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CDM+CHURCH MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

CDM+ AttendanceSetting up Class Lists 2

Setting up Group Lists (Pro version only) 3

Detail Tracking 3

Assign Individuals to Classes 4

Taking Attendance 6Attendance Worksheet By Date 7

Sample Attendance Worksheet By Date (previewed) 8

Attendance Worksheet 9

Barcode Worksheet (Pro version only) 9

Attendance Preferences 10

Entering Attendance for a Service or Event 10Entering Event Attendance with a Barcode Scanner (Pro version only) 11

Entering Attendance for a Class 12Entering Class Attendance with a Barcode Reader (Pro version only) 12

Visitor Records 13

Visitor Letters 14

Attendance Reports 16Listings 16

Attendance By Date 16Attendance By Individual 17Attendance Summary 18Missing Analysis 18Example of Missing Analysis 19

Notices 19Letter Notices 19Card Notices 20E-Mail Notices 20

Update Attendance History 21

Statistics 22Event Statistics 22

List Statistics (Pro version only) 22

Event Statistics Report 22

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CDM+ AttendanceThe CDM+ Attendance program is designed to assist you in recording and evaluating the participation of people in the life of your church. Attendance at committee, council, board, and fellowship meetings; worship services; Christian education classes; annual congregational meetings; retreats or any other type of event can be recorded in CDM+. Recording attendance in CDM+ requires you do two things: 1) acquire the names of those present at a particular service or event; 2) enter attendance for that particular service or event.

In order to begin tracking attendance in CDM+, you must have the following items in place:

• Individual Records must be entered;

• Master Codes for Services/Events, Church (Sunday) School Classes and other groups or lists must be identified and entered;

• Membership Status codes should be set up for control of Attendance Lists.

Setting up Class ListsIn order to begin tracking attendance for a class, you must have the classes defined in the Master Coding System and individ-uals enrolled in the classes. To establish classes first open the Master Coding System window (found on the File menu).

With the Master Coding System window open, click on the Built-In tab and select Sunday School Class or whichever Type Code you have defined for your classes. This will allow you to create classes under the column “Codes for Sunday School Class.” If you have already defined classes you will see them in that column. To add a class, click the Add button at the bottom of the list. This will create a new line where you can type a description for the class. For each class that you define, you can identify a leader, location, area and time. To add additional classes, you can click the Add button or use the tab key while your cursor is in the class description field to create a new line.

NOTE: You must have the checkbox in the Atten. column on the Master Coding System marked Yes in order to record attendance for a Type Code.

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Setting up Group Lists (Pro version only)If you own the Pro version of CDM+ Attendance, you can also track attendance of groups. To set up groups, click the User-Defined tab of the Master Coding System window (found on the File menu).

Select the Type Code for which you wish to track attendance, such as Current Church Groups. This will allow you to create classes under the column “Codes for Current Church Groups.” If you have already defined groups you will see them in that col-umn. To add a group, click the Add button at the bottom of the list. This will create a new line where you can type a descrip-tion for the group. For each group that you define, you can identify leaders, location, area and event time. To add additional groups, you can click the Add button or use the tab key while your cursor is in the Description field to create a new line.

NOTE: You must have the box in the Atten. column on the Master Coding System checked in order to record attendance for a Type Code.

Detail TrackingA checkmark in the box in the DT* column on the Master Coding System indicates that you wish to enable Detail Tracking for this Type Code. This feature tracks group membership history, including terms, dates enrolled and de-enrolled, and position for each Individual group, Address group, Visitor group or Giving Unit group. For more information about Detail Tracking see page 39 of the Membership manual.

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Assign Individuals to ClassesOnce you have your classes defined and individuals entered in CDM+, you can assign individuals to classes. Assigning in-dividuals to classes (or groups in the Pro version) is done through the Individual List Maintenance window, found on the Membership menu.

You work in this window from left to right. On the left-hand side you have a list of the individuals from which to choose. Clicking on the Show All button will display all individuals you have entered in CDM+. You may narrow the list by clicking on the Advanced Find button and entering search criteria. (See Appendix C: Advanced Find 101 for help in using the Advanced Find feature.) Click on the List tab and you are able to select individuals to be displayed on the basis of a Code Type and Code, such as Membership Status and Active.

On the right hand side of the window choose the Code Type and Code (class or group) for the class (or group) for which you wish to enroll individuals. Any individuals already assigned to the selected code will be be displayed.

