Family Information

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llfaith
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Family Information

Post by llfaith »

How can I print all the information I have on a family and place it on one page per family. I need this to include members numbers, which are used for their giving. I hope this is clear. Thanks for your help.

Zeb
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Post by Zeb »

If you go to Membership-->Family Mailing List-->Reports there is a report called Membership Master Report, that should be similar to what you are looking for, even an option to print each family on a seperate page.

Feel free to call our technical support office at (800)486-1800.
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Jim L
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Membership Reports

Post by Jim L »

I have the same problem. The Family Memberships Reports provide too much information for our members and looks crapy to boot. The font sizes are too small for our seniors to read as well.

I created a very simple membership renewal form for our members (MS Word doc) to fill out every year, but would like to print info for the family members as well and to include contribution (pledge & balance - totals only) info.

The Export and Query functions provided put each member's profile on a seperate line which makes it impossible to read via the database functions built into MS Word or WORDPERFECT. There is also no way to combine this with the pledge info.

We need to have all that info as one record that can easily be exported to EXCEL or database file that can be imported to a word document.

If there is a way to do this, either by some other program like FoxPro. Please let me know.

This should be easy to do since the info is printed in that Family Membership Report - When you save the report to EXCEL, put all that info for the Family on one line..

Zaphod
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Export

Post by Zaphod »

You may find the "Export Data" functions to be useful. They are found in both Family Mailing List and Personal Profiles (as well as other areas of the software). This will export a file suitable to be used as a data source in Word or Word Perfect.

You can also access the data files directly using ODBC, if you know what you're doing. PowerChurch is written using FoxPro (PC 8, 8.5 use Visual FoxPro 6), so if you're proficient with that, it can be used as well.

For more information (data structures, etc.) feel free to give us a call.
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Jim L
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Post by Jim L »

Yeah - I tried all that. That is where I ran into a roadblock trying to use the export functions built into POWERCHURCH 8.5. It is impossible to sync these seperate reports (or databases)together into one usable system.

I am trying to setup a system so that it can be easy to use by others that are not computer experts. I am not a programmer and really don't want to learn FoxPro. I will not be around all the time to help them. I have to write procedures that a 10 year old can follow. So it has to be EASY..

Zaphod
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Export

Post by Zaphod »

Have you looked into the PowerChurch Custom Reports? You should be able to create a report which gives you this kind of information, and you'd have control over the layout and design of the report. Setting one up can be a farily complex task, but running it would be about as easy as running any of the canned reports in PowerChurch. There is an entire chapter in the manual devoted to Custom Reports, and there are several example walkthroughs in the PowerChurch Answer Archive. That should give you a pretty solid foundation to get started.

I assumed that since you asked if there was a way to do it in FoxPro, that you were interested in some sort of external application where you'd have lots of control for automation. If you're looking to do a lot of data slicing and dicing outside of PowerChurch like that, then you really don't have a choice but to use some ODBC compliant program and get your hands dirty with some programming.

To better evaluate exactly what you have in mind, you might want to give us a call. We can discuss the issues you're seeing and possibly come up with a solution, or at least let you know what you can or cannot do with the software.

Thanks.
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Jim L
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Post by Jim L »

Yup - I tried all those Custom Reports and they work great- Except -- They only can get me part of the way there. The problem is that custom reports limits the fields I need.

There needs to be a Custom Report for the Family Grouped Report.. OR a custom report that can combine selected database modules to give you the data you need....

For example - when doing a Profile Members report. I can not group Family's together into a single line database record that can be easily read into a WORD doc via Excel. Each members profile is output on a seperate line when I export it to an EXCEL file.

Even the Family Grouped report puts data all over the Excel spreadsheet. There is no logical way to sort or use it. That is the main problem. The Family Grouped report contains all the information I need to send to members except for the Pledge data. That I can get from another Custom report in the Contribution module.

The Family Grouped report data looks the same when saved either as a TXT or Excel file. There is no reformating of the data when saved to an Excel format. Is there a way to reformat that data so that each family is on one single line of an Excel formated file?

I got FoxPro today and have been able to merge the MA, ME and COPLED databases, but still have the same problem of merging each members profile into a single line that can be used By MS Word.

I have not been able to find a way to create a new database that merges 3 or four records into a single line. Is there a way to do this?

Zaphod
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yes!

