Liturgical Minister Assignment Program Version 5.7 Jun 1990 Manual Revision 10 Jun 1990 Written by : Tom Hayes 940 Heather Lane Hoffman Estates, IL 60195 708-884-0514 If you find this package useful in coordinating your minister staff a registration fee of $30 is expected. See the end of this manual for registration information and a registration form. Help for registered users is available from the author at the above address and number evenings between 7:00 - 10:00 pm central time and on weekends. Chapter 1 Introduction The Minister Assign Program was designed to lighten the task of coordinating and assigning ministers for the various functions at Sunday or weekly liturgies. The program allows a parish to assign liturgical ministers (Servers, Lectors, Eucharistic Ministers, Ushers, Head Ushers, Greeters and an additional ministry of your choosing) in a chronological fashion but still give full attention to an individual minister's time schedule and changing Mass schedules by incorporating the following features: 1. A minister can specify "Bad Days" of the week where he or she is unable to serve because of work or other commitments. The minister will never be scheduled on these days. 2. If a minister is going to be on vacation for a period of time, the "return to service" date can be specified before which no assignments will be given him or her. 3. A similar scheme is adopted when the minister is to be away for just one weekend in a month. The "away" weekend is noted and no assignments are made for this person at any time during that week. 4. If a family contains more than one minister, individual family members are never scheduled at different times on the same weekend. 5. A minister can select a "preferred" mass at which to serve. This selection can be "Adamant" or not. If the selection is adamant this means that if the minister's requested mass is not available, an alternate assignment will not be made. If the minister is not adamant, the same attempt will be made to give the minister the requested mass but, if it is not available, another mass will be assigned. 6. A minister can also specify up to three "Bad Masses", that is, a particular mass or group of masses that he or she cannot serve. This is to allow for people who might be staffing the nursery or performing some other ministry at a particular time each week. Minister Assign Program V5.7 Introduction 7. If a person serves in more than one ministry, say, Lector and Eucharistic Minister, assignments will not be made any more frequently for this person, but they will be rotated among the ministries for which the person is commissioned. So, if on one week a person serves as a Lector, the next time this person is to serve an assignment as a Eucharistic Minister will be attempted. The person may get a lector assignment again if a Eucharistic Minister Assignment is not available, however. 8. For each mass in your schedule you are able to specify the number of ministers of each type that should be assigned. This feature is helpful at my church since an extra Eucharistic Minister is assigned to bring the Eucharist to the choir loft for the one mass the choir is present. (Interesting note: The choir loft is occupied only if the choir is singing and then only by the choir. The fire marshall will not permit general occupancy of the loft because there is access by only one staircase. I suppose it's OK for the choir to be trapped by the fire...). 9. The program is able to handle weekday as well as Sunday masses. It is possible to assign different groups of people to each mass, for example, the grade school servers can be assigned the daily masses and the high school boys the weekend masses by simply defining each server's "bad days" appropriately. 10. The program is able to accept "temporary" masses, that is, masses that are not part of the normal weekly schedule such as special Holy Days. The "temporary" mass record is stored with the other masses and automatically deleted when the date of the mass passes. 11. The assignments are made monthly but the assignments are actually computed on a weekly basis within that month. No person will ever get more than one assignment in any week even if an assignment goes unfilled. For the purpose of accomodating the Saturday evening Anticipatory Liturgy, a week is defined as running from Saturday to Friday. To assure that complete weekends are assigned, the program will include days from the forthcoming month to maintain a complete Saturday to Friday assignment block. 12. The assignments for each month are written to individual weekly files (for example,the assignments for the second week in November, 1987 are written to a - 2 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Introduction file named "NOV87-2.SKD") so that they may be easily merged with the file containing the copy for the weekly bulletin to eliminate the necessity of retyping the assignments. 13. Single line "telephone number" listings of the ministers can be displayed or written to a file for later printing for distribution as minister substitute lists. This listing can include all the ministers or be sorted by ministry. 14. Likewise, complete information for each minister, such as name, address, mass preference, ministry(ies), bad days, etc. can be displayed or listed as above. 15. A new feature for version 5 is the addition of the ministries of Head Usher and Greeter. Realizing that people might mature slowly into a position of responsibility, the Head Usher is separately defined and a separately scheduled ministry. The ministry of Greeter is different from the other ministries in that you have the option of assigning the greeters individually in exactly the same fashion as the other ministers or as complete family units. Some churches like the idea of using complete families as greeters vs. individuals and you can choose which scheme you wish to follow. - 3 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Getting Started Chapter 2 Getting Started The diskette you have contains the following files: 1. Mp.exe - the minister assign program. 2. MpConfig.exe - A "start up" program to set default drives and names. 3. MpManual.txt - This user's manual. 4. Mp.Hlp - The on-line help file. 5. MpPrint - A program to print the files the "MP" program generates. 6. MpCnv4-5.exe - A program to convert version 4 data to version 5. The first thing you should do is make a copy of the diskette you received and always work from the copy. After all, you paid cash money for my program (I hope!) and it would be a shame to have your computer "eat" the only copy of the program you have. There are three sections below labelled "One diskette drive", "Two diskette drives" and "Hard Disk". Pick the section that corresponds to the configuration of your computer and follow the instructions there. One diskette Drive - Insert your MS-DOS diskette, the one you put in when you first turn your computer on and type "Format" followed by a carriage return. This will tell the computer that you want to prepare a new diskette to receive information (files) that you are about to copy to it. - DOS will tell you - 4 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Getting Started "INSERT A NEW DISKETTE FOR DRIVE A AND PRESS ANY KEY WHEN READY" - Take out the DOS disk and insert a new blank diskette in your disk drive and then press a carriage return. - After format is done, the computer will ask "Format another (y/n)?" Just type "n" for "no" and press a . - You are now ready to copy all the minister files from the program diskette to the new, blank one you just formatted. - Remove the new blank disk from the drive and re-insert your MS-DOS diskette into the drive. - Type the command "DISKCOPY" and a . - DOS will prompt you with the following instructions on how to copy a diskette. (For the narrative to follow, the "source" diskette is the original one with the minister program on it and the "target" diskette is the new, blank one you just formatted.) "INSERT SOURCE DISKETTE IN DRIVE A" "PRESS ANY KEY WHEN READY" Press any key. The computer will read as much of the diskette as it can and then ask you "INSERT TARGET DISKETTE IN DRIVE A" "PRESS ANY KEY WHEN READY" Swap the diskettes, putting the target diskette in the drive and then press . - This scenario will repeat several times as DOS asks you first to put the source diskette in the drive where it will read a portion of it then ask you to put the target diskette in so it can write the information it just read back to the target diskette. - The amount of swapping back and forth you do depends on the number of files on the diskette and the amount of memory in your computer. - After copying, DOS will ask you if you want to make another copy. Just type "N" and press the carriage return. - 5 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Getting Started - Jump down to the section after "Hard Disk" Two Diskette Drives - Insert your MS-DOS diskette in drive "A", (the diskette and the drive you use when you first turn on your computer). - Type "FORMAT B:" - DOS will tell you to "INSERT A NEW DISKETTE IN DRIVE B AND PRESS ANY KEY WHEN READY". Put a new, blank diskette in drive b and press any key. (I usually press the carriage return, .) The drive will turn while the computer prepares the new diskette to accept information (files). - When done DOS will ask "FORMAT ANOTHER (Y/N?)" to which you should type "n" for "No" and press . - Take out your DOS disk from the "A" drive and replace it with the original diskette with my minister program on it. You should now have the minister program diskette in drive "A" and the new, blank, formatted diskette in drive "B". - Type "COPY A:*.* b:" (Don't type the quotes.) Also, make sure you did type the colon after the "B". This tells DOS to copy all of the files on the "A" drive to the "B" drive with the same file names. If you omit the colon, DOS assumes that you want to copy all of the files on the "A" drive to one big file called "B", located on the "A" drive. (Not quite the same thing!) - After the copying is completed you can put your MS-DOS diskette and the original program diskette away and put the copy you just made in the "A" drive. Hard Disk - You probably should create a new directory on your hard disk to store all your minister data. To create a new directory type "MKDIR \MP". This will create a new directory on your hard disk with the name MP (For Minister Program). - 6 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Getting Started - Then type "CD \MP" to change your working directory to the new minister directory you just created. This is probably a good time to mention the DOS command, "PROMPT". If you are not familiar with it take the time to read about it in your DOS book. The command lets you change the DOS prompt "C>" to something else if you want. If you type "PROMPT $P$G" the DOS prompt will show you the name of your current directory. So after changing to the newly created "MP" directory, the prompt should read "C\MP>". This just gives you a better idea of where you are on your disk. - Put the minister program diskette in drive "A" and type "COPY A:*.