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You can add an individual to a code by any of three methods:

• Selecting a name on the left hand column and dragging it to the right hand column;

• Double-clicking a name on the left hand column, or;

• by selecting a name and clicking Transfer Selected button

TIP: You can shift-click to select a series of multiple names in the right-hand panel or you can control-click (command-click on a Mac) to choose several names at once. When the names are selected you can drag them to the right-hand panel or click the Transfer Selected button to move them to the right hand column.

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The Individual List Maintenance can also be used to move individuals from one class to another. This is an excellent way to perform promotions. You do this by clicking on the “List” tab on the left hand side of the window. This brings up a box where you can select the Code Type and Code for a particular class. On the right hand side, select another Code and then move the individuals from the left to the right as described above.

Newly added individuals will display a green dot next to their names until you click Save.

Once you have individuals enrolled in classes (or groups) you are ready to take attendance.

Taking AttendanceTaking attendance requires that you acquire the names of those present at the service, class, group meeting or event. In order to facilitate this, CDM+ has Worksheets that you can print and use to mark the attendance prior to inputting it in the program.

There are three Worksheets from which you can choose.

• Attendance Worksheet by Date • Attendance Worksheet • Barcode Worksheet

NOTE: The Barcode Worksheet requires a barcode wand reader that has been programmed to read CDM+ barcodes. It is available for purchase from CDM+/Suran Systems, Inc. For more information or to order, please call 877-891-4236 Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Eastern time.

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Attendance Worksheet By DateThe Attendance Worksheet By Date report setup window is split in two areas. In the top area you define the people and classes (or events) of the worksheet. On the bottom part you specify the items on the report and its format.

The top part of the report setup window is broken down in three sections. The first is the Include section where you can Select Status Codes (i.e., active, inactive, etc.) and/or Select Care Groups. The middle section, Individual Selection, is where you choose either All Individuals, only Enrolled Individuals, or those persons who Attended Within a range of dates. The last option is useful if you only want to print the names of people who have attended this year. Anyone who has not attended between January 1st (or the date the Sunday School year began) and the current date would not show up on the worksheet. The third section, List/Event Selection, is where you select the classes or events to be printed on the worksheet.

NOTE: If you own the Pro version of CDM+ Attendance, a third option appears on the drop down list under List/Event Selection: List. Choose List if you wish to print an attendance worksheet for a group. The Standard version of CDM+ Attendance will only have the Class and Event options.

With the upper part of the report setup window complete, move to the bottom portion of the window. In the Dates section of the Report tab, choose the dates you want to be printed on the worksheet by clicking on the Choose button. This opens the Choose Dates window.

You may choose the dates to print on the worksheet on a weekly basis—on a certain day, every 1, 2, 3, etc. weeks.

For example, to set up a worksheet for each Sunday in the month of April, type 1 in the box within Every ____ weeks on: and click on the Sunday button. Next enter the first and last Sundays of the month in the date boxes at the bottom of the window. You may either type the dates or click on the small calendar icon and double-click the date on the calendar. The resulting weekly dates are displayed in the box to the right. When finished, click OK. When you have these parameters set, you are ready to print the worksheet.

You also have the option to choose the dates to print on the worksheet on a monthly basis. Click on the Monthly button at the top of the Choose Dates window. Click the appropriate radio button to select dates by the day of the month or the day of the week.

Check the months that you want to print and enter the date range either by typing From and To dates or by clicking on the small calendar icon and double-clicking the date on the calendar. When finished, click OK. When you have these parameters set, you are ready to print the worksheet.

TIP: If you want to select most of the months, click the small All button and then click off the months you do not want selected.

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Click the List button at the top of the Choose Dates window for the final option for choosing the dates to appear on the Attendance Worksheet by Date. This option allows you to choose individual dates simply by clicking on them on a calendar.

Choose the month and year from the drop lists above the calendar or use the previous and next arrow buttons below the calendar to display the correct month. Double-click on a date that you wish to have printed on the Attendance by Date worksheet. You may add as many dates as you wish. When finished, click OK.

This option for choosing attendance dates is useful for an event that does not follow any pattern in meeting times.

Make your other choices on the Report tab of the report set up window to define the appearance of the worksheet—Sort Order, Background Striping, Worksheet Options, and Visitor/Notes.

Click on the other tabs (Format, General, and Page Setup) and make your selections to further refine the worksheet's ap-pearance. See Appendix A: Common Features for more information on setting up reports in CDM+.

