Question on people searches, sorting & deceased

[Bridgecity]

Hey Truman,

We did some people lists this week to help us make sure everyone was appropriately assignd a member status.  A couple things came up that I'm uncertain about.

1.  We did an advanced search, checking the all the boxes including "unspecified" option for member status.  Once that list was generated I clicked the header "Membership status" to sort them, so the different statuses would be grouped together.  This worked fine.  But the thing I didn't get was how they were sorted within those categories.  It wasn't alphabetical.  Within the block of names that shared one particular status, we'd have family members show up no where near each other.  How is the software sorting these lists at the secondary level?

2.  Also in this list and a number of others the few deceased people we have in the database were showing up.  This seems weird.  Does having a deceased date exclude people from any kind of searches?

Thanks for your help.

Marc

[Truman]

I gotta say, I'm really impressed with you, Marc. You figured out that if you do an advanced search on a field that is not normally listed, that Ascribe will then make a column for that field in the search results. And you also figured out the sorting of data by clicking on the header. Ascribe wasn't doing any secondary sorting. But I've just now updated that to sort also by last name and then by first name. So your listing should come out more in order.

Perhaps some future upgrade should include a more robust sorting mechanism.

I hadn't excluded deceased people from these types of lists, although they are automatically removed from any exports to mailing labels, letters or email campaigns. Do you think they should not show up on these lists? If so, you can enter an additional search parameter for "Deceased Date is empty".

[Bridgecity]

Thanks!  In addition to being a pastor, I'm kind of a geek.  Oh well.  I hope the church isn't too disappointed.   

That additional sort just makes working through a pile of names easier.  So thanks!

As for the deceased, I'll keep your suggestion in mind.  That will get the job done in the meanwhile.  In the long run, my opinion is that dead people should only show up in any report, list, group, or export if you explicitly as for them to.  Otherwise it might be a jolt to a volunteer to have their deceased spouse popping up in lists from time to time.

Just my opinion, though.

[Truman]

I see your point about deceased people. Perhaps I can make a "deceased" folder just like the "deleted persons" folder. I will put this on my to do list for later.

thanks,
Truman

[Bridgecity]

Oh, yea!  The deleted person folder.  I had forgotten about that.  That's exactly the kind of thing.  Then you can retain the info, but without them cropping up in headcounts or any list that a volunteer might see.  Perfect.

M.