Software by Hawkeye
Home
Download Trial
Order Info
FAQs (q & a)
About
Contact Us
|
Frequently Asked Questions Can I try the program without going to a lot of effort first? What's the quickest way to get started? Can I Import member lists from another application? How do I print the schedule? Does the program have the capability to print out name/phone number lists? Can I resume from my last schedule? Can I set up different timing intervals? All services we need 6 ministers, but in one we need only 4? Does it keep families together? Can you mark out people's vacations or other absences? Can I assign a particular volunteer at times? How do I edit a member's last name? How do you delete or edit a task (or time preference)? Some people volunteer for multiple ministries and multiple time preferences (i.e. Reader and Greeter). How does the program handle these? What about friends wanting to serve together? Can I control how often a person get scheduled? Can I schedule for Holy Day or special Services not on the regular interval? What about special cases within one ministry? How do I handle a Group ministry (like a choir)? When I import my names from another application, is there a way to import the options too? Where is the data and schedule saved?
Tricks That Can Be Used Using Fake data to handle a special timing interval Using "dummy" volunteers to fill in for special cases when less volunteers are needed Implementing a little frequency control Overriding "one ministry per event" functionality
Q: Can I try the program without going to a lot of effort first? A: Yes, you can use the sample data included. From the main menu, select: File\Open Data File, then in the examples folder select "Church_Example.dat" The default path for this file is: C:\Program Files\HawkEyeSW\ChurchScheduler\Examples
Q: What's the quickest way to get started? A: If you haven't used the ChurchScheduler program yet, you might want to consider just playing around with the sample data files supplied with the program. You will find the files located in the samples folder of the program. After you become familiar with the program, create a new design that is suited to your needs. If you have a list of members from another application, you can import those names into the ChurchScheduler program.
Q: Can I Import member lists from another application? A: Yes. Any text file containing a list of volunteers can be imported into the program. You can find more help on this topic within the program's help pages.
Q: How do I print the schedule? A: The program does not print. You simply use the "Copy All" feature and then paste your schedule into your preferred documenting application (i.e. Word, WordPad, Excel, WordPerfect, etc.) From that point you can then do any final modifications or formatting within an application in which you are the most comfortable.
Q: Does the program have the capability to print out name/phone number lists? A: The program maintains and displays phone numbers, emails, ministry and time preference options. This information can be printed in the same manner as a schedule.
Q: Can I resume from my last schedule? A: No, the scheduler always starts fresh. The program was designed with the intention that one would generate a schedule for enough intervals such that there would be at least one complete cycle of volunteers used. This is where the "ShowStats" button comes in handy, so that you can quickly see if ministers have been utilized.
Q: Can I set up different timing intervals? For example, a special service that is only once a month and the rest are weekly. A: No, the ministry scheduler program is designed to schedule services at the same period. However, it is possible to make use of fake data to accomplish this, see TIP1
Q: At all services we need 6 ministers, but in one, we need only 4 ministers. Can the program do this? A: Yes, as of Version 2.07, each time preference can have a unique set up. Prior versions had to make use of "dummy" ministers to accomplish this, see TIP2
Q: Does it keep families together? A: Yes, When a schedule is generated, families get the highest priority. But fairness (equal time for everyone) is also employed. So when there are no more choices from which to choose, separation can occur.
Q: Can you mark out people's vacations or other absences? A: Yes, these are called "Omissions". Select the person and then the date to be omitted. There is also a check box which, if checked, will omit all family members of that person just selected (i.e.: vacation).
Q: Can I assign a particular volunteer at times? A: Yes, these are called "Enforcements". Simply select the date, time preference, and ministry, and a list of volunteers matching that criteria will be displayed from which to choose.
Q: How do I edit a member's last name? A: Click on the "View Family" button, select the person of interest and select "Edit Member". From there, select the "Edit Family Info" button and change the last name and phone number as desired. After making the change, make sure to select "OK" for the change to take affect (Requires Version 2.08 or later).
Q: How do you delete or edit a task (or time preference)? A: From the main window, click the Setup button and enter the design window. To Delete: Click once on the undesired task or time preference and then click the Remove button. To Edit: Click once on the task or preference of interest and then click the Change button (or just double click on the task). Make desired changes and select OK.
Q: Some people volunteer for multiple ministries and multiple time preferences (i.e. Reader and Greeter). How does the program handle these? A: The program does allow for volunteers to have multiple time preferences and multiple ministries, but the program will never schedule the same volunteer more then once per scheduling interval (weekly, daily, etc). However, if you would like to override this functionality, see TIP4.
Q: What about friends wanting to serve together? A: When friends prefer to serve together, you enter them in under the same family. They will still have their own name and phone number, and only you have to know this little secret. The other option is to manually do an enforcement on them.
Q: Can I control how often a person gets scheduled? A: No, not automatically. The frequency of a person's scheduling is determined by the number of ministers in your database; everyone is given equal time. Of course, you can always set Omissions and Enforcements to manually regulate the frequency. There is also a trick that you could use to implement some frequency control, see TIP3.
Q: Can I schedule for Holy Day or special Services not on the regular interval? A: No, the program does not support Holy Days or special Services. But, because you get to copy and paste the schedule, it's usually pretty easy just to generated an additional weekend and then edit the date to that of the preferred name and date within your editing application (i.e. Word, WordPad, etc.).
Q: What about special cases within one ministry? A: Let's say for example, you need 2 readers, and you want them to alternate between being a 1st reader and 2nd reader. To do this, instead of entering Reader(2) in your design, enter Reader(1) and Reader(1). Notice you can use the same name if you want to. Now, make sure all you readers have both options checked in their individual preferences. The scheduler would treat this as multiple ministries, and schedule them accordingly, the alternating would them be automatic.
