CAA Product Help

(HELP ?) Circles provide narratives on Training, Explanations, and Hints. These can be related to the overall screen, or to specific items on the screen.





This (HELP ?) Circle narrative is for the "GLOBAL CHANGE ADMIN FIELDS" Screen in MemberLink.





The system has "Standard Data Fields" (such as name & address) and "Regular Data Fields" (other basic fields such as age, grade, gender) that are available and used in the same way for all churches.





"Custom Data Fields" are also sometimes referred to as "Church-Defined Data Fields" or "User-Defined Data Fields" because the MemberLink System Administrators at your church can create and define these database fields themselves. A church-defined data field can be created to contain data for any purpose needed by your church.





The purpose of the "Global Change Admin Fields" mass update function is to apply a Custom Data Field value change to the selected field in a selected group of active contacts (database records).





"¢ The Custom Data Field that will be updated must be defined as an "Admin-Only" data field. If the Custom Data Field is one that can be viewed and updated from the Member Profile module, it will not be "Admin-Only" and it is excluded from this mass update function.





"¢ You must first select the specific contact records for which you want to apply the update. This "Global Change" applies the update to every "active" record, that is, every contact record that is active on the Display Panel at the time of update. You might use the Search function to find the specific active records that will be the target of your updates, and THEN you use the Global Change function to apply the updates to those records.





"¢ There is a "Warning" message that lets you know how many records are active before you make the change. If you forget to select the appropriate records, the change may be applied to every record in your database. Pay attention to the "Warning" message to be sure you are changing the correct number of records.





"¢ The value applied to the active records must be defined as one of the values selectable in the Custom Data Field if the field type is "Drop-Down Box". The value applied can be anything you type into it if the field type is "Text Field" or "Text Box", for example. You will be replacing the value currently in the selected contact records with the different value that you are changing to.





Follow these easy steps to apply a mass change with the "Global Change Admin Fields" function:





Step 1:


Use the Search function (click the "SEARCH" Hyperlink in the Navigation Panel to find the people (contact records) you want to update. These will now be your "active" records on the "CONTACTS" Screen Display Panel .





Step 2:


If you do not want all of these active records, you may use the "SELECT" Column on the left side of the Display Panel to further narrow the list. Turn on the Checkbox in the "SELECT" Column next to each record you want to delete from the active list.





Step 3:


If you did Step 2, click the [REMOVE SELECTED] Button. The result will be that now only the records you want to update will be left on the Display Panel . This does not delete these contact records from the database, it just removes them from "active" status until you click the "RESET" Hyperlink again.





Step 4:


You can find the "Global Change Admin Fields" mass update function in two places in MemberLink. Follow one of these next two instructions to get to it.





1) Click the "CUSTOM FIELDS" Tab to go to the "CUSTOM DATA FIELDS" Screen. Then click the "GLOBAL CHANGE ADMIN" Hyperlink.





2) Click the "OPTIONS" Tab to go to the "OPTIONS" Screen. Then click the [GLOBAL CHANGE ADMIN FIELDS] Button.





Step 5:


First, you will see a display of how many records are "active". These are the records that will be changed. If the record count is not what you expected, go back and select the correct records again. For example, if you were expecting to change 25 people but the count shows as 150, you probably didn't get the 25 selected as the only "active" records.





Next, you will see one or more Tabs that have Admin-Only fields under them. Click the appropriate Tab so that you see the Custom Data Field that you want to update.





Step 6:


Click the [MODIFY] Button next to the Custom Data Field you want to change.





Step 7:


Click the pull-down selection menu to see the update value choices, and select the value you want to put into this field in all the "active" records as identified on the "CONTACTS" Screen Display Panel . Or, if the data field is a text line or text box instead of a pull-down selection menu, enter the new data in the line or box.





Step 8:


Click the [SET THIS VALUE] Button. That will plug the value you selected into all the records that were "active" on the Display Panel , in effect overriding their current value with this new value.





Important:


There is no "undo" option. When using the "Global Change Admin Fields" mass update function, always be sure you have the correct "active" records on your "CONTACTS" Screen and Display Panel .





And remember, there may be more active records than are visible on that screen since the page may be set to only display 50 or 100 records at a time. That's why it is important to pay attention to the record count displayed and described in Step 5 above.





"Global Change" will update every active record in the database with the new value you select "” not just the records you see "” and it is too late to change your mind after you click the [SET THIS VALUE] Button.

"CAA Product Help" from CAA Ministries at Support@CAAsoftware.com or 404-551-4230