Kudos on new HTML Export options

[Bridgecity]

Hey Truman,

I just printed a directory listing from an Advanced Search, and I wanted to tell you the new HTML Export is dramatically improved!  Nice work.  I love the options you've given us for formatting, adding our own notes, selecting and moving columns.  Very very nice.  Big gold star from us!

One thing I'd like to know, is there a way to do a Household search listing only households that contain members within them?

[Truman]

Hi Marc,

Thanks for the compliments! Some of the features on the new HTML report generator are based on your suggestions. For example, you requested that the reports be configured to allow you to print out attendance rosters for children's church. The new report generator allows you to create blank columns at the end that you can use for a "check-off" area to mark those kids that did attend the class.

Regarding printing a listing of households only with members in them, this is not currently possible with a single click. However, it is possible to create a custom household type, which you could call "empty families" or "no members". Then you could go and edit each household without any members and set the "type" field to that new household type. That way when you run a report of just "families" you will only include those families containing members.

If you would like to do this, go to Admin > Languages and edit the "household" language file. Down somewhere near the middle of that form will be fields for "org_type_1" and "org_type_1_plural". You could set these to something like "empty" and "empties". Save the files. Now you have added the new household type to the system and you can edit empty households to use this household type.

It's a lot of a work, but it's the only workaround available.

Regards,
Truman

[superhua]

Related, is it possible to have families grouped together in the exports?  (for a directory)

[Truman]

Hi Superhua,

Can you elaborate on what kind of directory you want (e.g., what information do you want in the report)?

Did you go to Person > Households, click on "Export" and then choose "Printer Friendly HTML"?

And, by the way, which church are you with?

thanks,
Truman Leung

[superhua]

Thanks!

That is closer to what I'm looking for--however, is there anyway to list the children?  

E.g. --

Smith, Bob & Mary
123 Anyplace St.
Springfield, IL 60019

Susan (5), Mike (1)

But even before that, is it possible to create a custom field for their Chinese name?

I'm with the Chinese Community Church of Indianapolis.

Thanks!,

Justin

[Truman]

Hi Justin,

You could use the Language module to edit the "Nickname" field to read "Chinese Name". Then you could use that field to hold the Chinese name. Or you could put the Chinese name in the "Middle Name" field.

The household module contains a special column for "Members" which means family members. Will this suffice?

Truman

[superhua]

Thanks for the reply.

1. Adding their Chinese name to the Nickname would work, but the Nickname field isn't selectable in any of the household export options.  (right?)

2. BTW, when I put a Chinese name in the first name and HTML export it, the Chinese character do not seem to come through.   

Thanks again for your help,

Justin

[Truman]

Justin,

You're right the nickname field would not be included in the household export. You could just put it into the Middle name field. It would then be included in the household members field.

I will check on the problem with the Chinese characters not coming through in the HTML export.

Sorry for the delayed response. My first born son born on Dec 10th.

Regards,
Truman

[Truman]

Justin,

Thank you for letting me know about the problem of Chinese characters not showing up in the HTML export. I've fixed the problem. They show up now.

Thanks,
Truman

[superhua]

Truman,

Congratulations!!  I hope you are able to enjoy these special days!

Thank you for replying in the midst of such a special/busy time of life.

I put the Chinese name in the Middle name field, but it only support two characters (the third is garbled) and it (properly) appears right in the middle of the name in the household export. 

So there is no way to have the nickname field available in the household export?

Justin

[Truman]

Hi Justin,

Thank you for letting me know about that. When I initially developed Ascribe, I assumed that the middle initial field would only need to hold 7 characters. Now I've increased the size of that field so that it can hold 255 characters. This should be sufficient to hold a really long middle name and double-byte Chinese characters.

Now the middle initial field can hold three Chinese characters with no problem.

You are right: the nickname field cannot be included in the household export.

Merry Christmas!
Truman

[flat]

You are right: the nickname field cannot be included in the household export.

Hi Truman,

This is Ed from CTCC.  I figure I should switch over to the forum instead of constantly bugging you over e-mail, now that we're past the initial implementation stage and things are running pretty well.

I noticed the same issue above.   In trying to print out a paper directory, we would to request nick_name (where we store Chinese names) to be printed in the export for html.   There are bunch of other formatting "requests", but this looks like the first big issue.

Without it, I would have to go with the Excel export option, and figure out how to format the Excel dump to a paper directory format.   So I'm wonder how other people have done for paper based directory?

[Truman]

Hi Ed,

Thanks for joining the conversation! I've created the option now for you to add the nickname to household members in the household HTML export report.

Click on "Select/Arrange Columns" in the upper right hand corner. Remove the "Members" column and replace it with "Members (w/ Nickname)".

Truman