Sample Attendance Worksheet By Date (previewed)

NOTE: If you check the Show Attendance box in the Worksheet Options section and choose dates prior to the date for which you are marking attendance, you can see the members' record of attendance in the class.

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Attendance WorksheetThe report setup window for the Attendance Worksheet has many of the same options as the Attendance Worksheet by Date. However, this report prints a single date per page. The class members are listed with space to mark that they are in attendance. There is no option to show prior attendance on this sheet.

Barcode Worksheet (Pro version only)

For users of the Pro version of CDM+ Attendance, the Barcode Worksheet is an alternative to the regular worksheets for use with a barcode reader. This worksheet will print a barcode beside each name. Barcode readers programmed for CDM+ Attendance can be purchased through CDM+ Sales (877-891-4236).

The appearance of the Barcode Worksheet is similiar to the Attendance Worksheet with the addition of a barcode next to each member's name. The person taking attendance in the class marks each person who is present. Then the person who is entering attendance can simply scan the barcode to mark a person a present. Because of this, care should be taken to not make any marks overtop the barcode itself.

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Attendance PreferencesPrior to entering attendance in CDM+, it is helpful to establish the status codes you would like to see when entering data. You set this in CDM+ System Preferences (found under the File menu in Windows® and under the CDM+ menu on a Macintosh®).

Select the Membership & Attendance tab and then click on the Attendance icon. Here, you can set the status codes for Individuals (for Events, Services, etc.) and Classes that you would prefer to have displayed. You can also tell CDM+ to load the class enrollment (based on Status Codes chosen) into the right-hand panel of the Attendance Entry window by clicking on the Auto load class into ‘Attended’ list box. When finished, click Save.

Entering Attendance for a Service or EventTo enter attendance for a worship service or event, select Event Attendance from the Attendance menu or, on the Welcome to Attendance window, click the 3. Enter Event Attendance button on the Getting Started pane or the Event Attendance button on the Windows pane. The Event Attendance Entry window will open.

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To begin entering attendance data, click the Add button at the bottom left of the window. This opens the following window:

Enter the Attendance Date, either by typing it or clicking on the small calendar icon and double-clicking the date on the calendar. Choose the Code Type and Code from the drop lists. If you need to add a code, click on the Add Code button. Click OK when finished.

You work with the Attendance Entry win-dow much like you do the Individual List Maintenance window. Load individuals in the left hand section either by clicking the Show All button or using the Advanced Find. To add an individual to the list of potential attendees (and your CDM+ Membership database), click the small Add button. This opens the Select Address window where you choose the Address Record to which this new individual should be tied. Click OK and a new Individual Record window will open. Complete at least the Individual Information section and click Save. That person has now been added to the list of individuals on the Event Attendance Entry window.

Likewise, when you have the Visitors tab clicked and are marking visitor attendance, you may add a Visitor Record "on-the-fly" by clicking the small Add button and completing the Visitor Record information.

To mark an individual (or visitor) as attending a particular event, move him or her from the left hand side of the window to the right. You can do this with the methods described for the Individual List Maintenance above. You will notice that when you move a Individual's name from the left to the right, the dot beside the name on the right will be gray. When you save the entries, the dot will turn green, signifying that the attendance was saved. A blue dot indicates that a person is a visitor.

NOTE: Clicking on the Preferences button at the bottom of the Event Attendance Entry window will open the Attendance System Preferences window.

Entering Event Attendance with a Barcode Scanner (Pro version only)

If you own the Pro version of CDM+ Attendance and have a barcode wand scanner connected to your computer, you can also use it and the Barcode Worksheet to enter attendance. Clicking the Scan Barcode button at the bottom of the right-hand panel and run the wand over each barcode next to the names of persons who were present at the event.

As an alternative to using the Barcode Worksheet, barcodes can be printed on Individual Name Badges. As people leave a service or event, name badges are collected. The barcodes on the name badges can then be scanned to enter attendance. Barcode scanners programmed to work with CDM+ Attendance can be purchased through CDM+ Sales (877-891-4236).

Tip: Barcodes can be added to the Individual Custom Listing in Membership to allow creation of your own attendance work-sheet.

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Entering Attendance for a ClassTo enter attendance for a class, select Class Attendance from the Attendance menu or click the Class Attendance button on the Windows pane of the Welcome to Attendance window. The Class Attendance Entry window will open.