* c:". This will copy all the files from the diskette in the "A" drive to the newly created directory on your hard disk. - Put the original minister diskette in a safe place. - If you do not know what I'm talking about with "directories on your hard disk" ask the people where you bought your computer or read the DOS Manual. - Remember the command "CD" is to change directories on your hard disk. A directory name always begins with a backslash "\", so in the future any time you want to run the Minister Program you have to change to the minister directory, MP, first with the command, "CD \MP". To get back to the original directory, called the "root" directory, type "CD \". The "root" directory has no name so you use the backslash by itself. Everybody To be a competent PC operator you should be familiar with the following DOS commands since you will need to use them in running this and other programs on your PC. COPY, DATE, DEL, DIR, DISKCOPY, FORMAT, PRINT (more on this one later), PROMPT, TIME, TYPE. Take the time to read about them. At this time you should be ready to run the programs. For you floppy users, (I mean floppy disk users) you should have the copy of the diskette you just made in the "A" drive. The hard disk people should be in the "MP" directory. The first thing you have to do is run a program called "MpConfig" which is going to ask you some questions about your computer, your name and the name of your church. You only have to run this program once, or when some - 7 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Getting Started information that you entered changes. So type the command: MpConfig After typing "MpConfig", the configuration program will load and ask you for the name of your church, your name, and the letter of the drive you want the program to use to store your minister and mass data, and store the reports that the program generates and a few other things. This program will create a file called "MpConfig.dat" that will store the information you are about to enter. The church name you enter (up to 20 characters are permitted) will be printed on the header of the minister reports generated by the "Mp" program. Your name is used to address you, the prime user of the program. It is not uncommon to use a cute name like "Your Highness". After all, no one will see it but you. You will then be asked on what drive you wish to store your data. The program checks the computer to see what drives exist and will only let you use legal drive letters. A new option has been added to this query, that of "Default Drive", selected with the option "0". The default drive is the one shown as the DOS prompt. "A>" or "C>" is typical. Choosing this option will have the Minister Program attempt to read and write to whatever drive happens to be the default drive at the time you start the program. Please note that the file "MpConfig.dat" that is generated by the "MpConfig" program must be on your default drive when you run "MP". The program will query you for a default telephone area code that it will automatically add to the beginning of each minister's telephone number. Next, you will be asked for a default number of servers, Eucharistic Ministers, Lectors, Ushers, Head Ushers and Greeters that should be assigned to each mass. The numbers you type are simply initial values assigned to each mass as the mass information is entered. It is a simple matter to change the number of ministers assigned to a mass on a mass by mass basis from the main program if different masses have different staffing requirements. You will then be asked if greeters should be assigned by family or individually. If greeters are assigned by family, on weekends where a family is chosen as a greeting family, no one in that family will receive any other assignment. A yes or no will set this parameter. Please note that if you choose the "family" option, the number of greeters that you enter as the number to be assigned at each - 8 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Getting Started mass will refer to the number of families NOT the number of individuals. You may have to alter your "Greeter" numbers somewhat as a result. My program also permits you to define your own ministry that you would want to be included in the assignment scheduling process. The name of this ministry can be up to nine letters long but it cannot start with one of the letters used as names for the other ministries, that is, S, E, G, H, L, or U (for Server, Eucharistic minister, Greeter, Head-usher, Lector, or Usher). Some suggestions for additional ministries might be Traffic, Cantor, Refresh(ment), or A/V (Sound cannot be used because it begins with "S"). If you do not want to define an additional ministry just press the carriage return, , to bypass this option. There is another question that has to do with the type of monitor, b/w or color, that you will be using with the program. Although the program can sense if you are using a color card or a monochrome card, it has no way of knowing if you are using a b/w monitor with a color card. What would happen is that the program would "think" you were using a color monitor and adjust the display accordingly. Using a b/w monitor with a color card would make text hard to read. With this new option you can explicitly state what kind of display you would prefer. The "MpConfig" program will then ask for city abbreviations. There is a feature in the "Mp" program used when entering your minister's names and addresses that will allow you to use an abbreviation for the city. Usually, the ministers all live in a few surrounding towns, so a small list of city abbreviations cuts down on the typing you have to do to enter your minister data into the program. By entering a city abbreviation defined in the "MpConfig" program the "Mp" program will look up the city, state and zip code and enter them in the appropriate spaces in the minister record. Up to 10 one or two character abbreviations are permitted. Please note that the case of the abbreviation is significant. "P" is a different abbreviation than "p". I originally wrote this program while living in Champaign, IL, a town with 2 zip codes, 61821 and 61820. So I made the city abbreviations "c1" and "c0" respectively. Once you are done answering the questions in "MpConfig" and optionally adding city abbreviations, exit "MpConfig" by typing "E" which will create the "MpConfig.dat" file on the default drive and return you to the MS-DOS "A>" prompt (Or whatever your default drive letter is). - 9 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Getting Started From now on you do not have to run "MPConfig" again unless you want to change some of the information you entered, like your name or perhaps to add another city abbreviation. You can simply start right here by running the minister program, MP. To start the Minister program type: Mp When the program loads for the first time you will be warned that some files are missing. This is normal. The program is looking for the files, "MpMin.dat" containing the minister data and "MpMass.dat" with the mass data for your church and, of course, you have not entered any minister or mass data yet. Just say you want to continue by typing "y". Important note for version 4 users ! If you are upgrading from version 4 to version 5 you need to run the upgrade program "Mpcnv4-5" before you continue. There is a change in the file structure of the Mass data file, "MpMass.dat" to allow for the listing of the three additional ministries, Head-Usher, Greeter, and the self-defined ministry. Run the upgrade program by typing "MpCnv4-5". The conversion program will ask you for the drive letter containing the data file "MpMass.dat". After that it will rename the current data file to "OldMass.dat" and create the new version of "MpMass.dat" where the old one was. If you do not do this before running "MP" the old mass data will be unreadable and version 5.0 of "MP" might destroy the "Preferred Mass" data from your minister data file. If you have any questions write or call me first. It is always a good idea to back up your data files onto another disk so if something goes wrong during the data conversion process you can always re-create your data files. If you are starting out directly with version 5.0 and do not have any 4.0 data files around you can ignore the above paragraph and any references to the "Mpcnv4-5" program. If you don't know how to back-up your files (make safety copies of them) it's back to the DOS book to study the COPY command. After the opening block, which will show you the current date, current time, and the version number of your program, (not to mention my name, address and phone number) the program will display the main menu. - 10 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Getting Started These are your Minister commands, Your Highness (or whatever...) Minister count = 0 A - Add new minister B - Bad Days Checking (On/Off) C - Change minister information D - Delete a minister E - Exit this program and update files H - See this command Listing again H - Help with a specific command L - Last Served Date Change Utility M - Mass schedule changes Q - Quit program...no updates R - Reports and Lists S - Scheduler U - Update Minister & Mass Records - NO EXIT Enter Minister Command ('H' for Help) -> _ This entire program is menu driven and contains three menus. This one, the "Minister" menu, offers the most choices of actions. The other two menus, "Reports" and "Mass", will not be used as frequently. The "Reports" menu enables you to generate listings of the ministers, sorted by ministry, either in a one line format with telephone numbers, and the minister's "preferred mass", if any, suitable for duplication and sending to your ministers as up to date substitute lists, or mailing labels, or complete hard copy of all the information stored for each minister as the ultimate back up. Another report is a listing of the mass preferences indicated by each minister and whether they are adamant about that selection or not. (Don't panic, Adamant mass selection is explained later.) To select a particular action type the letter of your choice and press the carriage return key (sometimes called the "Enter" key and abbreviated throughout this documentation by . Remember, when you read to type "" it means a carriage return and not the characters "". {I thought this was obvious but you would be surprised at how many people type everything, the left and right brackets, the c & r characters and the double quotes!} {Another question I receive from PC newcomers is in response to the "Press any key to continue" prompt. - 11 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Getting Started There is no key on the PC keyboard called the "Any" key. Usually the space bar or carriage return will work just fine.} - 12 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Entering Mass Information Chapter 3 Entering Mass Information The first thing you should do is to enter your mass schedule. To do this select item "M", Mass Schedule Changes and press the . You will be greeted with a new menu like this: These are your Mass editing commands : A - Add a Temporary or Permanent Mass to schedule. C - Change # of Ministers to assign to a mass. D - Delete a mass. H - See this menu again. E - Exit this procedure. L - List All Masses. T - Change Time (and Date) for a Mass. Enter Mass command ('H' for List) -> _ There are two types of masses you can enter, temporary or permanent masses. A permanent mass is the normal recurring type that is celebrated at the same time each week. For this mass you have to enter the day of the week and the time of the mass. The correct date will be computed on a week by week basis. A temporary mass occurs only once, say, a Holy Day or special celebration such as Christmas Midnight mass (regardless of the time Midnight mass is celebrated). These masses have specific dates and are not recurring. These masses can have ministers assigned to them just like the - 13 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Entering Mass Information permanent ones except that these masses are only included in the "masses to be assigned this week list" once at the appropriate time and then deleted from the mass list automatically after the date of their celebration has passed. There is no time restriction as to when you may enter a "Temporary Mass". You can do it years in advance if you want but ministers will be assigned to it only once on the week in which the mass occurs. From the Mass menu type "A" for "Add" and a carriage return and you will be asked if you want to add a Temporary or Permanent mass. Indicate your choice by typing "T" or "P". What you are about to do is to enter your normal weekly mass schedule so all your entries will be Permanent masses. The Mass "Template" presented is slightly different for a temporary or permanent mass. For a temporary mass you enter the date, month and year that the Mass is to be celebrated as well as the time. For a permanent mass just the day of the week and time are entered. The program will prompt you for the correct format. *** Anytime you enter a date in the program, use the format MM-DD-YY or MM-DD-YYYY. So Nov 3, 1988 can be entered as either "11-3-88" or "11-3-1988". When asked for a day of the week use the first three letters. So Sunday is "sun", etc. When entering the day and time for a mass the prompt shown is "DDD HH:MM ->". Here you are being