trouble with Microsoft Excell Exporting

[lindsayl]

Hi Truman,
We are havinga trouble with exporting into microsoft excell. instead of creating an excell document it keeps on opening a new web broser and all the info is displayed in comma seperated form. i can't copy it or anything. Can you look into this bug. thanks.

[Truman]

Hi Lindsay,

I tested this with WinXP in IE and Firefox and I didn't find the error. I think you are using Mac and Firefox. I'm not sure if there is a way to configure your browser not to do that. Why don't you export to the text tab delimited or comma separated values files instead. Those can be saved to the desktop and then opened in Excel.

Truman

[lindsayl]

good to hear from you. i have tried using the csv export too. it didn't work. it does it soemtimes and sometimes it doesn't. i hasn't worked a few times this week so i wondered if there was just being fickle.

[Truman]

It works every time for me. Can you try using someone else's computer (both Mac and PC)?

thanks,
Truman

[lindsayl]

Well I have tried to export on other computers. I don't think their is anything wrong with the computer because sometimes it works. Most of the time it doesn't. It doesn't even try to download it, it'll just open all the info in comma seperated form in a new window. Can you help? we need to print Sunday School rosters weekly.

[Bridgecity]

Could you  print out the printer-formatted HTML roster that you can print out from any search group?  This is what we do for our classes.  If you're in any group, click into the "Member List", then hit the "export" button, then on the menu that opens, select "Print ready HTML"  You can specify what data to include.  We print out names and pics for our classes. The teachers can make notes as needed and return the sheet to our office.

Are you needing other info besides what's available here?  Is that why you're exporting into Excel?  It seems like unless you have some kind of special form you've designed in Excel it's a lot of extra work to try and do what you're doing.  Am I not understanding your situation?

Or maybe if you shared what you need on a roster print out, Truman can add an HTML based form that would print directly from Ascribe to do what you are trying to do.

I may be meddling too much in your system, but I know for our people, the goal is to use as FEW software programs as possible, and it would be preferrable to be able to do what you need in Ascribe, rather than exporting data into a whole new program (and one that's as complicated as Excel.)

Just some thoughts.

[Truman]

Great suggestions, Marc. Lindsay, can you try and use the HTML printer friendly reports for print your rosters?

I'm unable to troubleshoot the problem you're experiencing because I am unable to duplicate the error.

Perhaps if you give me an exact step-by-step description of what you're doing to get an excel report, I can better troubleshoot.

By the way, the "Excel" export function really is just a text file using the ".xls" extension. They normally just open up into Microsoft Excel.

I will attempt to make Ascribe generate real Excel files and will let you know the results later on this thread.

[Truman]

Lindsay, I've reconfigured Ascribe to generate actual Excel files now. You can tell that these are real Excel files because the first row (field headers) are bold.

Please try to export now to Excel and let me know if it works for you.

thanks,
Truman

[lindsayl]

Thanks Mark i will have to try it from groups, we haven't gotten to the point of putting the kids into groups yet.

Truman, thanks for all your help. It's working great now. Is there a way to search and find all 3rd graders and put them all into a group? Or do I need to do this individually? Using groups does sound easier, because then all I would be doing is updating their attendance not the member status. I've just been adding the search results to "My Favorites" and Exporting from there. We do use an excell sheet that is pre-formatted for our attendance charts.

Thanks again for your help

[Bridgecity]

Hey Truman,

I've noticed in the groups a "track attendance for this group" option.  Is that something that's functional yet?  How does it work?

Certainly it seems like any group with the "track attendance" option checked out to be able to print out a pre-formatted attendance sheet.  Name, maybe pic, check boxes for attendance, etc.  Lindsayl, are there other things you have on your excell sheet?  Maybe of we can give Truma a good idea of what needs to be on an attendance tracking form, he can dial one up that would automatically format and include the group members.

While I'm sure that the excel tempalte you've used in the past is perfect for your needs, it still seems like if it's possible to take out the extra step of exporting into excell and then printing, it would be more effective for your ministry time.  The goal--at least for our church--is streamlining.  Less steps, less software, less moving data back and forth.

[Truman]

Lindsay, the "add a new group member" function in the groups module allows you to do a search of people based on age. You could select an age range of people and add them all to the group in one step. Later you can go in and check to see if they were really third graders.

Marc, did you mean "track registrations"? If so, then, yes, it is functional. Create an event for the group. Make sure the date of the event is in the future and mark the "track registrations" box. Now you can mark people as attended, walk-in, no show, etc.

Or if you don't mark "track registrations", just add people to the event and they will be considered as having attended it.

Truman

[lindsayl]

Yeah less steps sounds good. I think they include: Last Name, first Name, Birthdate, Grade Level. For the younger kids (5 years old and under) we use a sign in sign out sheet, which has two lines for parents to sign in and sign out thier child & we use the Birthdate on these attendance sheets because these classes are seperated by age. For the Kindergaten and older we use a just a check box that they were here. These classes are sperated by grade level.

The excell spread sheet isn't all that bad. We like it because we can change it to fit an event or special Sunday.

[Bridgecity]

Truman - Yea, that's right.  I guess the question I have in addition, thinking about lindsayl's use, is whether there is a quick way, having set up an event to track registration, to print out an "attendance list" from that group.  This seems like a necessary tool since the classes aren't going to likely have Ascribe open to track attendance directly (wouldn't I love a touch-screen monitor in each classroom that teachers could access...). 

So, it sounds like at lindsayl's church they are printing out an excel page for each class that has the name, and other info, like the sign-in and sign-out lines.  Is it possible to create a "Print attendance roster" function, with a simple and obvious button on the group-event record?  I'd envision it starting with a check-box page like the current "export to printable HTML" where you could select the data you want included--Seems like pic, name, age, birthdate, grade level, maybe even parent's name?--would be the primary stuff.  Then you could have a check-box toggle to include sign-in/sign-out lines or attendance check-boxes.  Then print.

An office person prints these out every week (or better yet, in our case, we'd ask the teachers to print them out as part of their class preparation.  After all, they can all access Ascribe from home...), the teachers check off the boxes and then return them to the office for data-entry (or better yet, log in themselves and enter in the attendance!) 

This functionality would also be a huge benefit for our small group leaders, who would use it in much the same way.

If this sounds at all doable to you, Truman, it seems like a very high-useage feature that churches would benefit from.  We all have kids classes, and most have adult classes and some kind of small group system.  Making attendance tracking really easy would be a huge gift--IMO.

Marc

[Truman]

These are great ideas, Marc and Lindsay. I'll work on it.

thanks,
Truman

[lindsayl]

It's not working again. The data is opening in another web browser again and now it's incripted. All the text looks like boxes, but the dates appear correctly.

Okay just tried it again. It;s exproting when i export these fields: F & L name, Birthdate, but when i add Grade Level it doesn't? Totally wierd.