a written register, than that would suffice.

If you're talking about members who are still listed as active on the church rolls, then by all means you would add them. However, if you're talking about members who are listed as active, but who last darkened the doors of the church 4 or 5 years ago, I'd have a talk with the church board about getting them off the rolls, especially those who are no longer living in the same state!!

NeilZ wrote:

CCPC wrote:I have all of our current members in PC and am ready to start plugging in the historical records from our church's register. I was wondering if anyone has any tips, suggestions, advice before I start, maybe things they wished they would have known or thought of before they started inputting their historical data?

Since I have only been here going on six years, I do not know a lot of these folks listed in the register, so will definitely need to call on members to help me out, but thought people on here might be of help too.

Any suggestions, tips, or advice would be appreciated.

Will check back next week.

Have a great weekend everyone!

It depends on what you're calling 'historical' records? Are these members who have left or have passed on ??

If so, I would not put them in Powerchurch, as they will probably not be referred to in future, other than an occasional look up maybe once a month. If they are in a written register, than that would suffice.

If you're talking about members who are still listed as active on the church rolls, then by all means you would add them. However, if you're talking about members who are listed as active, but who last darkened the doors of the church 4 or 5 years ago, I'd have a talk with the church board about getting them off the rolls, especially those who are no longer living in the same state!!

Hi Neil,

Thank you for your reply. The Session discussed it and they want all of our records in our church register to be eventually put in PowerChurch. I am currently just working on the members we have now with things like their baptisms, weddings, etc. But, yes, they want to eventually have all of our records in the database so we have a complete digital record of everything. I have been here for only five years, so the "historical" ones are really going to be a challenge. I will have to work with some of the old timers to find out relationships, etc.

I will mention your comments to them and see if it changes their minds.

Thank you again for replying!

CCPC wrote:
Hi Neil,

Thank you for your reply. The Session discussed it and they want all of our records in our church register to be eventually put in PowerChurch. I am currently just working on the members we have now with things like their baptisms, weddings, etc. But, yes, they want to eventually have all of our records in the database so we have a complete digital record of everything. I have been here for only five years, so the "historical" ones are really going to be a challenge. I will have to work with some of the old timers to find out relationships, etc.

I will mention your comments to them and see if it changes their minds.

Thank you again for replying!

I see where they are going. That's going to take a LOT of work.

You have a couple of choices to make:

1. Use the existing installation of Powerchurch, and create new mailing category codes and new personal profiles codes, or
2. Install another copy of Powerchurch to a separate directory and use that for your historial records. That is, records of those previous members who are not in the current database of Powerchurch.

Since Powerchurch is a 'site license' type of software, you can install another instance of Powerchurch and not violate your license. You would install from the Powerchurch Installation CD, but when the installer presents you with the install directory, you would change that to a different location.

In this way, you will have current data as your main installation, this is the one you use everyday. The second installation would be only needed if you had to look up any data a few times a month.

This will keep you from having to filter all the membership reports eliminating the historical data everytime you need to pull a report. Plus, since this data is unlikely to change, you don't have to worry about doing weekly backups, and just do a monthly or an as needed backup.

I do suggest that this be the path that you follow.

Just as a suggestion if you choose to go with Neil's suggestion. Do not put the shortcut icon for the historical database on the desktop. This will prevent any confusion with which icon to use and entering current data into the historical database.

NeilZ wrote:

CCPC wrote:
Hi Neil,

Thank you for your reply. The Session discussed it and they want all of our records in our church register to be eventually put in PowerChurch. I am currently just working on the members we have now with things like their baptisms, weddings, etc. But, yes, they want to eventually have all of our records in the database so we have a complete digital record of everything. I have been here for only five years, so the "historical" ones are really going to be a challenge. I will have to work with some of the old timers to find out relationships, etc.

I will mention your comments to them and see if it changes their minds.

Thank you again for replying!

I see where they are going. That's going to take a LOT of work.

You have a couple of choices to make:

1. Use the existing installation of Powerchurch, and create new mailing category codes and new personal profiles codes, or
2. Install another copy of Powerchurch to a separate directory and use that for your historial records. That is, records of those previous members who are not in the current database of Powerchurch.

Since Powerchurch is a 'site license' type of software, you can install another instance of Powerchurch and not violate your license. You would install from the Powerchurch Installation CD, but when the installer presents you with the install directory, you would change that to a different location.

In this way, you will have current data as your main installation, this is the one you use everyday. The second installation would be only needed if you had to look up any data a few times a month.

This will keep you from having to filter all the membership reports eliminating the historical data everytime you need to pull a report. Plus, since this data is unlikely to change, you don't have to worry about doing weekly backups, and just do a monthly or an as needed backup.

I do suggest that this be the path that you follow.

Sounds like a good path to follow, Neil! Thank you so much. I will print this out and have it for our upcoming meeting.
Have a great day!

tborgal wrote:Just as a suggestion if you choose to go with Neil's suggestion. Do not put the shortcut icon for the historical database on the desktop. This will prevent any confusion with which icon to use and entering current data into the historical database.

Good suggestion, Tom! I could definitely see that being an issue.
Thanks Much!