asked for the day, hour and minute of the mass, respectively. For example, to enter a Saturday evening mass to be celebrated at 5:30 pm enter "sat 5:30p". Don't forget the "p", otherwise, the mass will be listed at 5:30 in the morning! Since most of your masses are on Sunday mornings a time without a suffix ("a" or "p") will default to AM. Also, note the space between the day and the time. The colon, ":", between the hour and minutes is also necessary as shown. You will then be asked how many ministers should be assigned for that mass. Simply enter any reasonable number (fewer than 100) and press the after each one. If you are initially entering this mass into your list of masses, the default number of ministers of each type that you entered while running "MpConfig" will be displayed in angle brackets '<>' next to the prompt for you to enter a value. If you are changing the number of ministers to be assigned to a mass, the value in the brackets will be the current value for that ministry at that mass. If you accept this value simply press the carriage return to use this number or enter a different number if your ministry - 14 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Entering Mass Information requirements change. If you do not want a particular ministry to serve at that mass, set the number to be assigned to zero. Presently, at my church we are not assigning ushers with this program so the default usher value is zero. Entering different numbers of ministers for each mass is necessary since some churches might distribute Communion under both species at only a few masses which would require a different Eucharistic Minister staffing than when Communion is distributed just as bread. Any time your ministry requirements change you can run the '"C"hange number of ministers to be assigned to each mass' command to update your mass records. In fact you can change the ministry requirements between weeks of assigning ministers. I know of a church that distributes Eucharist under both species only on the first and third weekends of the month. So they increase the number of Eucharistic ministers before they run the first weekend in the month. After the first week's ministers are assigned they "Suspend" minister scheduling and go to the Mass Schedule and decrease the Eucharistic minister count again. They then re-run the scheduler starting on the second week of the month and so on. Don't worry about the "Suspend" command. It is explained below in the section on how the scheduler works. **** It is important that you add your permanent mass schedule to the program before you add the ministers if you are going to utilize the "Preferred Mass" part of the scheduling program. Internally, the program assigns a code number to each mass you enter and when you indicate that a minister has a preference for a mass, this number is stored with the minister's records. If you delete this mass from the list, the code number assigned to that mass also is deleted. Since this code number is not now associated with any mass, keeping it in the Minister's records is meaningless, thus, the program removes it from any minister records that might have it and sets the minister's "Preferred Mass" field to "no preference" and "not Adamant". If you re-enter the mass, even though it may be at the same date and time, it is considered a new mass and the internal code number assigned to it may or may not be the same as the mass you just deleted. So if you adjust your mass schedule it might be wise to check that the Ministers' "preferred Mass" records have not been altered. Another feature is the ability to change the time of a mass without causing the "Bad Mass" or "Preferred Mass" associations with the ministers to change. This would be - 15 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Entering Mass Information used if the 7:00 a.m. mass got changed to 7:30. Most likely, those people who had preferences for the first mass would feel the same about the 7:30 time slot. By using the "T" (for time) command you are allowed to change the time of the mass yet all the "preferred mass" associations would remain. This is true even if you changed the 7:00 a.m. mass on Sunday to an 11:00 p.m. mass Saturday night. If you are changing the time of a Temporary mass with the "T" command, the program will also ask you for a new date as well as a new time. - 16 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Entering Mass Information Changing Mass Information The only information you can change about a mass is the number of each type of minister you can assign to the mass and the time of each mass as explained above. To change the number of ministers of each type to be assigned to each mass, from the "Mass" menu select the "C"hange option, press and enter the date and time of the mass you want to change. Remember that the mass is specified by the day and the time so the Sunday 9:30 AM mass is entered as "sun 9:30". You will then be prompted for new values for each of the 6 or 7 ministries. They are entered exactly as though you were originally entering the information with current values being displayed and prompted in angle brackets unless you elect to change them. To delete a mass type the "D" in the "Mass" menu and press . You will be asked which mass you want to delete and after typing the day and time in the same manner as for "C"hange above, the stats for the mass to be deleted will be displayed and you will be asked if you really want this mass deleted. If you say "No", or anything else beginning with "N", the delete procedure is bypassed. If you say "Y", the mass is deleted. I suppose I should tell you that the permanent files for this program are not updated until you actually "E"xit the program from the main, "Minister", menu or use the "U"pdate command described later. If you "Q"uit the program instead, the minister ("MpMin.dat") and Mass ("MpMass.dat") files are not updated and remain exactly as they were before you started the current program session. (Unless you have used the new UPDATE command from the main menu. But more about that later.) This means that any work you might have done, adding, changing, or deleting Masses or ministers, will be lost. However, "Q"uiting the program is a reasonable way of "practicing" without altering the parish records. The "L"ist the Masses option in the "Mass" menu simply lists all the masses in your data file for perusal. If you have more than 10 masses, either permanent or temporary, in your inventory, the "L"ist routine will list the first 10 then indicate that there are more masses and that you should press any key {there's that "any" key, again!} to list the next 10 masses and so on. When you are done entering all your mass information, exit the Mass menu and return to the Minister menu by typing "E" for Exit. - 17 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Adding Ministers Chapter 4 Adding Ministers The second part of operating the program is the most tedious, that of adding all of your ministers to the data base. Press the "A" (for Add) key and the and the screen will display a "template" for you to fill in with information about each minister. The program will take you through each field of the template in order and for the most part is self explanatory. Incidently, if you accidently pressed the "A"dd key and did not want to add a minister, just press the carriage return, , before entering information into the first field, "First Name", and the "Add" procedure will cancel. When entering alphabetical information, such as names, just type along. The backspace key enables you to distructively move backwards in a word in case of typing errors, and the left and right, "<-" and "->", cursor keys enable you to move within a word, but not beyond its bounds. Once you finish entering a field, pressing the carriage return, , will move you to the next field. The "Add" procedure will not permit you to move to previous fields once you have moved on. If you discover an error after you advanced to the next field, you can use the "Change" procedure to correct the error. Getting to the "City" field is where the city and state abbreviations you entered way back in "MpConfig" pay off. If you type an abbreviation that exists in "MpConfig" the program will look up the full spelling of the city, as well as the state and zip code and fill those in for you and bypass the prompts for those fields. The "Phone" field will hold twelve characters without any concern as to what these characters are. When you initially enter this field, the default area code you entered in "MpConfig" will be displayed and the cursor positioned just after it. If you want to change the area code simply backspace over it and type in the new one. The "Family Code" field is used to identify members of - 18 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Adding Ministers the same family. My program, in an effort to minimize gasoline consumption in families with more than one minister, say a Lector, Communion minister, and a Server, will never assign members of the same family to different masses in the same week. This is not to say that they will always serve together, but, rather that they won't be scattered among different masses. The family code number is the method I use to determine if people are members of the same family. Family members don't really have to be in the same family, or even have the same address or last name. The computer will treat everyone with the same family code as being in the same family. By the way, if some family members don't care if they are at the same mass with the other ministers in the same family, simply assign this person a different family code and he or she will not be considered part of the same family for scheduling purposes. When entering a family code the program will give you a gentle reminder if that code number is being used by another minister. (After all, is this not what "User Friendly" is all about?) Answering "Y" or "N" to the duplicate person code warning will either allow the duplicate entry to remain indicating that the person you are entering is a member of the same family as the person with the duplicate number or permit you to make another choice for family code. Remember that people with the same family codes will never be assigned different masses during the same week. Any number between 1 and 9999 is permissible. If you are assigning Greeters by "Family" all of those people with the same family code are considered part of the same family, same last name or not. When trying to enter family codes it might become necessary to look up the family codes of some other ministers to set a new minister's code to the same value. If you type a question mark, "?", as the first character in the "Family Code" field, a window will pop up in the lower right corner of the screen and you will be prompted for the last name of the minister whose code you want to see. The name you type does not have to be unique. For example, if you type "H", all the ministers whose last name begins with "H" will be displayed with their family codes. After scrolling through this list, a window's worth at a time, the program will return you to the "Family Code" field and continue to re-prompt you for values until an appropriate response is entered. At any time by typing a question mark as the first character in the field you can return to the window to check other codes. "Bad Mass" is the date and time of up to three weekly masses that a minister can not or will not serve. Use the up and down cursor keys to move among the three mass - 19 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Adding Ministers selections. When the number of the "Bad Mass" field you want to change is highlighted, press the and you will be prompted for a mass time that will be considered a "Bad Mass". Entering a mass day and time that does not exist or a will set the associated "Bad Mass" field to "None". A minister will never, repeat, never receive an assignment for any of his "Bad Mass" times. After you use the cursor keys to scroll through all three fields, using the down cursor key one more time will exit you from this group. It is also possible to cursor up above the top (Bad Mass # 1) field to exit this group. "Last Served" is the date that the minister