Member and Donation Tracking System - MDTS Table of Contents Startup Chapter 01 Heading Data Chapter 02 Pledge File Chapter 03 Givers File Chapter 04 Member File Chapter 05 Cursor Movement Chapter 06 Program Functions Chapter 07 Mailing Labels Chapter 08 Reports Chapter 09 Ad-Hoc Reporting Chapter 10 End-of-Year Chapter 11 Form Letters Chapter 12 DIRE WARNINGS !! Appendix A Bug-fixes, if found and verified, are free to registered customers. Updates and enhancements will usually, but not always, cost $10. Registered customers will be notified by mail about update disks. Custom reports will cost $10 each, if the report is one that may be produced. Contact the Tom&Cat programmer for more information. SPECIAL NOTE: Make sure that you ALWAYS exit the program by "stepping backward" from menu to menu, so the program may properly update and close data files. (c) 1987,1988,1989 Tom&Cat Data Management Software Tom Smith - 1416 NE 98th Avenue - Fort Vancouver - WA - 98664 Chapter 01 - Startup NOTICE: Please pay attention to the messages that show on the top AND bottom of the screen while you are using the MDTS program. The data you save by paying attention -- will be your own! Member and Donation Tracking System and data files require AT LEAST 384k of installed memory. MDTS was written on a 640k machine, has been tested on a 512k machine, and SHOULD run on a machine with as little as 384k of installed memory. MDTS has been run under DOS 2.1, DOS 3.1 and DOS 3.21 with no difference in operation noticed. This program is designed to run from a subdirectory on a hard disk. Depending on the size of your hard disk and the number of other files and programs you have, you should be able to track several thousand members and their associated pledges and giving. One of the data removal functions (Chapter 07) also performs a psuedo-sort function and requires free hard disk space equal to that used by your largest file and its associated index files. If you do not have enough hard disk space for this operation, simply use the non-sort process. The overview is a "map" that displays on screen. SOME, but not all, printers will make a hard copy if you use the print-screen function. This is a function of the printer (it needs some special graphical commands built in to the ROM chips) and is NOT a function of MDTS. Selecting any one of the three main data files moves you to the data entry/edit menu. See Chapter 2 for information on the HEADING file. The data entry/edit menu has 8 choices, as follows: 0 - Quit data entry/edit 1 - Append (Add) new records 2 - Browse thru the data file 3 - Edit/View individual records 4 - Labels (only for Member datafile) 5 - Remove/Sort (pseudo-sort) 6 - Remove Only (no sort) 7 - Reports (goes to a report menu) 8 - Accounts (to enter/update titles) See Chapter 7 for more information on program functions. Account 00 has a default title of General Fund Donations. You must enter names for the other 99 accounts. Chapter 02 - Heading Data This information is used by some of the reports, most notably the giving statement for members' tax records, to print the information on your organization. The sample data provided will show you the format. When you choose the HEADING data from the MDTS menu, you are given a chance to enter new data or revise the current information. Chapter 03 - Pledge File The Pledge file is short and simple. A place for the MEMBER NUMBER, and a place for the actual PLEDGE, one of each. The MEMBER NUMBER is used here, in the Givers file, and in the Member file, to link the three files together. This "number" may actually be any combination of letters and numbers, the choice is yours. Chapter 04 - Givers File The Givers file has the MEMBER NUMBER, GIVING, DATE, and CODE. Whole dollars may be entered without the .00 for cents. No commas. The CODE may be one or two digits, numbers only. The title for a code will show at the bottom after you have entered the code number. The DATE field STARTS with the current date that you or your clock card gave to DOS. If you override this date, as you might if entering the weekly donation record several days later, the "default" date entered into this block stays at the new date until overridden again. The TOTAL figure just above the entry area is for your aid in checking the numbers you enter. If you enter a wrong amount AND catch the error BEFORE you finish the current entry, you may press the UP arrow and fix the amount. If you notice the error AFTER you finish the current entry (the TOTAL amount has changed from the last entry) you MUST do the EDIT function to change the amount and cause the program to fix