Post by Zaphod »

ah, it sounds like you want a relational recordset that displays non-normalized information. The tables you're hitting are joined as such:

MA: Family Mailing List
mail_no joins
ME: Personal Profiles
env_no joins
CO: Posted Contributions
COPLED: Pledges
and every other CO*

basically, in SQL (which FoxPro supports) you can enter a statement like such:

SELECT ME.Firstname, ME.Lastname, ME.Env_no, MA.Address, MA.City, MA.State, MA.ZIP... (insert more fields as needed)
FROM ME
INNER JOIN MA ON ME.mail_no = MA.mail_no
INNER JOIN CO ON ME.env_no = CO.env_no
...(join more tables as needed)
WHERE ME.Env_no = '201' AND ... (add additional conditions)

Of course, your exact fields, tables joined, and conditions will vary according to your needs. This will give you a result that sounds like what you are looking for. It'll be raw data that you'll have to do something with, but that sounds like what you want to do anyway. Since you're hitting the database directly, you'll not be limited to the fields and joins that the Custom Reports module allows.

Here's the sticky part: since these are operations outside of the program itself, this is not something we can support. You've crossed the line from PowerChurch support to FoxPro/SQL/DBMS support, which we just can't get into. I've way overstepped my bounds by offering this much info, but hopefully, it'll get you started. You'll have to do some homework, that's for sure. A Google search for a SQL tutorial would be a good start. If you're using a GUI based database app, like Access, then may angels watch over you.

If you need - actually, you will almost certainly need - more information on the data structures, please give us a call.
PowerChurch Software Technical Support
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http://www.powerchurch.com/

Jim L
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Post by Jim L »

Yeah - that is what I need -- I could really use that info on the databases.. Can you email it to me or post it on the WebSite?

At least now I got a starting point on what to look for. Some more helpful tips (or examples) on how to access the databases by other programs would be appreicated.

I am sure other users need that for their custom reports. There is a lot of infomation contained in PowerChurch - The more ways you provide users to access that data will make it even more usefull and easier to use..

Thanks for the Help and Support.. Now I need to find a FoxPro users group...

Zaphod
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Data Structures

Post by Zaphod »

Check your inbox, Jim. I've sent the data structure documents over to you.

Also, our dev guys recommend http://www.vfug.org and http://www.universalthread.com for your FoxPro needs.
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NeilZ
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Re: Data Structures

Post by NeilZ »

Zaphod wrote:Check your inbox, Jim. I've sent the data structure documents over to you.

Also, our dev guys recommend http://www.vfug.org and http://www.universalthread.com for your FoxPro needs.
I'm catching up after not checking the forums for a while, and just noticed this post. Is there a location listing the schema of all the PC+ tables available for ready download ?? I know I'd like to be able to do some reports outside the standard reporting module, and being proficient with DB2, all I really need is the full table descriptions.

Thanks !!
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

Zeb
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Post by Zeb »

In PowerChurch, if you go to Utilities and Database Manager, at the command prompt type use <table name> (where <table name> is the name of the table you want, like CO) and then hit enter. At another blank command prompt type list stru and it will tell you the structure of the table you just used.

With the above command, some of the structures will not all fit on the current views display, so you will have to print it. You can do that with the list stru to printer command after using the table (ex, use me)

This will use your default printer to print the values to.

There is no publication of what those files are and there structure. viewing them one by one with the list stru command will be your best bet.

Here is an article that talks about what I am referencing. That is not a PowerChurch link and any information found there will not be supported by PowerChurch. There is some other helpful information there about how to view the table structures and print them in various ways.
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NeilZ
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Post by NeilZ »

Zeb wrote:In PowerChurch, if you go to Utilities and Database Manager, at the command prompt type use <table name> (where <table name> is the name of the table you want, like CO) and then hit enter. At another blank command prompt type list stru and it will tell you the structure of the table you just used.

With the above command, some of the structures will not all fit on the current views display, so you will have to print it. You can do that with the list stru to printer command after using the table (ex, use me)

This will use your default printer to print the values to.

There is no publication of what those files are and there structure. viewing them one by one with the list stru command will be your best bet.

Here is an article that talks about what I am referencing. That is not a PowerChurch link and any information found there will not be supported by PowerChurch. There is some other helpful information there about how to view the table structures and print them in various ways.
Excellent ... thanks Zeb, exactly what I've been looking for.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

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