last had an assignment. This date is used in the scheduling routine to decide on minister eligibility for service and is maintained by the program. You do not have to enter any information here. When entering a new minister, "Last Served" is set to yesterday. By "yesterday" I mean the day before you entered this person into the ministry data base. I had to put some date here as initial data so yesterday seemed appropriate. By changing the date in this field you can affect the eligibility of the minister in the scheduling routine. See the section describing how the program determines the minister schedule for more information on the "Last Served" date. *** This program makes extensive requests to your computer for the current date and time so the program can compute the weeks in the month, leap years and what yesterday was. DO NOT run this program without ascertaining that your computer is storing the correct date and time. If your machine does not have a battery backed up internal clock, you have to set the date and time every time you turn the machine on. In the opening block of the program the date and time as read from the computer's clock is displayed. If they are incorrect, exit the program with the "Q" command and set the computer's clock. If the date and time stored in the computer are incorrect the dates printed on your schedules will be wrong. Consult your DOS operating system manual for instructions on how to set the date and time if you have been remiss in doing so. Look up the commands DATE and TIME. The "Ministries" field lets you indicate for which ministries the person has been commissioned. You will be presented with a prompt at the bottom of the screen giving you a choice of any of 6 ministries, Server, Eucharistic Minister, Lector, Usher, Head Usher and/or Greeter plus the - 20 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Adding Ministers extra ministry you might have defined back in "MpConfig". Simply type any combination of "S", "E", "L", "U", "H" or "G" (and/or the first letter of your extra ministry) followed by a to indicate the person's ministries and the program will insert the full spelling in the "Ministries" field. ** There have been some questions as to the number of ministries you may enter for each minister. The program fully allows a minister to be commissioned for more than one ministry, for example, Lector, Eucharistic Minister and Greeter. If the person you are entering is so commissioned, enter "LEG", without the quotes and any spaces between the letters when prompted for the person's ministries. DO NOT enter the person three times and indicate a different ministry each time. The program will assume that these are three different people who coincidently have the same name and assign them as such. The "Mass Preference" field is to indicate if the minister has a preference for which mass he or she receives an assignment. In order for the preferences to have any meaning, there must be a mass scheduled at the day and time you are entering. This is why you must enter the mass schedule for your parish before entering any ministers. All times entered in this program are in hour, colon, minute folllowed by an 'a' or 'p' format. For example, 7:00 in the morning is entered as "7:00" (no quotes) but 7:00 in the evening is "7:00p". The colon is necessary where shown. So if a minister has a preference for the Sunday 5:30 pm mass you would enter the date as "sun 5:30p". All the following are legal time entries (7:00, 7:00am, 7:00a, 7:00 am, 7:00 a). If the program cannnot find a mass scheduled at that time it will enter "None" in the preference field. You do not have an opportunity to try again from the "A"dd procedure to enter a preferred mass. You must use the "C"hange procedure for that. (I am going to fix that annoying trait in the next version of this program.) The "Adamant" field is used to indicate how adamant a minister is about serving at a particular mass. When the schedule is computed, the program makes an attempt to assign a minister his or her "preferred" mass. If the person is adamant (Yup) about a particular mass and that mass is not available an alternate assignment will not be made and the minister will not receive any assignments for that week. If the minister is not adamant (Nope) the same attempt to assign the "preferred" mass will be made but if the mass is not available, an alternate assignment will be attempted. If a minister does not have a preferred mass, the search for - 21 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Adding Ministers an assignment for that person will be made in the order that the masses are stored in the program. *** An interesting situation occurs when two people with the same family code have different "Adamant" mass preferences. The person who has gone the longest without an assignment will get the "preferred" mass if it is available and no other because the preference is "Adamant". When it is time to give the other family member an assignment to his "Adamant" mass, the program finds that a person with the same family code is serving a different mass and thus will not grant the assignment to the second person. This results in the two people in the same family alternating between the two "preferred" masses on successive weeks and they will never serve together. The "Vacation Until" and "Away Week" fields are used to indicate the availability of the minister. By default, both these fields are set to 'yesterday', indicating that the minister is available for assignment. The "Vacation Until" field indicates the first date that the minister is available. He or she will not receive any assignments before this date. The "Away Week" field is for indicating a specific weekend that a minister will not be available. This is intended to be used when the minister tells you, "Don't schedule me the second weekend in December, I'm going to visit relatives". Either date can be entered at any time before the scheduler routine is run for the particular month or week the dates occur. Please note that when you display the information for any of the ministers the "Away" or "Vacation" dates are visible only if the date has not yet passed. (Another reason to get your computer's date set correctly!) The "Bad Day" field indicates the days of the week when a minister is not able to serve due to work or other commitments. In our parish there are some people who have Saturday jobs so serving the Saturday evening mass would not be possible. Since most of your people follow a Monday through Friday work schedule, the program initially sets "mon" thru "fri" as bad days, keeping people free on the weekends. To change the information indicate that you want to change a "Bad Day" and if you want to "A"dd or "D"elete one. Then type the 3 letter abbreviation for the day you want to change. The program will continue to ask if you want to change more bad days until you say "N"o. - 22 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Adding Ministers *** Since the program never assigns a minister on a day indicated as "Bad", a problem surfaces when you want to schedule a "Temporary" Mass sometime in the middle of the week, say, Christmas midnight mass on a Wednesday. Since most of your ministers will have Monday thru Friday "bad Days" they will never be assigned this mass. The command "B" in the main menu enables you to turn off the bad day of the week check as assignments are being made. This causes the scheduler to ignore any bad days that might be listed for a minister and treat a special midweek liturgy as not occurring on anyone's "bad days". Note that the bad day check is always "on" unless you explicitly turn it "off" every time you run the program. If you have only entered weekend masses with this program this is not much of a problem. If you are also scheduling weekday masses, turning off everyone's "bad day" flag might result in other people getting a normal mass on a weekday! After you finish entering information for a minister you will be asked if you want to add another minister. Type "y" to enter another minister record or "n" to return to the main ("Minister") menu. Remember that you can abort adding a new minister by typing a immediately after being presented with the blank "minister" template. Once you start adding a minister, you will have to add a whole record before you are allowed to exit. - 23 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Changing & Deleting Ministers Chapter 5 Changing & Deleting Ministers To change information about a minister type "C"hange and press from the "Minister" menu. You will see the prompt : Who ? Enter the last name of the person you want to change and press . Upper and lower case letters are not significant here. Either case is fine. The information about the minister will be displayed in the same "template" format as you saw when you initially entered the information for the minister. If the name you typed cannot be found the program will tell you so and return to the Minister menu. In case the name is not unique, a husband and wife for example, the program will list all those people whose last name matches what you typed and you will be asked to choose numerically among them. The program will wait until you type one of the numbers displayed. Note that you DO NOT have to type the complete last name, just enough to uniquely identify the minister. {Yes, I know "to uniquely identify" is a split infinitive but it sounds better! "...To boldly split infinitives no man has split before."} If, in response to the "Who ?" prompt, you type just "H", everyone whose last name begins with "H" will be displayed. The program remembers the name of the last person either Added or Changed so if you enter the Change procedure after already adding or changing information the prompt will look like this : Who {Tom Hayes} ? {-The name of the last person you Added or Changed.} If this is the person you want to change just type a and the record for this person will be displayed. If you want to change someone else type that name after the prompt as you had done before. Once the information template for the minister is - 24 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Changing & Deleting Ministers displayed, the cursor will be located on the left hand side of the "first name" field label. To move from field to field use the left and right cursor keys, "<- & ->" (or the up an down keys). Each time you press one of these cursor keys the cursor will move forward or back one field of the minister's record (or up or down as necessary). Please note that the "up" and "left" cursor keys perform the same operation, moving the cursor one field backwards. The reverse is true of the "right" and "down" cursor keys. These move the cursor one field forward. When you get to the field you want to change, type a and, depending upon the field you are changing, you will be able to enter data exactly as you did when you originally entered the information. When you are done changing a field, press the again to record the change and bring the cursor back to the field title area of the template. From here you can again move forward or backwards among the data fields. In the case of date or time fields an incorrect or illegally formatted entry will cause the old value to remain. Note that it is possible to change the "Last Served" field at this time. This is a convenient way of changing the priorities of the minister assignments. See the chapter on the scheduling process. To exit the "C"hange routine press the "End" key found on the lower left of the cursor key area on the PC keyboard and you will be returned to the main, "Minister", menu. To delete a minister type the "D"elete command from the "Minister" Menu and press . The program will prompt you for the minister's name exactly in the same manner as for the "C"hange procedure. After providing the name (or the code number if there is more than one occurrence of the name) the data for the minister will be displayed and you will be asked if you want to delete that person or not. If you say yes (or anything else beginning with "y") the minister's record is deleted. Remember that file updates are not made until you exit from the program so if you decide that you really did not want to delete that person you can "Q"uit the program instead of "E"xiting it and the minister data file ,"MpMin.dat", will remain as it was before the current program session. (unless you have used the "Update" command, described below.) - 25 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Reports and Lists Chapter 6 Reports and Lists The "Reports and Lists" option in the "Minister" menu moves you to the third menu in the program. These are your Report Commands, your Highness E - Exit this procedure. L - Labels. P - Preference List of Masses. S - Single line listing of ministers. W - Whole List (All information for each minister). Enter Report Command ('H' for List) -> _ The commands in this section are straightforward. All of them are used to generate some kind of listing of the ministers. When selecting any one of them you will will be given the option of including all of the ministers or any sub-group of them, such as the Lectors and Eucharistic Ministers. The method for selecting ministers to include is the same as that used to assign ministries using the "Add" command. You will get the prompt on the bottom of the screen asking you to select any of "S", "E", "L", "U", "H" or "G" (or your special ministry) as the minister type you want to include. The only difference is that if you type a the routine will include ALL of the ministers, not just the group you selected. *** Typing a to select all the ministers is not - 26 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Reports and Lists quite the same as choosing "SELUHG" since it is possible to have someone in your listing who currently is not assigned to any ministry and thus would be overlooked in the "SELUHG" selection but not in the bare which includes everyone, assigned to a particular ministry or not. The "L"abels command generates a file on the default drive (indicated way back in the "MpConfig" program) that can be used to print mailing labels. Understand that selecting "L" does not actually generate mailing labels, just a file that is later used as input to the "MpLabels" and the "MpPrint" programs also found on the distribution diskette. The file created by the "L"abels routine in this program generates a file called "MpLabels.out". It is this file that "MpLabels.exe" and "MpPrint.exe" will look for when attempting to generate mailing labels. To generate this labels file select the "L" option and indicate from the "Which ministers to include ?" query described above which ministers to include and press . The file, "MpLabels.out", will be created with the mailing labels information in it. After you are all done with this program and have exited back to the MS-DOS "A>" (or "C>") prompt, you can call the printing program "MpPrint" or "MpLabels" to print your labels for you. Refer to the chapter on "MpPrint" below for specific instructions on dealing with labels. The "P"reference command generates a listing to the screen or a file showing those ministers that have a preference for a particular mass. The list is sorted by mass and after each person's name is the abbreviation of the ministries to which that person is commissioned and either "yup" or "nope" indicating whether this minister is adamant about serving at his preferred mass or not. This is a convenient way of checking exactly who desires what mass and if your data base is correct. If you elect to have the listing saved to a file, the file "MpPrefs.out" will be used and it will be written to the drive you selected in "MpConfig". Simply enter the command, "P", to start the listing and indicate if you also want the listing to a file. The "S"ingle Line listing command is used to generate a listing of the ministers names and phone numbers with one line for each person. After selecting which group of ministers you want ("S, E, L, U, H or G") the program asks if you want the listing to be displayed on the screen or written to a file. You are asked to choose "S" or "F" in response to the query. If you choose "S" the listing will scroll by on your monitor. To stop the list at anytime for - 27 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Reports and Lists perusal type any key on the keyboard. Press any other key to restart the listing. If you choose the "F"ile option, the listing will be written to the file "MpLists.out" on the drive selected by the "MpConfig" program. After you exit the "Mp" program you can print the file, "MpLists.out" with the MS-DOS "Print" command or the "MpPrint" program. See your DOS manual for information on the "Print" command. The "W"hole list command works just like the "S"ingle line command above but instead of printing a single line per minister, it prints everything it knows about each minister in the minister group you selected ("S, E, L, U, H or G" (your special one) or ). The Whole List information is written to a file on the selected drive called "MpDump.out". This is essentially the same information that is displayed with the "C"hange command in the "Minister" menu. This is a good way to get a hard copy listing of all your data as an extra back up. However, there is no substitute for regular disk-copy back ups of your minister data. (unless you really enjoy re-entering data after a disk crash.) At least with the hard copy listing you will have something to read the data from as you re-enter it rather than the scraps of paper and index cards you used when you initially entered the minister information. The "E"xit command takes you back to the "Minister" menu. - 28 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 The Scheduler Chapter 7 The Scheduler The Scheduler is the heart of the program. To finally get to do minister assignments select "S" from the "Minister" menu and press . You will be asked what month you would like to schedule with a selection 0..12. The "0" is there so if you accidently pressed "S" from the "Minister" menu you can get back out without doing any scheduling. Once you type a month number, 1..12, where 1 = January, 2 = February and so on, the program will then ask you what week in the month you wish to start. Normally, you would enter "1" but occasionally, you would enter another week in the month if you "Aborted" the scheduler and wanted to restart at something other than the first week in the month. Don't worry, "Abort" is explained below. The assignments are done in groups of a month but a week at a time within that month. The program will always do assignments for the next occurrence of the month you select. So if it is August, 1988 and you type "10" for the month, the program will do assignments for October, 1988. But if you type "7" the assignments will be made for July, 1989. It obviously makes no sense to schedule assignments for a month that has already passed or the current month for that matter. (** Hint **) If it is the very beginning of the month, say March 1, 1989, and you want to do assignments for March 1989 and not March 1990, exit the program and use the DOS "DATE" command to tell the computer it is really February 28, 1989. Since the program always schedules for the next occurence of the requested month, the schedule will be done for March 1989 rather than March 1990. Assignments are always made with a week starting on a Saturday and ending on the following Friday. This assures that a particular minister gets only one assignment on a weekend. If the last day of the month is a Saturday, the program will make assignments for the Sunday in the same weekend, even though it is the first of the next month, to - 29 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 The Scheduler complete a week's worth of assignments. In fact, the program will assign up to the first Friday of the next month if you are using this program for weekday mass assignments. When it comes time to schedule the new month, the program will start on the first Saturday of that month, thereby avoiding any overlap with the previous month's assignments. The program generates an output file for each weekend of the month it assigns. The files are written to the drive specified in "MpConfig" and are named after the month, year and week for which the assignments are made. So assignments for the second week in November, 1987 will be in a file on the default drive with the name "Nov87-2.Skd". The "Skd" file extension indicates it is a "Schedule" file. As the assignments are made they are also displayed on the screen since I know you don't want to wait to print the output files before you know who got what assignment. The assignments are done a week at a time and written to a separate file for each week to expedite merging the weekly assignment listing with the rest of the copy of the bulletin that you are obviously typing and formatting on your Parish computer. After the assignments are computed, the program will tell you that it was successful or not successful in filling the week's assignments. If it was not successful it will display a listing of those masses and assignments within those masses that are not yet filled. How you fill these slots is up to you. Get more ministers, stop giving people days off, don't be so free with the "Bad Mass" and "Preferred Mass" fields and/or allow fewer "Bad Days". Both the weekly minister schedule and the list of assignments yet to be filled are displayed on your monitor one screen's worth at a time. This is to keep the listing from scrolling off the top of the monitor if the listing is longer than one page. To continue with the listing simply press any key on the keyboard. After each week's assignments are displayed and written to its weekly "Skd" file, the program will ask you if you want to "Abort", "Continue", "Reject", or "Suspend" the scheduling process. You then type either "A", "C", "R" or "S" as appropriate. -Abort cancels further scheduling and returns you to the minister menu. Although the file(s) created for weekly schedules remain (the ".SKD" files) on the default - 30 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 The Scheduler disk, the records for the ministers scheduled that week are not updated and remain as they were before the processing began for the week you aborted. Use "Abort" if you forgot to enter information, such as a "Temporary" mass for a particular week or Minister's "Away" or "Vacation" dates. Once you make the changes you want you can re-start the "Scheduler" for the same month and the same week. You can also use this command if you want to start over in case you entered the wrong month in the beginning. -Continue simply restarts the scheduler for the next week in the selected month, saving the schedule for that week and updating the minister's records. If the last week in the month was just assigned, "Continue" returns you to the "Minister" menu. - 31 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 The Scheduler -Reject suspends the Schedule processor and returns you to the "Minister" menu. From here you can enter "Change" and/or "M"ass schedule changes and update any information you wish. The difference between "Reject" and "Abort" is that "Reject" will cause the scheduler to continue the scheduling process at the week in the month that was last scheduled, in effect picking up with the week it just completed to try again with new information, whereas "Abort" simply returns you to the main menu and not keeping track of where the scheduler left off. If, for example, the scheduler just completed the second week of the month and you selected "Reject", when you later select "S" to restart the scheduler, it will start with the second week of the month again, rewriting the appropriate "Skd" file. You will be asked if you want to continue where you left off. If you answer "Y" the scheduler will continue. If you answer "N" you will be asked if you want to re-exit to make some additional changes to the minister data base or do the whole month over again. If you choose to "start from the top" the previous ".SKD" files will be overwritten with new assignments as the scheduler is rerun. -Suspend operates just like "Reject" above except that when the scheduler restarts it will start with the next week in the month, retaining the assignments it just made for the current week. This is a good way to change someone's "Bad Days" or "Vacation Until" data for the last half of a month yet still permitting them assignments for the first half. The minister's records in memory are updated with the assignments made by the scheduler for a particular week only after you elect the "Suspend" or "Continue" choices after a week's assignments are made. If You select "Abort" or "Reject" the minister's records are not updated to reflect the assignments from the week just scheduled. How the Scheduler Works To paraphrase a popular TV outer space program, the "Prime Directive" of the scheduling process is to give everyone an even chance at serving in their particular ministry. To this end the scheduling process is a chronological one with the people who have gone the longest - 32 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 The Scheduler without receiving any assignments becoming the prime candidates for assignments in the current week of scheduling. Hence, the first thing the scheduler routine does is sort all the ministers by how long it has been since they last served (the "Last Served" Field). This way the people who have gone the longest without receiving an assignment get first shot at an assignment for the current week in the selected month. In addition the list is sorted by family code so people in the same family will always wind up next to each other on the sorted list. This increases the probability that family members will serve together. There is no guarantee that family members will always serve together or even more or less frequently than single ministers but they will never be assigned different masses the same week. If the first minister on the list after the chronological sort has a "preferred" mass, the mass list is resorted with the preferred mass as the first on the list of possible masses to be assigned this minister. As the assignment process begins the minister's records are checked to see if 1. He or she is not on vacation. 