the TOTAL. See Chapter 6 to learn how to use the data entry/edit screens. Please note that the LABELS menu choice will NOT work while you are in the Pledge or Givers data areas. The MDTS menu is nearly the same for each of the data areas, but LABELS only works in the Member data area. If you will look at the lower left corner of the MDTS menu that is used for data entry/edit, you will see that the file status is displayed. Chapter 05 - Member File The Member file, as well as being the place to keep your member's name and address (plus some other general information) is the master place to use for assigning the MEMBER NUMBER that is used to relate all three files together (Member, Pledge & Givers) for printing tax statements. Since there is no way of knowing every possible need of all kinds of organizations, the program was written so as to allow duplicate MEMBER NUMBER entries. The positive side of this is that you will not need to think up unique indicators for each person/family, if the person/family does not donate, you instead may put something as generic as MEMBER or VISITOR in this block. The negative side of this is that YOU, and not the program, must insure that duplicate "real" numbers are not entered for two or more data records. There is a report, printed in the MEMBER NUMBER order, to help you keep track of issued "real" numbers. The Member file has the following data elements: LAST NAME should not include initials, or the directory will look odd. Putting , Jr (comma-space-Jr) or similar works just fine. MEMBER NUMBER may be any legal character. You may wish to assign a 4-digit number for financially active people, and just a word MEMBER or PROSPECT (or whatever) for people who attend but do not donate. If you use letters, they are converted to all capitals upon entry. FAMILY SALUTATION may be according to your preference. This, plus the last name field, combine to print the entire family name. CHILDREN contains space for several children, for the directory. ADDRESS, CITY, STATE, and ZIP are the "standard" entries. The entries for city, state and zip will "refresh" themselves from your most recent input during Append, to speed data entry when from the same area. POSTAL KEY-LTR is optional, and may not be needed by all groups. This is provided for those with a large mailing area, who need to separate labels PRIOR TO the zip code. If you use this key at all, you must put a letter or number in this block for ALL entries. The sort order is by PostalKeyLtr-Zip-LastName for mailing labels, if not sorted by name. PHONE includes the area code. If you enter a number, the area code must be entered as well. Blank is converted to 000-000-0000 by MDTS. NAME #1 and NAME #2 are printed ONLY in the "master" directory, which is usually used by your office staff # 1 WORK # and # 2 WORK # are printed ONLY in the "master" directory, which is usually used by your office staff. STATUS is any one letter (or number) you choose to enter. You might put an M for a Member of your group, or an A for someone who is Active but not an official member, or anything else you decide to use. The default value for this space is an M and is placed there by MDTS. TEL-DIR is a Yes/No entry (True/False to the computer) and is used by the reporting modules A or K to print the regular telephone directory. NL-LABEL is another Yes/No entry. You would usually use this choice as a selection criteria when printing mailing labels for a NewsLetter. LOCAL is the last Yes/No entry. The three yes/no entries all start with a default of Yes (True). You may enter Y or T and N or F (No/False) and MDTS will accept either. DATE OF ENTRY is taken from DOS during entry or edit. MISC is a small place for your comments. When printing labels (or a form letter) you will be asked if you want to make a "selection" of only certain members. This process builds a comparison expression (such as lastname=Smith) which is checked against each entry in the file for a "true" condition. The expression that you build, which picks from the entire set of information, may only be one line (70 characters). (lastname=Smith is 14 characters) This means you will be able to build a compound (several search items) expression of "about" 3 or 4 different items to compare against. Report E and Report I also provide you with the opportunity to make a selection. Please be aware that it is possible to "confuse" the indexing routine if you specify too many items for your selection. THIS IS NOT A BUG IN MDTS - it is simply the way the underlying compiled program handles file indexing. About the only place you are likely to have a problem is if you