User Support Forum

I need some advice. A major sticking point from our secretary is how we have set up the attendance module. The congregation is divided up into 12 flocks, so each member is coded for the activity of 1011 - Doster flock, for instance. When she enters the attendance she has to segregate the attendees into these twelve flocks with twelve print out rosters, then enter in 12 different Fast Data Entry operations.

What could we do to simplify this in Powerchurch? I was thinking that if she had the activity of 101 - morning worship, and then the 1011 - Doster flock, she would mark the roll using the 101 code, then do a report using the 1011 - Doster flock code. Would that work? Any idea how we could simply this? It is taking her 2 hours a week to do this and she has abandoned PowerChurch and gone to an excel spreadsheet instead.

Because of this problem, she is recommending that we change to a $5000 piece of software!!

Bill Thompson
Cherry Log Christian Church

I am making some assumptions that family groups and not individuals are assigned to these flocks and that a shepherd/deacon is responsible for following up when someone's attendance pattern changes.

The family mailing list has 2 fields for assigning families to a shepherd. They are called who visits & visit area. You will find them on the other information tab in the integrated data entry screen. Functionally they are they are equivalent. You would enter the flock for each family into this field.

In version 10, the report designed for this type of follow up is the consecutive absentee report. This report lets you know when people miss 2, 3, or more times in a row depending on how you run the report. This report is sortable by the who visits and visit area fields so you can have the appropriate shepherd follow up with them.

In version 11 we have made some changes in this area. The who visits and visit area fields are no longer 6 character fields, they are drop down code fields similar to the other code fields. Also we are making more of the attendance reports selectable by the who visits and visit area fields.

The following reports will allow you to select attendance information by the who visits/visitation fields:
First Time Attenders: Select & Sort
Visitor Report: Select & Sort
Detail Weekly Attendance by Activity Type: Select & Sort (** this is a new report in v11)
Average Attendance: Select
Consecutive absentee report: Sort
Absentee Report: Select & Sort
Summary of Personal Attendance: Select
Details of Personal Attendance: Select
Activity Attendance Report: Select