Overview
The Attendance module allows you to maintain records of your members’ event attendance. Common tasks include creating and editing event records, adding and posting attendance batches, and viewing attendance reports. Attendance is contained in a single window with a series of tabs and a section under each with a status bar on the right side. This design will become more common in Shepherd’s Staff in the future.
Note
At any time, you can press F1 to open the online help article pertaining to the section that is presently being viewed. In addition, a help icon is present in most views and it will also open a help article.
- Main Menu—The main menu lists various shortcuts, some utilities (mostly customization options), window options, and help information.
- Attendance Module—Clicking this will open the Attendance window.
- Subgroups—This opens the subgroup module, where subgroups can be created, edited, and viewed.
- WebTools—If your church has a registered database and an active support contract, you can enter attendance online and then sync it with the Attendance module. Clicking this icon will open the WebTools manager and allow you to sync attendance batches with Shepherd’s Staff.
- Attendance Tab—This tab contains batches and attendance details that are separated in various ways, like by year and type.
- Event Tab—The event tab contains information regarding events at your church. This includes a list of all events separated by date, year, and enrollees.
- Reports Tab—This tab contains all reports that can be generated from the information in the Attendance module. Don’t be surprised by the small list. Every section can be turned into a report that can be saved and generated at any time.
- Tools/Settings Tab—This tab is visible only to those with supervisor permissions. It contains various tools and options concerning the Attendance module.
- Tab Sections—Each tab has a unique list of sections that will display various pieces of data. These sections take the place of the multitude of buttons in previous versions of Shepherd’s Staff.
- Search and Filters—Each data grid can be searched using various methods, including specific dates, ranges, names, and other keywords. This feature is so robust it will be covered in a separate article. In addition, most data grids will have filters that can be applied to narrow down the data.
- Data Grid—The data grid contains all the information that relates to the selected section. Each column can be rearranged, resized, and sorted.
- Command Line—The command line contains all options for the section that is presently being viewed. These options vary between sections, but all can be exported to Excel, printed, and saved for future use, and each has a count of the total lines of data.
- Help Icon—Clicking this icon will open the online help center in your default browser. This button will appear on various windows and will open the help article that is most closely related to the window you are presently viewing.
- Favorites—The favorites panel appears and disappears by clicking the star icon. It has four sections that list various actions, saved actions, views, and reports. This feature will be covered in more detail in another article.
- Float Window—This button allows the Attendance module to be dragged onto a different monitor if your computer has multiple screens.