make a compound selection in Report I. The "cure" is simply to always limit your selections to one item at a time IF THE PRINTING ORDER IS IMPORTANT. You may, of course, make a compound selection at any time - just be aware that the ORDER of your printout may be odd. All the data will be printed properly, just possibly out of order. The mailing label process uses a different internal program routine, (built-in) and seemingly does not have the tendency to be confused. If nothing prints, especially if you have made a selection, the most likely cause is that there was simply no data available that matched the criteria (built-in or selected) for the particular report. Chapter 06 - Cursor Movement - The Keyboard & Screen IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please pay attention to the messages that show on the top AND bottom of the screen while you are using the MDTS program. The data you save will be your own! The TOP of the screen is where STATUS messages will show, such as the word *DELETED* when you have marked a record for deletion. The BOTTOM of the screen is where DIRECTION messages will show, such as a message to press the PgDn key to go to the end of a data entry/edit screen, and on to the next process, without having to press the enter key at each data space to "step-through" the data entry/edit screen. During data entry/edit, if you notice a mistake on a prior line, you may use the UP-ARROW key to move backward through the data screen. The LEFT-ARROW and RIGHT-ARROW and BACKSPACE work on the current line. When MDTS gives a direction message to RETURN you press the RETURN or ENTER key to return to the previous program level. If you are in the Browse mode, and press E (for {E}dit), and then press Return when you are done editing, you will return to browsing the file. When you give the DELETE command, the program actually only MARKS the entry TO BE DELETED and does not immediately remove the data. You must then call the Remove function from the MDTS menu. Care should be taken, as the remove function is PERMANENT!!! That is why this data deletion was made a two-step process. If you decide that you do not wish to delete an entry, you simply press the delete key again to "un-delete" the entry. Remove on selection 5, the pseudo-sort, actually copies the file to a new file IN THE ORDER OF THE PRIMARY INDEX KEY while leaving behind the records marked for deletion. The reason for this "psuedo-sort" is that having PHYSICAL data in the same order as the LOGICAL-data-INDEX will make reports that print in index order run slightly faster. Chapter 07 - Program Functions 1 The APPEND (add to data file) choice presents you with a "shell" to use for fill-in-the-blank data entry. Each time you complete entering a data item, either by filling in the allocated space or by pressing the enter/return key, the cursor will jump to the next data space. The cursor moves left-to-right and top-to-bottom. If you notice an error after you have moved on to the next block, you may press the up-arrow key and move back a block at a time. As soon as you press enter/return for the last item, OR if you press the PgDn (PageDown) key at any time, MDTS adds your entry to the data work area, and gives you a chance to add another entry or finish. 2 The BROWSE selection allows you to quickly page through your data to locate a particular item. You may use the up/down arrow keys, and the PgUp/PgDn keys for movement. Once you find an item that you want to edit, you simply press the E key to go to edit mode. When in edit mode, you must press the E key AGAIN to tell the program that you really do want to edit the entry. Pressing the RETURN (enter/return) key, when you are in "ready" mode (with all the messages at the bottom of the screen) will "return" you to the previous function. So, if you came to edit from the browse function, you will then return to browse. Another return key would then send you from browse back to the main selection screen. 3 While at the EDIT "ready", if you press a special DELete key (or the D key) to delete a record, it is actually only MARKED for deletion. A separate operation is needed to physically remove records. You may also press the delete key again to "un-delete" a record. Watch the status message at the top (near right) of your screen. 