How to Set Up Barcode System

[faithbaptist]

I would like to know how to set up using a barcode scanner to make check-in quicker. I have already configured the software so that it knows we are using a barcode scanner. I would like to have it set up so that the parent can come and scan their barcode and easily check in their own children.

I know you can print an Attendance Register Form that has their barcode listed. Yet when you go into the actual database and click on the person's barcode icon it says it doesn't exist. Do I have to memorize a barcode for each parent?

What is the simplest way to get this up and running?

[Zorak]

You can either use those bar codes that PowerChurch has already generated for each person, or you can purchase your own pre-printed cards or key tags, like they give you at the grocery store as a discount card. If you are purchasing cards, it would require that you go into each person and assign that particular bar code to them.

The bar codes that are built-in to PowerChurch can be printed off as "Name tag labels", one of the layouts of the Attendance Register Form. This will print a name and bar code on 30 label sheets, that you can then stick on whatever you like to hand out to people. There is also a report in Activities & Skills that prints "Activity Name Tags". These come out eight to a page and are formatted to fit onto the Avery perforated business card stock. You could have just a name printed on the front and the bar code label stuck on back.

[faithbaptist]

Thank you for your reply. One follow up question. I intend to print bar coded name tag labels from the Attendance Registry Form. The office staff has only recently been assigning people to activities - utilizing that functionality. When I go to print this report for the name tags - it only gives me those who have been added to an activity (at this point we only have leaders and participants of our children's ministry tagged). Is there a way to get all the parents/guardians printed with bar codes without assigning them all to a particular activity or must they all be assigned somehow? Many of these parents are just worship service attenders. Would you have an activity for worship and assign them to that?

How do most churches assign someone who may just attend a service but are not involved in any other way?

[Zorak]

The activity name tags/name tag labels will only print for people who are in the selected activity.

To be able to record attendance for Worship Service, you would need to have Worship Service set up as an activity with everyone (at least your regular attenders) as a member of the activity.

[Jeff]

For an activity like the worship service, you can bulk add people to this activity so you don't have to add them one by one.

[faithbaptist]

Thanks for great tips. How do you bulk add people to an activity?

[NeilZ]

Thanks for great tips. How do you bulk add people to an activity?

Go to the Membership -> Activity & Skills menu and select Mass Update Activities & Skills.

The following directions come directly from the Powerchurch built-in context sensitive help, available from within the program when you press the <F1> key:

The Mass Add Activity mode adds people to an activity. It can be used to add everyone to an activity, or only selected people. When dealing with selected people, you have the option of removing existing members of the activity that no longer match the selection criteria you define.


To mass add an Activity:

1. Select Add and click OK.

2. Enter the number of the activity number to add.

3. Click the Add All Profiles or Add Selected Profiles button. Use the Add All Profiles option to assign the code to everybody in the database. The Add Selected Profiles option lets you choose a group of individuals who have something in common, such as marital status, age, or years of membership.

4. Click OK. The results depend on whether you are working with all profiles or selected ones. In the former case, PowerChurch Plus makes the mass assignment and the procedure ends.

5. If you are working with selected profiles, choose the profiles you want on the Selection Criteria screen and click OK. You will be prompted to Remove existing members of this activity who do not meet selection criteria.

6. If you are working with selected profiles, click Yes or No as appropriate. If you answer Yes, PowerChurch Plus examines the profile records for existing members of the activity. It removes any profiles that do not meet the selection criteria you specified in the last step. Answer No to preserve the members who do not meet the selection criteria.