Conflicting/inaccurate infor in profiles and individ records

[Marshall Graham]

Ladies and gents,
I'm a relatively new user to PowerChurch. I've just assumed the responsility of maintaining our automated membership information. As I've looked through the databases, I've discovered that they're a mess . Our church split almost two years ago, and the information from before the split was, to a great extent, inaccurate and incomplete; and, there has been very little maintenance done since that time.

Yes, I *DO* have a question: where do I begin to clean up this mess? What is the relationship between the profile and the individual family members? If there were one or two things that you'd consider more important than anything else, what those things be?

For what it's worth, I'm computer literate--was in the computer business (software development and testing, tech writing, user training, database maintenance, network/domain administration, hardware maintenance, Level 1/2/3 Help Desk). But I realize there are things to be learned from everybody, and I look forward to learning how to maintain good, accurate information in PC.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

[NeilZ]

Yes, I *DO* have a question: where do I begin to clean up this mess? What is the relationship between the profile and the individual family members? If there were one or two things that you'd consider more important than anything else, what those things be?

Hi Marshall,

OK ... right now PCPlus is based on the Foxpro engine, so you know up front, its very robust. No matter what M$ tried to do to it.

The Mailing List Profile is the ROOT profile. All the Personal Profiles (family members) are related to it. A one to many relationship. What do I consider more important than anything else? Get the records into the proper categories and make sure the relationships are correct.

The Mailing List Record's Mailing Category is used as the main filter when pulling data from the database. This is what you would use to separate current members, from former members, and so on.

Our categories are:

• Deceased - only used when both main family members (mom & dad for example) are passed. Any children would have had their own set of records by this time.
  
  Friend of Congregation - used those who are not members, other churches, ministers, etc but who are interested in getting the newsletter or other communications.
  
  Member:Active - Self explanatory. Used when at least one family member is an active, participating member.
  
  Member:Transf/Remvd - used when a member has transferred their membership to another church, or when removed by the church session for lack of participation in the life of the church. We keep these around at least four years after their last contribution date per IRS record keeping requirements.
  
  Non-Member:Active - Used for those non-members who attend regularly and/or give regularly. And are active in the church.
  
  Visitor - self-explanatory

The Personal Profile Personal Status code adds some granularity to the system by helping to group by status, comes in very handy when doing personal profile reports.

• Deceased - self-explanatory.
  
  Family Group Member - members of the family who are not members - usually children or spouses who are not members of the church.
  
  Friend of Congregation - used with the Mailing List Status of the same type
  
  Member:Active - self-explanatory
  
  Member:Transf/Rmvd - Self-explanatory
  
  Non-Member:Active - self-explanatory
  
  Visitor - self-explanatory

Well .. that's a start. You'll have more questions so fire away.

[NeilZ]

Just to follow up on what I consider important:

1. As I said, get the records into the proper categories, and verify the family relationships so the personal profiles are correctly assigned to the proper Mailing List Profile (root) record.

2. Remove any duplicate records .. you didn't say which version you're using as Version 11.5 (and I think 11) has made this much easier to do.

3. Verify that the contribution envelopes are correctly assigned to the proper personal profiles,and that there are no duplicate envelopes used within families, unless each member does give separately. I had one family that had three envelopes: Mom, dad and child. Turns out the parents used to write checks from separate accounts, but they all should have gone under the same envelope number. However, one Contribution entry person didn't try to find the main envelope, just created a new one because the wife's name was the only one on the check. Result: two mailing list profiles for the family, two personal profiles for the wife, and for some reason, two personal profiles for the child, one under each Mailing List Profile.

Easy clean up .. merged the envelopes, and trained the Counters to properly search for a last name before entering a new record. However, this does happen and I've found training to be the key to prevention.

This contribution envelope checking may not be under your purview, but you should get with any Contribution Secretary/Bookkeeper who does contribution entry to verify the numbers.

Off the top of my head, that's what I'm thinking right now, I know I'll get questions so I'll wait for them.

[Marshall Graham]

That's great information, Neil. Up to this point, I've completely ignored the Mailing List information--didn't seem to be important. Obviously, I'm mistaken.

I'm gratified to find that PC is using the Foxpro engine. It's an impressive piece of plunder, regardless of what MS has tried to do to it.

I appreciate your giving me a good starting place and a plan to follow. I've made some profile changes that I'm going to un-do, and gonna need to try to pick the brains of some of our older members.

Many thanis and much appreciation for your help.

mg