4 The LABEL function will print your selected member list. 5 The REMOVE function does two things. First, it removes any records that you have marked for deletion. Second, it copies (psuedo sort) the records so they are in the same PHYSICAL order as the index. The remove function creates a temporary file that is the same size as your original data file, minus any deletions, meaning that you must have space on your hard disk for this remove/sort to work. 6 This REMOVE function does not do a sort, and is the faster of the two. 7 Selecting REPORTS sends you to a report selection menu. 8 ACCOUNTS is where you enter or update the titles to go with each of the 99 possible accounts. The 00 account is set by the program, and is used if you do not enter anything in the CODE field for giving. Chapter 08 - Mailing Labels When you select labels, you will first be given a choice of Zip Code or Last Name as the printing order. Remember that the Zip Code order is actually based on the PostalKeyLtr-ZipCode-LastName index key. This means that if you have, for instance, ONE person with an A in the block for Postal Key-Ltr, that ONE person will print first no matter the Zip. After the print order choice, you will be asked if you wish to specify a condition on the output. If you answer Y for YES, you will be shown a menu. This menu lists every data element in the Member file, for you to choose by entering the appropriate number from the list. After you enter the data item number, you next pick an operator to act upon that data item, such as EQUALS. Finally, for this one data item, you enter the value you wish to use in the comparison, such as LABEL EQUALS T to print labels only for the people in your file that you have decided will receive your newsletter. (The "T" in LABEL EQUALS T stands for "True", F stands for False.) Next, you pick a connector for another data item, or the DONE number. Last, you will be asked whether you want output to go to the {S}creen or the the {P}rinter. Press the first letter of your choice. Be sure your printer is on and ready BEFORE you press P for printer. Chapter 09 - Reports The MDTS program contains a sub-module for you to select from a list of available reports. The reports, and their letters, are: A - Directory, the telephone directory of your members B - Master Directory, telephone directory WITH work numbers C - Money Counter, a list BY NAME to quickly find a member's number D - Giving Number, a list BY NUMBER for assigning member numbers E - Giving Report, the individual tax statements for your members F - Pledge-to-Giving, a no name summary of pledges & actual giving G - Giving-to-Pledge, a no name summary of actual giving & pledges H - Giving-by-Date-Summary, for your Finance Committee I - Giving-by-Date-Detail, to verify that entries were correct J - Pledge Report, pledges only, does not include giving K - Alternate Telephone Directory, another way to print L - UN-Directory Listing, those who are not in the directory M - Listing of 100 (0 plus 99) Account Titles N - One page of selected statistics O - Count ALL by Postal-Key-Letter (if used) and Zip Code P - Count by P-K-L (if used) and Zip Code for LABEL = TRUE Q - Telephone directory in style of #-A, but with selection R - Telephone directory in style of #-K, but with selection The Finance Committee reports DO NOT include names. During development of MDTS your diligent programmer found that EVERY organization providing ideas and advice wanted to be sure that the Finance Committee would be kept free of any "pressure" association with individual members. Report E is formatted for standard "window" envelopes. Reports F and G are NOT the same. Report G has all GIVING reported, with a pledge if there is one. Report F has all PLEDGES reported, with actual giving if there is any. The {S}creen option is provided solely for you to see that there is, in fact, data to be printed. It does NOT give pretty screen reports. Chapter 10 - Ad-Hoc Reporting Selection Z from the MDTS report sub-menu sends you to yet another menu, from which you may build your own custom reports. With this, you may now define (and save/recall) your own reports. (if they are simple) THIS DOES NOT SHOW ON THE MENU, SINCE IT IS NOT SUPPORTED! The MDTS author purchased a "Straley Clipper Toolkit" to be able to add several new functions. One of the functions is this ad-hoc reporting feature. However, since this is merely a module that is linked to the MDTS program, it is not something that Tom&Cat is able to support. You are COMPLETELY ON YOUR OWN if you choose to use the Straley module! Since there were no user instructions with the ad-hoc reporter, Tom&Cat has no instructions to include here. If you feel the need to report data in some way not included in Reports A thru P, experiment. Otherwise, you simply ignore selection Z and use the prepared reports. One "hint" about designing the report layout - pressing Enter/Return moves you down the screen within the area that the Straley module allows for reporting. Chapter 11 - End-of-Year The End-of-Year (Start-a-New-Year) process is a manual process. CAUTION! This process over-writes existing data files! Follow these steps: 1 - Make a history floppy disk (or two) and file in a safe place. The only files you need to copy end with a .DBF extension. 