Custom Report Example - Name Tags

Objective:

The following example will walk you through the process of creating affordable name tags using the PowerChurch Plus Custom Report Writer. In this example,we will be printing our name tags on Avery 5160 30 Label Sheets.

Result:

Steps:

1. To begin, start by navigating to the Personal Profiles module, select the Other Output option and then finally Custom Reports.
   
   1. If you are using a version prior to 11, there will be no other output option; the Custom Reports option will be directly under the Personal Profiles module.
      
      
2. The next step will be creating a new query and a title to go with it. This step will be different depending on whether you have created a custom report in the past or not.
   1. If you have NOT created a custom report in the past, the system will immediately prompt you for a report title. Simply enter the desired title and click OK, this will bring up the query builder for the next step.
   2. If you HAVE created a custom report in the past, you will be brought to an existing page of all your custom reports. Simply click the Add button and enter the desired title and click OK, this will bring up the query builder for the next step.
      
      
3. Now we will need to create the filter for the query.
   • From the "Step 1: Pick a field" tab, select Profile First Name.
   • From the "Step 2: Pick an Operator" tab, select Is not empty.
   • Click done at the bottom right. You should now see your filter in the list.
   • Once satisfied with the query, select done near the bottom right to move onto the next step.
     
     
     
4. At this point, you will be prompted: Do you want to run this query now? Click Yes. Here we will need to define the output fields. Do so by simply double clicking on the desired fields; this will move them to the included section. Select Profile First Name and Profile Last Name in the “fields to pick from” section. Optionally, you could select other fields here as well.
   
   
   
   
5. Now click on Run Query. PowerChurch Plus will display a screen titled Setup for Column Layout Report. Click on Edit Form. You will now see the Report Designer Screen.
   
   
   
   
6. From the Report Designer Screen, start by adjusting the height of the following bands. Do so by double clicking on each band and entering the height value on the general tab.
   
1. Page header: set the height to .50 inches.
2. Page footer: set the height to .50 inches.
3. Detail: set the height to 1.0 inches.
   
   
   
   
7. Just above the Page Header at the top of the screen, you will notice 2 fields; First Name and Last Name. Click on each field once and press the delete key on your keyboard to remove them.
   
   
   
8. Similarly, just above the Page Footer at the bottom of the screen, you will notice another 3 fields; Date() , Page and _page. Click on each field once and press the delete key on your keyboard to remove them.
   
   
   
9. You will now need to direct the Custom Report Writer to print the names into 3 columns. To do this, click on File and go to Page Setup. Set the columns to 3. In addition, you need to set the Print Area for this report to Whole Page. Click OK.
   
   
   
   
10. An optional step would be to change the name tags font. To do so, start by double clicking on the field label firstname or lastname. This brings up Field Properties. Click on the Style tab and here you will see the font details. Click on ellipsis to bring up the customization menu, here you can select any font options you want and click OK.
    
    
    
11. Lastly, we need to resize and move the fields so that they align better on the name tags. Start by selecting the firstname field and dragging the field corners to remove the white space at the end of the field. Next, move it to the center of the detail and page header bands. Finally, select the lastname field and drag that right behind the firstname field.
    
    
    
12. To complete this process, click on File and select Close. When prompted to save this report, click Yes.
    
    
13. Print these name tags by selecting Start Report.