Begin by clicking the Add button at the bottom left of the window. Once the date and class have been selected, you are ready to enter attendance. If you have selected "Auto load class into 'Attended' list" under Attendance System Preferences, those enrolled in the class will automatically display on the right hand side of the window as seen above. To mark attendance with the auto load feature selected, remove people who were not present that day from the right hand list by double-clicking each name or by selecting multiple names and clicking the Clear Selected button at the bottom of the window.

If you have other people attend the class who have not been marked as members, select either the Individuals or Visitors tab, load names, and mark them as present. When you are done marking the class attendance, click Save.

Entering Class Attendance with a Barcode Reader (Pro version only)To enter attendance using a barcode reader, you must use the Barcode Worksheet to mark attendance. If you are going to enter attendance for a class using a barcode reader, do the following:

After you select an Attendance Date and Class Code, click the Scan Barcode button at the bottom of the right-hand panel (see be-low). Then use the barcode wand reader to scan the barcodes of the enrolled members NOT present on the Barcode Worksheet (as-suming the Auto load class into ‘Attended’ list is clicked in Attendance System Preferences).

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Visitor RecordsCDM+ provides extensive tracking of visitors to your church and assists in the process of integrating them into the life of your church. The Visitor Records window closely resembles the Address Records window in CDM+ Membership. You add individu-als in the same manner. Also note that you have the same Newsletter and Directory checkboxes, as you do with Address Records, making it easy to include visitors in your usual mailings.

The Follow-up tab on the Visitor Records window is unique to visitors. Here you track your contact with visitors after they have come to your church.

The Attendance tab of the Visitor Records window lists the attendance by all members of this family. You may sort by Date, Event or Name by clicking on the column header. You may enter attendance from this window by clicking on the small Add Attendance button at the bottom of the window.

The Transfer button at the bottom of the Visitor Records window allows you to quickly and easily transfer a visitor to the membership database. When you click this button, the following window opens:

This window allows you to set the Mailing Code for the created Address Record, as well as gives you the option to delete the Visitor Record after the transfer is complete.

Note: If you track demographic information on visitors using the Group feature, do not mark “Delete Visitor after transfer”. Instead, mark the visitor as inactive, preventing them from appearing during attendance entry, but still allowing to run comprehensive reports on your visitor’s demographics.

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Visitor LettersWith CDM+, you have the capability to create and track letters that you are sending to visitors. This is done on the Visitor Letter Assignment window.

Here you can assign letters to be prepared for printing by Event, Class or Service. To prepare a letter, select the Letter Setup button at the top-right corner of the window (see above). The Visitor Letter Setup window will open and you see the usual tabs for a report with the addition of a Notice tab. It is under this tab that you create the template-like letter.

See Appendix A: Common Features for more information regarding Notices.

NOTE: The Pro version allows you embed formatting and fields into the letter body.

When you have created the letters you want to send, click Close button.

With the appropriate letter created, you will now enter the Attendance Date you want to search on as well as the Event, Class or Service. Click the Load button. CDM+ find those visitors who were present on the attendance date. From this window, choose the letter that you want to send to the Visitor under the Letter column, select the Family Visitor Status, and click Save.

To print the Visitor Letters, click the Print Letters button.

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You will see a list of the specific letters that will be printed. You can expland the list and see to whom the letters belong by clicking the triangle to the left of the check box. Click the Print button and the letters will be printed. After they are printed, you will be asked if you want to mark the letters as printed and if you want to print labels (or envelopes) for the letters. (This does not apply if you ar previewing the letters.)

If you click Yes to mark letters as printed, the Visitor Labels window will open and you may choose to print labels or envelopes to match the letters.

The date the letters were printed will display in the Sent column of the Visitor Letter Assignment window.

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Attendance ReportsCDM+ has a number of reports to help you track and evaluate the attendance at your church. You can choose from Directories, Labels, Listings, Notices and Worksheets. You also have the ability to Export information out of CDM+ to programs that can accept data in a tab-delimited or comma-separated format.

ListingsAttendance By DateThis report allows you to select the following information to be printed:

• Membership or Visitor• Status Code for the individuals in the class• Care Group• One Class or whichever classes you want to print• Date Ranges• Minimum and maximum number of times attended.

The example below is for a Sunday Morning Worship Service. The date range of March 5 through March 26 is set. The search is for both the Membership and Visitors with no minimum number of Times Attended.

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Attendance By IndividualThis report setup window is similar to the one for the Attendance by Date report.

In this example, we want to find everyone who has come to the 11:00 am worship service a maximum of 4 times in the month of July. We set the date range for the 5 Sunday’s in July and the Event to “Sunday 11:00 am Morning Worship Service.” In order to find those that have come up to 4 times in July, we set the minimum times attended to 1 and the maximum times attended to 4.