2. The mass is not on a "Bad Day". (If Bad Day checking is enabled) 3. This is not one of three "Bad Mass"es. 4. This is not an "Away Week" for the minister. 5. Another person with the same family code doesn't have a different mass the same week. 6. The minister is commissioned for an available ministry at that mass. 7. If you are assigning Greeters by family, a check is made to make sure no same family members are serving a different ministry the same week. If all these criteria are met the minister is assigned the mass. If any one of the tests fails and the minister is "Adamant" about this mass, no other assignments are attempted for the minister and he is removed from the available pool of ministers for the week. If he is not "Adamant" about serving at his or her "preferred mass", the next mass on the list is tested as above. The process continues until the minister either gets an assignment or until all the available masses have been checked. The only difference in the process with and without a "preference" is that if the minister does not indicate a mass preference, - 33 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 The Scheduler the mass list resort in preference order does not occur and the masses are checked in whatever order they happen to be at the time. If the program happens to have just processed a mass by someone with a preference, the preferred mass is now first on the list of masses, not the one that displays first when you run the "L"ist all the masses routine from the "Mass" menu. This assures some degree of randomness and keeps the same people from getting the same mass by accident. This is also a part of the "Prime Directive" in that assignments are spread around among all the ministers without any one minister "owning" a particular time slot. Since the date in the minister's "Last Served" field is the method used to determine the "pecking order" for granting assignments, changing the information there can affect the outcome of the scheduler. In case you want to change a large group of "last served" dates, use the "L" command in the main menu. You will be prompted for a date to be the new "last served" date and then one by one stepped through your minister list and given the opportunity to change everyone to the new date, or change selected people to the new date. This command is also useful if you have been practicing with the program and have thus changed some of the minister's last served dates. Using the "L" command to change that field is much faster than the "change" command. Commentary : I have tried to keep the assignment process as fair as possible without family groups getting a larger share of assignments than the single people, or vice-versa. (I was single when I originally wrote version 1 back in 1985 but now, with version 5, I am married and ministering with my wife and I do not feel that the scheduling process favors one group over the other.) There is one area that might cause friction among your ministers. This is when a person requests the "Main" mass on Sunday, you know, the one where the full choir sings, and this minister's preference is "Adamant" for this mass meaning "I will serve at this mass and no other". This minister will always get this mass when it is his turn to serve and no other. Some of the less self-centered ministers might not be "Adamant" about their preference or indeed have no preference for a mass, feeling that it is their duty to serve where needed. The result is that these people wind up getting the less popular masses, such as the 6 pm Sunday evening mass. Whether you permit this or not is up to you in how you enter the data for your people and even if you permit the "Adamant" choice to - 34 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 The Scheduler be made or not. People do not mind getting the less popular masses if they know everyone is being rotated through this honor. It should be pointed out that a person who has made an "Adamant" choice for a particular mass will probably wind up serving a little less often than the other ministers, especially if there is more than one person adamant about the same position at the same mass. Unless they are "adamant" about a less popular mass. Since the assignments are always done in chronological order with the person who has gone the longest without serving getting first "dibs" on assignments, using the "C"hange procedure to alter the date "Last Served" can affect the sorting order and consequently the assignment process for better or worse. *** Well, stating that the assignments are made in strict chronological order is not exactly true. Since an attempt is being made to keep family members together, the chronological order is really only done by groups of families, that is, all the ministers are clumped together by family then these family groups are sorted chronologically by checking the "Last Served" field. For version 5.5 and later a new family grouping algorithm has been incorporated that is statistically more accurate in keeping families together and also assuring that everyone gets about the same number of assignments. For this version 5.7 there is yet another change to the scheduling algorithm that is less likely to favor familys over individuals yet still attempt to group family members together. I have to reiterate, this program does not guarantee that family members will serve together but it does guarantee that they will not ever wind up at different masses on the same weekend. This might be a good place to once again ask for suggestions from you, the users of my program, to let me know what features you want or what "If only this program did..." type things you would like to see. - 35 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Printing your data files Chapter 8 Printing your data files The accompanying program "MpPrint.exe" is supplied to help you print the files the "Mp" program generates. Besides the schedule files, "Nov89-3.skd", for example, the MpPrint program will also print the other files, "MpLists.out", "MpDump.out", "MpPrefs.out", and, of course, "MpLabels.out". you start this program by typing MpPrint at the DOS '>' prompt, NOT from within the Mp program. After the program loads you will see the menu ----------------- Minister Program Printer Utility -------------- File Date/Time last Generated ---- ------------------------ 1 MPDUMP.OUT 8-27-89 10:59 2 MPLABELS.OUT 8-27-89 11:16 3 MPLISTS.OUT 8-27-89 11:17 4 MPPREFS.OUT File not found 5 Minister Schedule Printer 6 Printer Setup File to print (1 - 6) or '0' to Exit -> _ The column "Date/Time last Generated" tells you the date and time your most recent copy of the data file was generated. These dates and times will be correct only if your computer knows the correct date and time. Printing the "Dump", "Lists" or "Prefs" file is straightforward. Just - 36 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Printing your data files select menu items 1, 3, or 4 and the selected file will print out. If the file is not available, that is, the program can't find it, perhaps because it is in a different directory than the one you are in now, or because you never created it in the "Reports and "Lists" section of the Mp program, "file not found" will be displayed rather than the generation date and time. Printing labels requires a bit more work on your part since you have to take the paper out of your printer and insert mailing label stock. The labels are printed in a field 15/16" high by 3-1/2" wide. So appropriate label stock should be used. Depending upon the printer you have, with a 9 inch or 14" carriage, and the label stock you own, the labels can be printed either 1, 2, or 3 across. After you select menu item "2", the program will ask you which style label you want to use. The program will then print a label header, giving the date the labels list was created and which ministries are included. The real reason for the header is to help you to get the label stock centered in the printer. One full label row will be printed as a registration guide and wait as you adjust the labels. Press any key on the computer to have the printer repeat the registration guide. Once you are satisfied that the registration is alright, press and label printing will start. If for some reason you want to stop the label printing, press the ESCAPE key on the keyboard or you can always turn off your printer. It should be noted that if you are using a print spooler or your printer has a large buffer, printing will not cease with the ESCAPE command until the buffer is empty. Menu option "5" is used to print your minister schedule for publication. Once you select "5" the program will ask you for a range of months to print. Some churches print schedules a month at a time while others do three months at a time. Recall that the schedules are in weekly files with names showing month, year and week that the schedule was made. The schedule for the third week in November 1989 would be in a file called "Nov89-3.skd". You will be asked for a Starting Month to print. Reply by typing the month and year to start. MMM YY is the reply format. So to start with the November 1989 schedule you would type "nov 89" as your starting month. You are then asked to enter the ending month. If you just want to do November 1989 you would reply with "nov 89". If you want to print the schedule for three months starting in November 1989 and going to January 1990, you would enter "nov 89" as your starting month and "jan 90" as your ending month. If either the starting month or ending month is entered incorrectly, the procedure cancels - 37 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Printing your data files and returns you to the main menu. Menu item "6" is included to give you some flexibility in controlling you printer. Printing a file to a printer is broken down to three main parts, finding the file and initializing the printer, printing each line of the file, and terminating printing and closing the file. As you may or may not be aware, your computer is capable of switching your printer to print in other formats such as boldface type, italics, elite, etc.