Hey Samuel... good to have some more feedback! I agree with the suffix and the tag spelling. Good calls.

 A question on item #3 above: expanded search. 

I assume you are doing like me and putting important dates/events in the note field since there is no other place to put it. What type of information are you tracking in the notes? Are you putting prayer requests there, etc?

There has been some discussion about having a section in the individual profiles where important dates/events would be able to be tracked. Nny thoughts on that?

Hi Michael.  We are not using Stafftool yet. Our church is using another web-based system which is very complete, but very complicated. I have just recently surveyed the new systems and have been very impressed with the design approach of Stafftool. I wrote a system in Filemaker in the 90's which printed a weekly report for staff meeting which generated Prayer Requests, 1st Time Visitors, 2nd..., 3rd & 4th, also total attendance comparisons and undesignated gift comparisons. We could easily pull up lists of people who had attended membership, but not yet, spiritual growth class, etc.  Also a list of "at risk" attenders based upon a change in giving and/or attendance.

I've learned to live without most of this information, but if I could build Smart Groups using Notes, I think I could reduplicate some of this.  Or... if I could export a CSV with a fixed record number, I could use Filemaker to build this type of tracking.

I'm especially curious to know if donation tracking will be added some time this year. We are starting a church and would like to use Stafftool for it. We wouldn't need donation tracking until 2009 since we would run all of the donations through the mother church, until the new church can demonstrate a "track record" for the IRS.

Michael, I didn't answer your specific question.  Some of the info I mentioned would work okay in the profile section, if there were a Query function which used that info.  It would be nice to print a list of Prayer Needs either using Notes or a separate module.  It also also be nice to give access to our prayer team to this report.  As the system is built now I would probably make prayer info known through the Message Center for a Prayer Group and put a copy of the prayer request in a Note should I would have a running history.

I also noticed that the CVS report included five Notes.  If it is the last five, I could use that Export in building a staff report and prayer info.

Samuel, Thanks for the replies! I was using a "bloated" program as well. It was so clunky that I was the only one in the church that used it. We have committed to stafftool now (while the special lifetime membership is offered) and have officially canceled the other program. 

My concern with putting too much in notes is making it easy to read the notes in the future, yet I see some great value in the things you are looking for. As a matter of fact, I spent some time today trying to find a good program for prayer requests! Prayer requests could be sent through groups, and they would show up in the dashboard of all who log in, and they can also be sent out as emails if desired. However, for prayer tracking I am looking for more of a way to track answered prayers as well as have the current list. Do you think we should enter in a prayer tracking system as a separate feature request?

As for the donation tracking, there is a feature request started for that in the forums. It would be great for you to explain any features or specifics that you would be looking for in that section to keep it all together.

Good to have you here Samuel, and thanks for the great feedback!

1. This is definitely doable and I believe the suffix field may already be in the database schema, but not in the UI. I'll check it out, it should be pretty easy to implement.
2. Yes, I'm going to work on implementing tag autocompletion, so that as you start typing, it will suggest tags that have been used before. It won't completely alleviate the problem if you start typing misspelled, but it should go a long way toward helping the issue. The other option is something like a listing of all the previously used tags, which is also a possibility. Perhaps it could be something that's usually hidden, but can be shown by clicking a link or something...that might be nice actually. Then you could click on tags within the list to add them to the field. I'll check this out.
3. Yeah, I've thought about adding some rules involving notes, as well as entry date of the person. I'll see what I can work out on this over the next few days or so.
4. This is already in place in the database, as every record is given a unique incrementing id, so I can make the number available in the exports as well pretty easily

Hey guys, sorry, I started my reply earlier today and just posted it without seeing the continued conversation here. As far as prayer request and management goes, I've given that some thought in the past but haven't worked it al out yet. Let me read over your guys' thoughts here some more and think about it and I'll let you know what I think we can do.

Michael, good thought about Notes.  Your right about overloading the notes. I wonder if there could be a priority setting for the notes and then ordered first by priority and then by date.   Let me know if you find a program to use for Prayer.

Toby, I don't think you replied to the request of  a Fixed Record Number for exporting. Something like this would take a big load off my mind.  I know I could always find a way to make Stafftool work with programs I might write. I think this should be rather simple.

Hey guys. Toby mentioned having the record number available on export in #4 of his first response. Is that what you are looking for, Samuel? As a side note, it is much easier to follow and track if we make each request a separate post. It also makes it easier on Toby as he can close a topic when it is completed - and when there are four items in the topic it is more difficult to close them out. Just a thought...

Michael is correct, #4 in my post was about the id numbers, it is really easy to implement (I'll just export the id they already have in the master database) so it should be available in a new release in the near future.

And yeah, it may be a bit easier to have separate posts for each request...although there's no real mechanism for closing them out on this forum setting...but it would probably be easier to keep track of.

If not closing them, is there a way for you to "move" them to a "completed" topic... or will they eventually fade off into the sunset as time passes?

That was my mistake.  I guess I had a brain cramp.  Number 4 is exactly what I had in mind. 

Samuel, the ID field is now in place in the CSV exports :)