2 - Place your original distribution disk in the A: drive. 3 - Enter the command DELETE *.NTX while in the C:\MDTS directory (this assumes that you have named your directory MDTS) 4 - Enter the command COPY A:PLEDGE.DBF C:\MDTS 5 - Enter the command COPY A:GIVERS.DBF C:\MDTS This process deletes all .NTX (index) files (don't worry, MDTS will easily --in fact MUST-- recreate the index files) and copies the original, one-entry "shell" Pledge and Giving files to start the year. The Members file stays the same. A sample NEWYEAR.BAT file is included for you to review/modify/use. If, for any reason, you ever need to restore data files from a floppy disk, you MUST FIRST ENTER THE DOS COMMAND DEL *.NTX to delete all index files. The MDTS program will (MUST!) create new index files to match the new/restored data files. DO NOT EVER restore files from floppy without this DELETE *.NTX step! DO NOT EVER restore files from floppy without this DELETE *.NTX step! DO NOT EVER restore files from floppy without this DELETE *.NTX step! The Pledge and Givers files are ALSO on the distribution disk with a file extension of .BAK, in case you copy in the wrong direction. A command of COPY A:PLEDGE.BAK C:PLEDGE.DBF would fix that problem. Chapter 12 - Form Letters The "form letter" function of MDTS is a very simple, ONE PAGE place for you to use for messages to your members. The letters are kept in a LETTERS.DBF data file, accessed by selecting 6 from the main menu. The number of letters is limited only by your available disk space. The form letter sub-menu has only 5 selections for you: 0 - Return to the MDTS main menu 1 - Append (add new letters) 2 - Browse through the letters by TITLE 3 - Edit & Form-Letter generator 4 - Pack (removed marked letters) After you have added your letter (look at the example provided) you select 3 to actually print your letter. While at the Edit screen, but not actually in the Edit mode, you press an F to select Form Letter. You will next be asked for a selection, like the labels. You may now select by name, or zip code, or member code, or anything else you care to use as a "filter" to only print letters for selected members. If you do make a selection, MDTS will "extract" from the main data file according to your criteria, and create a temporary file. The temporary file is deleted after the form letters are all printed. While adding/editing a letter, the following keys will work: home - goes to the beginning of the line of data end - goes to the end of the line of data left/right arrows - move left or right backspace - "eats up" character to the left del - deletes the character under the cursor ins - switches into/out-of insert mode PgDn - quickly finish the current screen "page" The form letter is NOT, however, a full-fledged word processor. Appendix A DIRE WARNINGS! NOTICE: Please pay attention to the messages that show on the top AND bottom of the screen while you are using the MDTS program. The data you save by paying attention -- will be your own! Make sure that you ALWAYS exit the program by "stepping backward" from menu to menu, so the program may properly update and close data files. DO NOT EVER restore files from floppy without a DELETE *.NTX step! DO NOT EVER restore files from floppy without a DELETE *.NTX step! DO NOT EVER restore files from floppy without a DELETE *.NTX step! NEVER delete the very last record from a data file. You must ALWAYS have at least ONE record in every data file or MDTS will not work. After you have entered some actual data into the Givers file, be sure to delete the ZERO-DOLLAR entry that is in the "shell" data file, or the statistical report will be skewed by a false entry. Use the POSTAL KEY-LETTER only when you want to sort mailing labels by using a one-digit code BEFORE the actual zip code entry. Keep the original MDTS disk untouched, so you will be able to perform the New-Year process described in Chapter 11. The Ad-Hoc reporting is NOT supported by Tom&Cat. This routine was purchased from another vendor, and is "as-is" for those who want it. If you receive an OPEN ERROR message (especially at Ad-Hoc reporting) the "most likely" cause is that you did not follow the CONFIG.SYS instructions contained in the DOOR process. Go do so NOW! This program runs ONLY from a hard disk.