Tales From Tech 2 - Issue: 14

In today's edition, I want to talk about a couple of very important issues related to the built-in reports in Version 8.

Today's edition deals exclusively with Version 8. If you are using a prior version, feel free to read it anyway so you can find out more about some of the great new features that are available in Version 8.

Thinking about reports reminded me (although I'm not really sure why) of that old saying: The grass is always greener when you lead your horse to water.

REPORTS, REPORTS AND MORE REPORTS

In Version 8, there are more than 20 new reports than in Version 7. Yes, you read it right, there are OVER 20 NEW REPORTS. There are now 4 different "versions" of the Church Directory. There is also a new version of the Attendance Register Form that allows you to print out the individuals in the activity with multiple columns so you can mark attendance for several dates all on one sheet. There are new reports in the Family Mailing List, Personal Profiles, Contributions and even Fund Accounting. In fact, there is even a report now that will help you do your dishes. (Okay, there's not really a new report that will help you do your dishes, but with all the time you'll save by using the built-in reports, you'll have all the time in the world to do your dishes.)

And, not only are there over 20 new reports, but they all look a lot better. We have taken great pains in prettying up the built-in reports by using a standard Windows font (Arial, if you're curious) instead of the FoxPrint font that was used for reports in prior versions of the program.

FORMATS (NOT FLOOR MATS)

In order to create the new layouts and use the new font on the built-in reports, we had to completely redesign how the pre-defined reports are created. One of the side effects of this overhaul is that you will no longer be able to edit reports on the screen before printing them.

But, have no fear! If you need to edit a report, all you'll have to do is to save the report and open it outside the program using Word or Excel. Here's how...

When you bring up one of the built-in reports on the screen, you will see an icon that looks like a diskette. Click that icon and you'll get the option of saving the report. You will have the option to save the file as an ASCII text file, a Lotus or Excel spreadsheet, a Rich Text Format file or even a Word document. You can even have PowerChurch Plus launch the appropriate program to open the file you just created. All you have to do is put a check in the box that says "open file after saving." If you do this, the program associated with the document type you created will open with your report right there ready for you to use.

(Important note for WordPerfect users: Through testing, it was discovered that WordPerfect would only import files in the ASCII text file format. Unfortunately, with this file type, some of the formatting will be lost and data fields may be truncated.)

ONE LAST THING

In Version 8, when you bring up a report on the screen, you will see a button with a triangle pointing to the right and a vertical line next to it. This button is to take you to the last page of the report. The thing I want to note is that when you click on this button to go to the last page, the report generator actually has to create each and every page of the report even though you aren't looking at them at that moment. What this means is that if you bring up a very long report on the screen and then you click on the button to go to the last page, you may have to wait several minutes for the last page to be displayed. You DO NOT want to do this, especially on the All Contributions Statements report. Trust me. I have seen hard drives crash and monitors explode when our beta testers (rest their souls) tried this.

Okay, I'm kidding about the injuries. But, in all seriousness, you really don't want to bring up a long report and click the button to go to the last page because it could take a very long time.