User Support Forum

It's Stewardship time, and I've been asked to prepare some documents based on current giving. One is a chart that shows how many families are giving in each range, for example 10 are giving $5-10/week, 10 are giving $10-25/week, and so on up the scale. We will also be sending a letter to each family which will show what their pledge was last year.

I'm not sure what is the fastest way to do this. Is there a report that would give me those? I need to add funds 100 and 200, but can't use a range because fund 175 is excluded.

My other question is how to export a usable database to excel. I need to sort by last name, and the name field has both first and last in the same cell. And so on with other portions of the data.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm just an average layperson without training, but no one else would take the position!

juliejpr wrote:It's Stewardship time, and I've been asked to prepare some documents based on current giving. One is a chart that shows how many families are giving in each range, for example 10 are giving $5-10/week, 10 are giving $10-25/week, and so on up the scale. We will also be sending a letter to each family which will show what their pledge was last year.

I'm not sure what is the fastest way to do this. Is there a report that would give me those? I need to add funds 100 and 200, but can't use a range because fund 175 is excluded.

Yes there is a report that does this the Contributions Range Report You can adjust the ranges how you like. However, not being able to range from 100 to 200 is a problem. Here's an answer:
1) Do a backup of the system
2) Reassign the Contribution Fund of 175 to 210 (anything outside the range of 100 to 200)
3) Run the report
4) Reassign the fund number back to 175

You find this function under Contributions -> Reassign -> Reassign a Fund Number

My other question is how to export a usable database to excel. I need to sort by last name, and the name field has both first and last in the same cell. And so on with other portions of the data.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm just an average layperson without training, but no one else would take the position!

Exactly what are you trying to do with this data?? Is there a specific format you need ??

Thanks, Neil, I've been running range reports for 100 and 200 by themselves and then combining them. Doing all that reassigning sounds like a recipe for problems to me.

As far as Excel, I would like to use it for all kinds of reports, such as comparing giving from one year to the next for individuals. For the Stewardship drive, I would use it for a mail merge letter that will show what last year's pledge was. Our Pastor wants to write his own letter and insert the information. I would also like to be able to sort by last name because he also wants a comparison of this year/last year. On Consecration Sunday I will need to quickly fill in the numbers to give a result and if I have them alphabetized I can quickly find who didn't turn in a pledge, because letters go out to them the following week.

The other frustration is that exporting to Excel doesn't give you nicely lined up columns A, B, C, etc. Instead the data is jumbled around and needs a lot of work to make it work. Excel is so handy to use that I'm really hoping I've just missed something as far as how to export. Thanks!

juliejpr wrote:Thanks, Neil, I've been running range reports for 100 and 200 by themselves and then combining them. Doing all that reassigning sounds like a recipe for problems to me.

Actually, it wouldn't be. If you restore the backup that you took prior to running the reports right after you run the reports. That said, if fund 175 is not one you track for Stewardship purposes, why is it between 100 and 200, I'd move it permanently.

As far as Excel, I would like to use it for all kinds of reports, such as comparing giving from one year to the next for individuals. For the Stewardship drive, I would use it for a mail merge letter that will show what last year's pledge was. Our Pastor wants to write his own letter and insert the information. I would also like to be able to sort by last name because he also wants a comparison of this year/last year. On Consecration Sunday I will need to quickly fill in the numbers to give a result and if I have them alphabetized I can quickly find who didn't turn in a pledge, because letters go out to them the following week.

The other frustration is that exporting to Excel doesn't give you nicely lined up columns A, B, C, etc. Instead the data is jumbled around and needs a lot of work to make it work. Excel is so handy to use that I'm really hoping I've just missed something as far as how to export. Thanks!

I see, and entering the pledge data into PCPlus then running the List of Contributors Who Have Not Pledge report won't do what you want it to do ?? Eventually you'd have to enter the pledge data, taking the time to do so on that Sunday, will get the job done, and save you from having to fill out another form that really wouldn't be necessary.

OK .. I'm going to assume that you're using v11.1 or 11.5 here.
Have you looked at the Other Output modules under Contributions. It will create mail merge files for many uses. For instance, the Selected Contributors output there will include the following pieces of data:

"Salutation","Mailing Name","Address 1","Address 2","City","State","Zip","Country","Envelope #","Sortname"

and it will do this in a few formats.

That sounds handy, and I will try it the next time I'm in the office. Do the options include amounts given?

juliejpr wrote:That sounds handy, and I will try it the next time I'm in the office. Do the options include amounts given?

The Selected Pledges mail merge file does:

"Salutation","Mailing Name","Address 1","Address 2","City","State","Zip","Country","Envelope #","Pledstart","Pledend","Pledperiod","Period_amt","Pled_total"

The Period_amt column will show how much was pledged per period (week, monthy, year), and the Pled_total will show how much has been given to date.

FWIW .. many of these reports were asked for by myself and others who needed to do what you want to do.