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Attendance SummaryThis report gives a summary of attendance for a given Event, Class or Service. This report setup window is very similar to the other windows shown above.

Missing AnalysisOne powerful feature of CDM+ is the ability to ascertain those members and visitors that have not been attending on a regu-lar basis.

Again, this report setup window is similar to the other Attendance Listing reports. The difference here is the Attended Options. In that section you have the option to limit the report to a certain date last attended, all individuals, those that attended at least once and missed a range of times. The last option can also be limited to finding those that missed any dates in the range or those that missed consecutive dates.

This report is extremely powerful and can provide a great deal of information. The example to the left has a range of 4 Sundays in the month of September. We want to search both the membership and visitors database with all the defined statuses checked. We are looking for all those in the High School class that missed anytime in the month of September. If we wanted to find those that had missed 2 times in the period, we would set the “Missed At Least” to 2 and the “But Not More Than” to 2. The sample report below shows the result of this query.

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Example of Missing Analysis

NoticesThere are three types of notices to use when communicating with individuals: letters, cards and e-mails.

Letter NoticesCDM+ has both Attendance and Missing letters for you to use. These letter report setup windows have similar choices as the Attendance and Missing listing reports. However, they do include an additional tab—Notice.

The Notice tab is where you create the letters to send. Click the Add button and define a name for the letter (such as “Class Fellowship” in the example to the left). With the letter identified, you can now add the body of your text. You can type it directly in the Body field or paste text from another source. You can add a Signature Graphic to your letter, change the letter Closing and the Signature name. The Signature is the login name of the individual by default. For example, if you login as "Administrator", the Signature name will be Administrator.

TIP: Click on the black triangle next to Position to change the letter from a block style to a modified block style.

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Card NoticesJust like the Letter Notices, you have the choice of Attendance and Missing Card Notices.

Note: You can choose from a number of built in cards formats (list with Avery® item numbers) or you can create your own.

E-Mail Notices

CDM+ has the ability to e-mail directly from the program.

The E-Mail Notices window is similar to the other notices windows. You can add template e-mails for your convenience and set the parameters of your search. There is a button at the bottom right of the e-mail text called More Options. This window provides you more control over functions particular to e-mails (see below). In this window, you can specify a CC (carbon copy) or BCC (blind carbon copy). You can see the list of individuals that CDM+ found that had e-mail addresses based on the crite-ria you identified. You can also add e-mail addresses of individuals not your database. There is the ability to add attachments to the e-mail and tell the system which SMTP account to use when sending the e-mail.

Along the right hand side of the window you see listing of the class attendees that have e-mail addresses. In addition to those in CDM+, you can add e-mail addresses not present in your database by clicking the Add button at the bottom of the e-mail address list. You also have the choice of sending the e-mail as a BCC Group or Individually. If you send an e-mail individually, recipients will see their name in the To: field of the e-mail rather than your e-mail address or the church’s e-mail address. If you decide to use the Send as BCC Group option, be aware that some Internet Service Providers limit the number of recipients per e-mail to protect against e-mail spam.

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Update Attendance HistoryThe Update Attendance History routine updates the attendance information displayed in the Attendance (or Visits/Attend. if you have the Pro version of CDM+ Membership/Attendance) tab of the Individual Records window. In order to use this, select the Current Period and History Period date ranges. Click Update and you will be prompted to confirm that you want to do this. Click Yes and the attendance for those years will be updated. NOTE: This only affects Event Attendance.

After running the Update Attendance History function, you can view the updated event attendance information on the Individual Records window and include it in advanced finds and on custom listing and exports. This routine should be run before archiving attendance. NOTE: Changing attendance that is still in the database will maintain these totals.

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StatisticsCDM+ Statistics creates a summary of information from event attendance and contribution data by selected date.

Event StatisticsSelect Statistics from the Program menu and choose Event Statistics.

List Statistics (Pro version only)This window is similar to the Event Statistics window above except, because it is reporting on group attendance, rather than selecting an Event, you will select a Code Type and Code.

Event Statistics ReportIn the example at left, this set up will report the average attendance and giving of all the 11:00 a.m. Morning Worship Services that have been entered in CDM+. The report shows each event’s specific informa-tion and then totals and averages the data at the end of the report.

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To see only the grand totals and the averages, select the Grand Totals Only checkbox, along with the Show Averages checkbox, for the following report: