Is there a way to access the freeform "Notes:" data from the Notes tab in Personal Profiles outside of PowerChurch?
I'm trying to convince people to use PowerChurch to store information rather than in various spreadsheets. Right now, I export the profile data via Membership -> Personal Profiles -> Export Data into an Excel spreadsheet and use Excel lookup formulas to grab and manipulate the data. We can't use the PowerChurch report feature for this because (1) we know Excel and aren't that familiar with PowerChurch Reports yet, and (2) we need to be able to manipulate the data in ways I don't think PowerChurch can do as yet (but see #1...)
One of the sticky points for religious ed is that notes about the children's hobbies, allergies, etc. are put in Notes, and I can't seem to find how to get that information to a spreadsheet.
We're using PowerChurch 8.5 under Windows XP.
-- Becca
Export "Notes" data from Personal Profiles
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Jeff
- Program Development
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Freeform note fields can't be exported to excel files. This is a limitation of an excel file. These fields can potentially contain large amounts of text that would not fit into a cell. I believe the current limit for a cell is 1024 characters. See http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/200 ... 74258.aspx
Note fields can be exported to data file formats like DBF however.
What specific types of reports are you trying to do? PowerChurch has a custom report writer feature that will most likely let you do anything you need to accomplish.
Note fields can be exported to data file formats like DBF however.
What specific types of reports are you trying to do? PowerChurch has a custom report writer feature that will most likely let you do anything you need to accomplish.
The report is a list of the RE children, sorted by age class but also sortable by family or zip, with parent/guardian contact information and (hopefully) interests/allergies, etc.
A static report won't do in this case because of the sorting requirement. The DRE uses this to print different mailing labels for different classes, get information to the different teachers, etc. Her computer is standalone; it does not have the PowerChurch feature. Also, the class numbering is in time order (9 a.m. classes before 11 a.m. classes) so to do the age ordering, I use a sort column with -2 for Nursery, -1 for Preschool, 0 for Kindergarten, 1 for 1st grade, etc.
I figured the 1024 limit was the problem; I know there's difficulty in using freeform fields for activities such as sorting.
You say that "Note fields can be exported to data file formats like DBF however." How? The length-limited fields are listed as ones that can be exported, but not the freeform field.
Thanks!
-- Becca
A static report won't do in this case because of the sorting requirement. The DRE uses this to print different mailing labels for different classes, get information to the different teachers, etc. Her computer is standalone; it does not have the PowerChurch feature. Also, the class numbering is in time order (9 a.m. classes before 11 a.m. classes) so to do the age ordering, I use a sort column with -2 for Nursery, -1 for Preschool, 0 for Kindergarten, 1 for 1st grade, etc.
I figured the 1024 limit was the problem; I know there's difficulty in using freeform fields for activities such as sorting.
You say that "Note fields can be exported to data file formats like DBF however." How? The length-limited fields are listed as ones that can be exported, but not the freeform field.
Thanks!
-- Becca
-
Jeff
- Program Development
- Posts: 1225
- Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 11:43 am
- Location: PowerChurch Software
- Contact:
In the export dialog, there is a field that says "Profile Notes" that is the freeform note field. A quick test showed these fields will only export to DBF and XML files. I was able to import the XML file into excel and it brought in the memo field as well. The import needed to be cleanup a little bit, there were 2 rows at the top and few rows at the bottom that needed to be deleted. I didn't test to see what will happen if there is more than 1024 characters in the field.
Longer term it sounds like most everything you need to do can be done through the activity & skills module in PC+. You would create an activity for each class. Each class would be assigned number, use that number to order the classes in the order you wanted.
for example:
1000 Religious Education
1001 Nursery
1002 Preschool
1003 Kindergaren
1004 1st Grade
1005 2nd Grade
PC+ will print mailing labels for any/all of the classes. There is also way to promote people from one class to another (move first grade to second grade, kindergarten to first grade, etc) You can assign roles in the class, so if you need to mail the teachers of the class, PC+ will print mailing labels for just them. You could add a role of parent and then also add the parents to each activity. Once you have added everyone, you can print out attendance register forms and PC+ will even keep track of attendance if you need to as well.
Longer term it sounds like most everything you need to do can be done through the activity & skills module in PC+. You would create an activity for each class. Each class would be assigned number, use that number to order the classes in the order you wanted.
for example:
1000 Religious Education
1001 Nursery
1002 Preschool
1003 Kindergaren
1004 1st Grade
1005 2nd Grade
PC+ will print mailing labels for any/all of the classes. There is also way to promote people from one class to another (move first grade to second grade, kindergarten to first grade, etc) You can assign roles in the class, so if you need to mail the teachers of the class, PC+ will print mailing labels for just them. You could add a role of parent and then also add the parents to each activity. Once you have added everyone, you can print out attendance register forms and PC+ will even keep track of attendance if you need to as well.