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 "GROUPS" Screen and Display Panel in MemberLink. You came to this screen by clicking "GROUPS" Tab on the Operations Bar .

"GROUPS" Screen Layout in MemberLink:

- Product Bar MemberLink
- Operations Bar Groups
- Information Bar Groups
- Navigation Panel Reset, Search, Add New Group, Group Via Search, Group Categories, and Gang Reporting
- Display Panel Groups ROW/COLUMN Form

The "GROUPS" section in MemberLink is used to help you organize your ministries, committees, classes, etc.

Any number of Groups may be defined, each named any way you desire. The concept is that you can create subgroupings of the total list of people or users (each person is identified by an individual contact record) to help you organize ministries, classes, teams, groups, committees, etc.

Section 1: What are some practical reasons for creating Groups?

** Example 1:
You want to track who is serving in each ministry or serving on each leadership team or committee. You create a Group for each of these organizations in your church, and you can get reports showing who is serving.

** Example 2:
You have Sunday School classes or Small Groups at your church and you want to maintain contact lists and attendance rosters. You create a Group for each of these so that the leaders can get reports showing Group members, guests, prospects, and contact information; and you can print attendance rosters or post attendance data by person or in summary.

** Example 3:
You want your teams or committees to appear together in the online Photo/Contact Directory. The Photo/Contact Directory displays not only individuals and families, but Groups if you so choose that your members will see who is on the committee or in the class or on the team and will have the contact information for each member of the group.

** Example 4:
You want to send an email or text message to members of a specific ministry or committee. You create the Group, and then the Email function supports sending messages not only to your entire database, but also directly to specific Groups that you may select from the list of Groups.

Section 2: Navigation Panel:

At the top of the Navigation Panel , your church name will appear.

Following that will be the various navigations and functions pertaining to the "GROUPS" Tab Navigation Panel . They are: Reset, Search, Add New Group, Group Via Search, Group Categories, and Gang Reporting.

"RESET" Hyperlink
Clicking this removes any limitations that had been placed upon which Groups are displayed on the "GROUPS" Screen and Display Panel so that all Groups will be "active" and displayed.

"SEARCH" Hyperlink
Click this to go to a screen where you can enter a partial Group name and other inquiry variables, and narrow the number of Groups displayed on the "GROUPS" Screen. This is helpful if you have created dozens or hundreds of Groups - it may be quicker to do the "Search" than to scroll through all the Groups looking for the one you want to find.

"ADD NEW GROUP" Hyperlink
Click this when you want to create a new Group structure. You create the structure, with its name, options, parameters, etc., before you put people in the Group as a follow-up step.

"GROUP VIA SEARCH" Hyperlink
Click this if you want to create a new Group structure AND populate it with people all in one process. You can "search" for the people you want, "select" them, create the Group structure, and then put the selected people in the Group. You can even select other Groups of people to put into the new Group.

"GROUP CATEGORIES" Hyperlink
Click this if you want to create a Category and then place one or more Groups into the Category. Group Categories enable you to create hierarchical structures that contain multiple Groups "" such as a Sunday School Category. After creating the Category structure, you can place all your Sunday School classes (which are Groups) into the one Category.

"GANG REPORTING" Hyperlink
Click this to go to the screen where you can create a report printing routine or use a saved template that prints reports for several Groups in one step. This eliminates having to use the Reports hyperlink to print attendance rosters, for example, one at a time.

Section 3: Display Panel:

This section is the ROW/COLUMN Form area of the screen. It is located immediately under the Operations Bar and Information Bar , and just to the right of the Navigation Panel .

When the Operations Bar is set to the "GROUPS" Tab, this is where individual group records from the database are displayed for you to see and use.

If the (FAMILY GROUPS) Radio Button is selected, you will see a "FAMILY DIRECTORIES" Button just to the right of the "Type of Groups" Radio Buttons. Click the "FAMILY DIRECTORIES" Button to go to the screen where you can create a Family Directory report or a Family Directory spreadsheet.

If the (CARE GROUPS) Radio Button is selected, you will see a "MANAGE CARE GROUP SETS" Button to the right of the "Type of Groups" Radio Buttons. Click this button to go to the screen where you can create and maintain Care Group Sets.

Here are some other features regarding the "GROUPS" Screen and Display Panel :

"¢ The default sorting presentation for this ROW/COLUMN Form is alphabetical ascending sequence by "GROUP NAME" Column.

"¢ The Groups shown in the ROW/COLUMN Form are considered to be "active Group records". For ease of use, the records are displayed in a "spreadsheet style" layout. Each Group is on a separate row, and the Group's data is shown in the columns for that row.

"¢ The number of active records shown in the ROW/COLUMN Form is a configurable option that the MasterAdmin can change in the Configuration File. It is typically set at 40, 100, or 140 records per page, and the [NEXT] [BACK] [FIRST] [LAST] Buttons are provided for scrolling through the records when more are active than can be displayed on the screen.

"¢ If you use the "SEARCH" Hyperlink function to choose specific Group records to be "active records", only those will display in the ROW/COLUMN Form.

"¢ To activate all records again (allowing all records to be displayed in the ROW/COLUMN Form), click the "RESET" Hyperlink function at the top of the Navigation Panel just above the "SEARCH" Hyperlink.

"¢ If the column header has an "Up Arrow" and "Down Arrow" next to the column title, it means you can sort the active records in the ROW/COLUMN Form using the values in that column. "Up Arrow" sorts into ascending sequence, and "Down Arrow" sorts the active contact records into descending sequence.

"¢ If the column header has the "Two Circular Arrows" Symbol next to the column title, it means you can customize the ROW/COLUMN Form by toggling between two or more uses for the column. For example, the "FILES" Column can be toggled to become the "NOTES" Column. You can toggle back and forth between the two.

Here is an overview of each column:

"ROW NUMBER" Column:
This is an optional column. The MasterAdmin can turn it on or off in the Configuration File. If it is turned on, the "spreadsheet-style" rows will be numbered. The first row in the ROW/COLUMN Form will be row 1, the next will be row 2, and so forth.

** Note: If this column is turned on and appears in your ROW/COLUMN Form, it will not have a column header.

"SELECT" Column:
This column offers "highlighting" Checkboxes. When you click a Checkbox, that row is highlighted. You may highlight one or more rows. This feature is provided as a convenience if you need to focus on certain rows of records (focus on certain people).

There are also special effect buttons above and below the "SELECT" Column that you can use to retain or exclude highlighted rows. In effect, this removes the records you do not want to see, leaving as active records only those you do want to see and use.

"GROUP NAME" Column:
This column shows the name of each Group that has been created. You can use the Up Arrow or Down Arrow to sort the Groups into ascending or descending sequence. The default sequence for this ROW/COLUMN FORM is ascending sequence.

"CARE GROUP SETS" Optional Column:
This column only appears if you have the (CARE GROUPS) Radio Button selected. The column shows the names of the Care Group Sets assigned to the Care Groups. If this is blank for a Care Group, that means that Care Group is not assigned to a Care Group Set.

You can use the Up Arrow or Down Arrow to sort the Sets into ascending or descending sequence.

Click the [MANAGE CARE GROUP SETS] Button to learn more about setting up Care Group Sets.

"ASSIGN PERMISSIONS" Column:
This column provides hyperlinks to another screen that will give you the capability to assign other Administrators with permissions to manage Groups you have created.

"ADD MEMBERS":
This column provides hyperlinks to another screen that will let you manually add members to this Group.

"VIEW/SET PRIMARY/DELETE" Column:
This column provides hyperlinks to another screen that will let you view who is in the Group, or manually delete members from the Group.

If it is a Family Group, there will also be an opportunity on that screen to designate the Primary or "head of household" person - this person's address can be used if you want to send letters or postcards to your families but not to every member of the family. There is also an opportunity on that screen to designate a second person as the Secondary in the Family Group.

If it is a Care Group, there will be an opportunity on that screen to designate the group leader.

** Note: Next to the hyperlink, you may see a number. Example: "View/Delete Members (13)". The number, "13" in this example, is the number of people currently in the Group. If no number appears, the Group is empty.

"REPORTS" Column:
This column provides hyperlinks to the "REPORT SELECTION" Screen where you can choose to create and print reports for the Group.

"DATE ADDED" Column:
This column shows the Creation Date for this group. You can use the Up Arrow or Down Arrow to sort the Groups into ascending or descending chronological sequence by this date.

"FILES or NOTES" Column:
This column shows the "VIEW/UPLOAD FILES" Hyperlink. However, if you click the "Circular Arrow" Symbol in the column header, the column changes to show the "NOTES" Hyperlink. The "Circular Arrow" Symbol toggles the column back and forth between Files and Notes.

If you click a "VIEW/UPLOAD FILES" Hyperlink, you will go to a screen where you can upload documents and associate them with the group, or view other documents already uploaded and associated with this group. For example, if you scan a class attendance roster and create an electronic copy, you can then upload the electronic copy and link it to this class (group). That would give you an electronic record of attendance, and you will not have to save and file the paper roster.

If you click a "NOTES" Hyperlink, you will go to a screen where you can enter notes and associate them with the group, or view other notes already entered and associated with this group. Anything you want to mention about this group (or class), you can enter as a note. The notes will be kept and will accumulate as time goes on. If your system's MasterAdmin or SysAdmin has put email addresses in the applicable box in the Configuration File, the system will send email alerts to those email addresses. The alerts will contain the text of the note, so that these people will know you have added a group note for this group.

"VIEW" Column:
This column has a hyperlink that allows you to "View" specific information about the Group.

"MODIFY" Column:
This column has a hyperlink that takes you to the "MODIFY" Screen where you can update or maintain the control information about the group such as group name, group type, etc.

"REMOVE" Column:
This column allows you to delete existing Groups. Use the Checkboxes to identify those Groups you want to remove "" meaning you want to delete them from the system. Click the Checkbox to turn it ON for any Group record you wish to delete. Then scroll to the bottom of the screen and click the [DELETE CHECKED GROUP(S)] Button.

** Warning:
Deleted groups disappear from the "Groups database" and cannot be recovered. They are gone!

** Note: Deleting the Group does not delete the people who were in the Group. The contact records for the people are still in your "contacts database" and will still appear on the "CONTACTS" Screen. The Group (with its name and characteristics) is gone, but the people who were in it are not deleted.

The concept is simple. You define a Group with the "ADD NEW GR0UP" Hyperlink, giving it a name and specifying the other characteristics of the Group. Then you add people (members, guests, prospects, etc.) to the Group you just defined. This is accomplished by using the Checkboxes next to the names of people from a list that you will see when you click the "ADD MEMBERS" Hyperlink, after you define the Group.

Once you define the Group, you will also be able to "manage" the Group (meaning that you are able to delete people from the Group). Also, using the "MODIFY" Hyperlink, you can change the name of a Group at any time.

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