custom report: children with two sets of parents

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billyg73
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 11:50 am

custom report: children with two sets of parents

Post by billyg73 »

Hi there,

This is a rather complicated question, so hopefully I can explain it correctly.

The children's ministry at our church has parents fill out informaton sheets every year, at the start of the fall ministry calendar, for each of their children. However, the children's pastor would like to help the parents/guardians by tracking as much of this information as possible using PowerChurch, and then handing out prepopulated forms to the parents. That way the children's ministry staff know that the only data they need to change in PC is what the parents change or add to the form. (Using the old way, they had to go through all data in each form and compare it to what was in PC.)

The CM department has an existing Word document they have used as the child info sheet. By exporting to an Excel file through a PC custom report, I can create a mail merge Word document that contains some of this child information. However, at this point, I can really only include the child's contact information.

Where it gets complicated is where we have children that come from broken homes. On the child information sheet, the CM department wants to have two parents/guardians listed for contact in case of an emergency. However, if a children comes from a divorced home, and lives with one parent, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to track this in PC.

For example, there could be a child who lives with his biological mother, who is remarried. The household name would be under the step father, but we would prefer to list his mother as the parent/guardian. And then for the second parent/guardian we would like to list the biological father. When I grab the data for the custom report, I can only grab the household name to populate an address, and the stepfather will be listed as head of the household. And I can't tie this child's record to the biological father (who is listed as another household).

Do I need to tell the CM department that their idea is just not possible with PowerChurch, or is there a way to handle this? Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated.

Blessings,

Graham

billyg73
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 11:50 am

Post by billyg73 »

Hi there,

Any thoughts about my question anyone?

Blessings,

Graham

NeilZ
Posts: 10209
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 am
Location: Dexter NM
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Post by NeilZ »

billyg73 wrote:Hi there,

Any thoughts about my question anyone?

Blessings,

Graham
Unfortunately, I do not believe there is a current way to tie a personal profile listed under one household, to another in this way programmatically . That said, it may be something that should be added to the wish list.

The only thing I can think of in the meantime is using one of the user customizable areas in the NOTES tab of the personal profile. If you're not using all of them, you can set aside one for Emergency Notifications, and list the non-resident parent's name and phone number(s) there.

I realise its not elegant, but it does serve the purpose, and would only have to be changed if the parent's phone changed.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

John Staudt
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Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2007 12:17 pm
Location: Lake Country UU Church
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Re: custom report: children with two sets of parents

Post by John Staudt »

Has anything been done as yet to address this? If not, are there plans to do so, or is this a deficiency that we are stuck with in PowerChurch?

-- John Staudt
-- John Staudt

NeilZ
Posts: 10209
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 am
Location: Dexter NM
Contact:

Re: custom report: children with two sets of parents

Post by NeilZ »

John Staudt wrote:Has anything been done as yet to address this? If not, are there plans to do so, or is this a deficiency that we are stuck with in PowerChurch?

-- John Staudt
As I mentioned back in 2005, there is no way to do this in the database as the system is setup to tie only one set of personal profiles to one master mailing list record.

That said, this will probably be looked at once any decision on the future development platform for PC+ has been decided on. All I know as a knowledgeable user (reading between the lines) is that Powerchurch will be moving from the Foxpro platform in the next few years.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

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