Q: How do I handle a Group ministry (like a choir)? A: Choirs are a unique case because they are a single ministry which contain many people (unlike a lector, EM, usher, etc.). The ChurchScheduler program can schedule the groups by names like Choir1, Choir2, Guitar1, etc into the appropriate ministry (i.e. "Music(1)" ), but the program has no method of assigning multiple members to a group. This is only a problem when a member of a group type ministry wants to serve in other ministries as well. In this case, Omissions and Enforcements would probably be required. Oh, by the way, where did the names Choir 1, Choir 2, etc. come from? Create a new family (or more) for the group ministries, for example: family name of "Music", and then each group has a unique name like:
Q: When I import my names from another application, is there a way to import the options too? A: Yes, this topic is thoroughly explained in the program's help: click Help\Contents and select: "Importing Names form Another Application".Q: Where is the data and schedule saved? A: There are 2 types of files the ChurchScheduler program uses:1. Database files (*.dat): These contain the family/member information and all their preferences. It also contains the design layout in which the personal information was recorded. This way, when you switch from one database to another, you can be scheduling for entirely different layouts. 2. Schedule Criteria (*.soc): These files contain the information which will allow you to re-generate the same schedule at a later date or program session. The information in these files contains the omissions, enforcements, start date, scheduling interval, and number of desired intervals. The program does not save the actual generated schedule because you can do this in the editing application into which you pasted.
Extra Tips: Tip1: Using Fake data to handle a special timing interval: Say for example, there is a case where once a month there is a special service like a Youth Service, but all other times, you have the usual weekend services. Go ahead and set up the layout to include all the services, including the special one, like this: Time Preferences: 5:30pm (Sat) 8:00am 10:30am Youth Service ( in this example, this one is the special service) Ministries: Servers(3) Ushers(2) Eucharistic(4) Lector(1) Assuming that there are 4 weeks per month, hence, 1 "on week" and 3 "off weeks" for the special service, you need to create 3 fake families, and put enough family members in each fake family so that each ministry will be covered. Each fake member would have a time preference of " Youth Service" and only 1 ministry checked. Now before you generate a schedule, enforce one fake family member per "off week". The scheduler should put all Fake1 family members together on "off week 1", Fake2 family members together on "off week 2", etc. When you give the fake families their last names, make them something like zz_fake1, zz_fake2, etc. The significance of the zz is that the scheduler grabs volunteers in an alphabetical order. The zz would help ensure that other families are looked at first for the "on weeks". After creating a schedule, if you see that any of the fake members got scheduled during the "on weeks", you will have to do Omissions for the fake families during the "on weeks". Lastly, when you "Copy All" and then paste into another application, you will probably want to delete the contents of the "off weeks".
Tip2: Using "dummy" volunteers to fill in for special cases when less volunteers are needed: Note: as of Version 2.07, each time preference can have a unique minister set up, so the example given below may no longer be needed. Let's say there is a case where in all of the services, you need 6 ministers of one type, but in one service, you only need 4 ministers of this type. You can use "dummy ministers" as place holders in the unique case. To offer a specific example, lets use the set up shown below as the normal case, but let's say that at the 5:30pm service, there are actually only 4 Eucharistic Ministers needed instead of the 6 as indicated. Time Preferences: 5:30pm (Sat) 8:00am 10:30am Ministries: Servers(3) Ushers(2) Eucharistic(6) Lector(1) Create a fake family (remember to use a name like zz_fake, as discussed in TIP1) and give this family 2 dummy members. Each dummy member would have the 5:30 option and Eucharistic option checked. You can even make their names something that would look acceptable when printed, like a first name of "—" and a last name of "—" (you could even use "spaces" but they are harder to see). Now, before making a schedule, you need to assign Enforcements to the dummy members for each 5:30 service. This is a little bit tedious, but it works great. You can even take advantage of the "shortcut keys stokes" which speeds up the entry significantly. i.e.: Whenever you see a button with a letter underlined in the button name (like Add), that underline means you can hold down the "Alt" key on the keyboard while pressing the underlined letter, this is the same as clicking on the button. So in the case of adding Enforcements for the dummy members, select the dummy member name, then select the date. Now from this point on, just type "Alt"-A (which will add the enforcement) and then the down arrow key (which will pick the next date in the list). This is very quick! Tip3: Implementing a little frequency control: Sometimes it is helpful not to schedule a volunteer as frequently as the rest of the volunteers to a particular task. Let's say for the sake of an example, there are "servers in training", and we don't want to schedule them full throttle right from the start. You can implement some flow control by splitting up the task into 2 tasks. For example: Servers(3) task could become: Servers(2) Servers(1) By splitting up the task into 2 tasks, you can now put the "servers in training" in the Servers(1) group only, and ALL of the other servers would have BOTH Servers(2) & Servers(1) options checked. This would mean, that those in training would be sharing the Servers(1) ministry with all the other servers, and because they only have the one Servers(1) option checked, they would be scheduled much less frequently. When these members are no longer in training, just check both options. Tip4: Overriding "one ministry per event" functionality: The scheduler enforces the rule "One ministry per event". However, for volunteers who serve multiple ministries and it is desirable to allow them to be scheduled more the once per service, (i.e. serve as a greeter and lector) then this functionality can be worked around simply by adding that person's name into the family twice. For example, instead of having John Doe checked as a Greeter and a Lector, have one John Doe as the Greeter and another John Doe as a Lector. The scheduler would see this as two people in the same family, and therefore, try to schedule them for the same service. |