(assuming your printer has such capability) To do this, your computer has to send "control codes" to the printer to tell it what to do. Menu item "6" provides a method of sending three sets of codes to your printer before any of your five types of files, dump, labels, lists, prefs or schedules are printed out. These three sets are an initialization string, a string to be sent before each line, and a closing string, sent after the final character in the respective file is sent to the printer. You may not need to use any of these special codes to print your files so don't feel that you have to fill in anything. As an example, my printer, an Epson, will switch to boldface type, making the print appear darker by sending the code "ESCAPE E", that is pressing the ESCAPE key followed by an upper case letter "E". I turn off boldface type by sending "ESCAPE F". The control codes for your printer might be different from mine and can be found in the owner's manual for your printer. Let's assume I want to print the MpLists file in boldface so it will appear darker for Xeroxing and sending to my ministers. I would select from the main menu item "6", Printer setup. I would then see a new menu listing each of my printable files and a menu number 1 thru 15 for defining each of the three types of command strings to send to the printer for each of the five files to print. So, to make the printer go to boldface for printing "MpLists" I select menu item 7, initial string for MpLists. At the bottom of the box I am prompted for the string to send. Since control codes are usually, but not always, special keys, a special method is required to enter them. Also, a special method is required to display them on the screen since they are collectively known as the non-printable characters. The ESCAPE character is entered by pressing the escape key but is displayed as a leftpointing arrow. If you enter any of the control characters, Ctrl-A thru Ctrl-Z, they are displayed as the letter itself preceeded by a carat(^). These characters are entered by pressing and holding down the CTRL key, usually on the left hand side of your keyboard, and then pressing the alphabetic letter itself. Release the letter key then the control key. If the string you need to send to your printer is to include things like backspaces, carriage - 38 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Printing your data files returns and linefeeds you will have to enter them as ctrl-Characters rather than using the carriage return key or the backspace key. Some of the popular control characters are - Ctrl-H - Backspaces the printer one column - Ctrl-J - A linefeed, causes the printer to advance one line - Ctrl-L - a formfeed, causes the printer to start a new page - Ctrl-M - a carriage return, moves the printhead to column one Depending on your printer, sending a Ctrl-M, carriage return, might or might not also do a linefeed. If you do not get a line feed with a carriage return, the new line of text will start on the left side of the printer page but on the same line as the previous page, printing on top of the previous line. Note that data entry for each line of control codes is terminated by a carriage return. If you want to enter a carriage return as a code to be sent to your printer use Ctrl-M. The same is true for the backspace. To send a backspace to your printer use Ctrl-H. The regular backspace key is used for backspacing over your text as you enter it. The data you enter is saved to a file called "MpPrint.dat" and read every time you run the printer program. You can change control codes anytime. Why do you need to know such technical things? Well the good news is that perhaps you don't. But some people might want to take advantage of some of the enhanced printing capabilities of their printer and this is one way to do that. I have to reiterate. The control codes for your printer might be different from mine. Please refer to your printer manual for a complete listing. SUGGESTION: Some people have complained that the Labels printer requires the label stock to be set on the left side of the printer. By inserting paper that is only 3-1/2" wide, some printers incorrectly report that the printer is out of paper and refuse to print. By going to the "Line Prefix" string for the printing of "MpLabels" you can add up to 25 blanks that will be printed before the label text on each line effectively shifting the label stock up to 25 - 39 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Printing your data files places to the right, enabling you to center the labels over the paper sensor to avoid the "paper out" error. - 40 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! Chapter 9 Help ! Help with the program can be found in two main ways. First of all, READ THE MANUAL. I did not spend time writing this thing to not have you read it. I've tried to make the language informal enough that it is sort of fun to read. Secondly, on-line help is available from the main, "Minister", menu. If you choose the command "H" by itself the main menu is simply reprinted. If, instead, you type "H" followed immediately by the command you want help with then a , a short explanation of how the command works is displayed on the screen. If, for example, you want help with "A"dding a minister, type "HA". If you are really stuck, a little prayer could not hurt but then call me (708-884-0514) or write me at: Tom Hayes 940 Heather Lane Hoffman Estates, IL 60195 (Assuming, of course, you have paid your registration fee) (The phone number is my home number since this program is my pet project and not part of my job as an audio and control systems engineer. I do not think it is fair to my boss to get calls of this nature during the day but I'll be more than happy to talk to you at night. I'm in the central time zone and am up by 6 am and go to bed after 10 pm.) Operating Hints If you make changes to the data base such as modifying Away Days, vacation days, adding or deleting ministers, etc. it is a good idea to use the "Update" command to update your data files to keep your data base on disk up to date before doing minister scheduling. This way the changes made to the data base are made permanent without updating the "Last Served" fields of the minister's records in case you only want to practice using the scheduler. Please make sure that the date and time are set - 41 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! correctly on your computer before you run this program. If your computer doesn't know the correct date, the date of the assignments will be wrong. When the program starts the computer checks the date and time and tells you on the opening title block of the program what values it read. If they are incorrect, DO NOT CONTINUE. Quit the program and fix the date. You can change the date by entering the Ms-Dos command "Date" at the dos prompt "A>". See your DOS book for more details about the "DATE" and "TIME" commands. If you are assigning Greeters by "Family", the program will put the listing in the output file as "Tom Hayes Family" rather than "Tom Hayes, LuAnn Hayes". Usually this is fine but if the wife is a greeter too, and she happens to come up chronologically before the husband, the program will print out "LuAnn Hayes Family". Depending upon how liberated the family is this can be a problem. A simple solution is to make only the husband a greeter when assigning greeters by family and list the wife in your data base but do not make her a greeter. The reason for including the wife's name is that if there is only one person in the family, the program will only list "Tom Hayes" and not "Tom Hayes Family". Any suggestions from you on how to list families? Some Questions received about MP-The Minister Program Q : Why did the program schedule the same person, a persom commissioned as both a Lector and a Eucharistic Minister, to both ministries at the same Mass? A : You entered the name of that person twice, once as each type of minister and the program assumed they were two different people. Enter each minister once but you can indicate any number of ministries in the "Ministries" field. --------- Q : Why don't you change the program logic so families always serve together? - 42 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! A : This is one of the most common questions I get. It is my feeling that everyone should get the same chance of an assignment as everyone else. If you give priorities to families, the single ministers will suffer. The scheduling is in strict chronological order with all families grouped together so the chances are pretty good that families will serve together but this is not guaranteed. Consider the scenario of Mom as a Eucharistic minister and Dad as a Lector. Suppose the only assignment remaining to be filled is one Eucharistic Minister when the scheduler gets to mom and dad. The Lector position at this mass is also filled. If a position is already filled we have to assume they were filled by people who have gone longer without serving than anyone who has not yet been considered due to the chronological "Prime Directive". The next person up for consideration is Mom. Since there is a Euch-min slot open she gets it and all positions for that mass are filled. What do I do with Dad? Do I kick out the other Lector to make room for someone who has not waited as long for an assignment? Or do I remove Mom from her assignment and give her slot to someone else because Dad cannot be with her? If we choose the former course, this violates the chronological ordering. If we choose the latter there is a greater chance of running out of ministers if we adopt an all or nothing approach to family assignments. ----------- Q:Every week the same people get the same assignments without any rotation. Why? A:You don't have enough ministers to use only a percentage of them each week. If all of them get assigned each week everyone's "last served" date is the same and no chronological resort occurs. Find more ministers or reduce the number of each type assigned to each mass. Another reason this might occur is that you were "playing" with the program and assigning masses far into the future, maybe months ahead. The people who received these future assignments now have "Last Served" dates months ahead and when the chronological schedule sort occurs, these people will wind up on the bottom of the schedule pecking order until that future month passes. This is why I have included the "Quit" command in the menu. It enables you to play around yet not mess up your data base with practice schedule data. I would suggest that you run the "Print Whole - 43 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! List" in the "Reports and Lists" menu that prints out the data base and check your minister's records to see if anyone has a "Last Served" date in the future. If this is the case use the "Last Served date change utility" in the main menu to alter the minister's "Last Served" date to something more reasonable. ---------- Q:Why do you not include cantors in your list of ministries to be assigned? A:It has been my experience that the music people usually wind up scheduling their own. They typically meet one night during the week for rehearsal and at that time dole out the assignments for the coming week. This scheduling program is more suitable when you have an overabundance of ministers and you are trying to apportion the assignments equitably. How many churches do you know where there is an over supply of cantors? --------- Q:How do I finally get all the assignments to print on my printer? A:Use the DOS command PRINT. The PRINT command works just like the TYPE command except that TYPE lists a file to the screen and PRINT prints it to the printer. You can find information on the print command in your DOS manual. But as long as you are here... With your DOS diskette in the computer (For you floppy disk users) before you start the MP program type the command PRINT. DOS will reply NAME OF LIST DEVICE [PRN:] This is computerese for "Do you want me to use the normal printer that is attached to the computer?" Obviously you do, so just type a . DOS will then say PRINT QUEUE IS EMPTY What you are doing is setting up something to allow you to do background printing. This means that you can print a file while you are doing something else on your computer rather than waiting for the printing to be done. The printing you will be doing with this program - 44 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! is the manual (MPManual.txt), the schedule files, (AUG88-4.SKD) for example, the listing files (MpDump.out, MpPrefs.out, MpList.out) etc. So a typical command to print out the schedule for the third week in November 1988 would be: PRINT NOV88-3.SKD Printing will occur unless there is something wrong such as your printer being off or out of paper. The print command will allow you to specify up to ten files that can "queue up" for printing. If you type PRINT by itself DOS will tell you how many files are waiting to be printed. If you get the message "BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME" when you try to use the print command, it probably means your computer cannot find the file "PRINT.COM". If you are working without a hard disk, you must have a copy of "PRINT.COM" on your "MP" disk. To do this, put your DOS disk in drive "A" and your copy of my program disk in drive "B" and type "COPY A:PRINT.COM B:". This will put a copy of "Print" where your computer can find it. If you have a hard drive and the above problem, read up on the PATH command in your DOS manual. If you are still stuck, give me a call. Incidently, you must have a DOS version greater than 2.0 for the print command to work. To see what version of DOS you have type VER as a DOS command. Starting with this version of the program I have included a new program called "MpPrint" that will lead you through the printing process. It is described in detail in the last chapter. - 45 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! LICENSE UNDERSTANDING All versions of MP-The Minister Program are not public domain nor are they free software. Non-registered users are granted a limited license to use this program for the express purpose of evaluating its suitability for their purposes. Use of MP for other purposes requires registration. This program is distributed under the "Shareware" concept which grants the user the limited license to copy MP only for the trial use of others subject to the above limitation and the following: - MP must be copied in unmodified form with all files, "MP.EXE", "MPCONFIG.EXE", "MP,HLP", "MPMANUAL.TXT", "MPPRINT.EXE" and "MPCNV4-5.EXE", including this manual with its registration notice and license information intact. No fee or any other compensation may be accepted or requested in conjunction with this distribution. - Operators of electronic bulletin boards may post MP for downloading subject to the above conditions. For those not familiar with the "Shareware" concept of program distribution perhaps a bit of explanation is in order. The basic idea is that without laying out a large sum of money you get to try out your prospective purchase, much like taking that new car for a test drive before buying it rather than making a new car decision based on sales literature. The program you have is the complete, working program not some crippled "demo" program designed to frustrate you into purchasing the real thing. If you like the program and use it, you register your copy which is the same as paying for that new car rather than just driving off into the sunset with it. To this end you are encouraged to make copies of the program for other prospective users (adhering to the above conditions). If these others like the program they should register and make copies for others. The whole idea is that distribution is on a word of mouth basis and since the author, me, is not saddled with the expense of duplicating and shipping diskettes and printing the manuals, the cost of the program can be kept low. It is up to honest users who register their programs to keep the "shareware" concept alive. Thanks. TH Incidently, there are literally thousands of public - 46 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! domain and/or "shareware" programs available that range from games, to word processors, spreadsheet templates and even liturgical minister assignment programs! Some can be had for the cost of the diskette, $6, others, like mine request a registration fee, usually in the area of $20 to $50 dollars. If you are at all interested in what else is out there contact: PC-SIG 1030 East Duane Avenue, Suite D Sunnyvale, CA 94086 1-800-245-6717 They issue a yearly bound directory of programs available from authors around the country, with a monthly newsletter/magazine listing updates and new program submissions. They currently have over 1800 different diskettes available. To further explain the fee structure, the $30 registration fee that I am requesting is the license fee permitting you to use one copy of this program. You are not to use the program except for evaluation purposes without paying the $30 registration fee. This is also supposing that you have received a copy of the program from someone else, another church perhaps. If you would like me to send you a copy of the program I can do that for an additional $5 for a regular floppy disk or $6 for a 3.5" disk copy. (Diskette mailers are expensive!) Also, Some people do not like the idea of having to print out the manual on the disk. If you would like, I can print out a copy and bind it for you for an additional $20. Please make your intentions clear when writing to me. - 47 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! Big NEWS! After a year and a half of work interrupted for the most part by the birth of our first child, I have completed work on version 6.0. This new version incorporates many of the changes suggested by users of previous versions. Some of the big changes are - A much better minister data entry system so you are not stuck in the "ADD" routine until you have everything filled in. In the "Change" routine you are able to use "PgUp" and "PgDn" to move back and forth from minister to minister without having to exit and re-enter "Change". - A better ministry entry system so different ministries can begin with the same letter. - The capability of adding up to eight different ministries in addition to my predefined seven giving you a total of 15 different ministries. Any of these ministries can be renamed. (This should put an end to the "Acolyte" vs. "Server" and the "Lector" vs. "Reader" vs. "Proclaimer" controversy.) - For each minister you can define * up to four "Away Periods" giving both the starting and stopping dates when a minister might be away. * "Bad weeks" in the month when the minister cannot serve. You can use this to make sure particular people do not serve every week. * "Types of masses" the minister is permitted to serve, "Permanent", "Special" and/or "Daily". * A "Notes" line as a scratch pad for each minister. * Up to three "Direct Assignments" where you can specify a particular mass, date, time and ministry that a minister will be assigned. * An associated minister that will "ServeWith" the first minister. This can be used to guarantee particular people will always serve together. * A "Family Mode" of "Together", "Separate" or "Don't Care" to further define ministry - 48 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! associations within a family. "Separate" might be used if you have an infant at home and only one of mom or dad can go to mass at a time. - Each mass can have a "Class" assigned to it as can each minister. The program will only assign people with the same class number to a matching mass class number. - Perhaps the biggest change is in the output formatting. You can define in version 6 how the program is to print out your data, either in a vertical list as it does now or in a spreadsheet format. You can choose which ministers to include in each type of listing, the size of the printed page and the range of dates for the output. - Along with the above, you can also define your own type of data listing, and how the listing is to be sorted. You might want your phone contact lists separated by ministry and sorted by town, or whatever. You can define dozens of printing styles and save them to disk for subsequent re-use. - The "Labels" procedure will print labels 1 to 5 across and either directly to your printer or to a file for later printing. - You can also print mailing labels with your minister's assignments printed on them instead of addresses. This is to keep your people from having to search through a big printout looking for their names and then highlighting it. The assignment labels summarize each minister's assignments and can be attached to the top of the bulk Xeroxed assignment list. - All printing is now done from within the program. Gone is the use of the DOS "Print" command. - There is better handling of Daily masses. You can state which days of the week a mass is celebrated and how many times each server should be assigned. (One set of servers all week or a different set Monday to Wednesday and Thursday through Saturday, for example). - Assigning a server to a Daily mass will not keep other family members from serving in their ministry on weekends. - You can also set the date from the program and also "Shell to DOS" if you need to format a disk to save some files. - 49 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! This new version of my Minister Scheduling Program will be selling for $95 including a bound manual. People who have registered for earlier versions will receive a discount to upgrade. Since you are reading this manual, I asume you have a copy of version 5.7. If you have not registered for it by sending me $30, you can do so and know that you will be able to apply the $30 to version 6.0 if you wish to upgrade. If version 5.7 fills your needs, by all means stay with it and save your church a few dollars. - 50 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! R E G I S T R A T I O N F O R M Mp v5.7 {Jun 90} _____Enclosed is $30 for registration of my present copy of your program. _____Enclosed is $95 please send me version 6.0 of your program which includes a bound manual. Send it on a ______(3.5" disk) or ______(5.25" disk) {If you already have registered for an earlier version by sending me the $30 fee, contact me for a discount on version 6.0} Send to: Tom Hayes 940 Heather Lane Hoffman Estates, IL 60195 Registering for the program allows you telephone support in addition to granting you peace of mind for using something that you have not ripped off! Call me if you have a question. Church Name _________________________________________ Church Address ______________________________________ City, State, Zip_____________________________________ Church office Phone # _______________________________ Your Name ___________________________________________ And Address _________________________________________ (if different from church) _________________________________________ Are you the person who will be running the program?_____________ If not, Who?_________________________________________ If in Illinois, tax exempt # ________________________ What kind of computer do you have?___________________ Please let me know how you like the program, what you do not like about it and what features you would like to see in future releases. - 51 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! Index Adamant Field 21 Away Week Field 22 Bad Day Field 22 Bad Mass Field 19 Carriage Return 11 Changing Mass Information 17 Changing Minister Information 24 Date Format 14 Default Drive 8 Deleting a Mass 17 Deleting a Minister 25 Family Code Field 18 File -"MpConfig.dat" 9 file, MpPrint.dat 39 File, MpDump.out 28 File, MpLabels.out 27 File, MpLists.out 28 File, MpPrefs.out 27 file, MpPrint 36 Files 4 Initial Start-up 7 Installation, Hard Disk 6 Installation, One disk drive 4 Installation, Two disk drives 6 Labels 27 Last Served Field 20, 25 Mailing Labels 37 Main Menu 11 Mass Menu 13 Mass Preference Field 21 Mass, Adding 14 Mass, Permanent 13 Mass, Temporary 13 Menus 11 Minister Menu 11, 11 Ministries Field 20 MS-DOS Date & Time 20 Preferred Mass 15 Scheduler, Aborting 30 Scheduler, Continuing 31 Scheduler, Rejecting 32 Scheduler, Suspending 32 SKD file 30 - 52 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! Time Format 14 Time,entering 21 Update Command 17 Vacation Until Field 22 - 53 - Minister Assign Program V5.7 Help ! Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Getting Started 4 Chapter 3 Entering Mass Information 13 Chapter 4 Adding Ministers 18 Chapter 5 Changing & Deleting Ministers 24 Chapter 6 Reports and Lists 26 Chapter 7 The Scheduler 29 Chapter 8 Printing your data files 36 Chapter 9 Help ! 41 - 54 -