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Moving Shepherd's Staff to a new computer [FAQ]

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Jordan Bogart

You may come to a point that you need to get Shepherd's Staff moved over to a new computer. If so, there are steps that you should follow in order to ensure that you can access Shepherd's Staff from your new computer. There are two possibilities for accessing Shepherd's Staff on a new computer:

  • Standalone Setup - This means your Shepherd's Staff data is on this computer alone. If you only have Shepherd's Staff on one computer at your church, this is what you'll be doing when you move your Shepherd's Staff to the new computer.
  • Networked Setup - This means that this new computer is one of multiple computers at your church that access Shepherd's Staff. The new computer will be accessing the database from a host computer.

In either case, you will need to install Shepherd's Staff on the new computer. If you have an active Shepherd's Staff support contract, contact support at 1-800-346-6120 or send an email to support@cts.cph.org to be sent the installation file for the latest version of Shepherd's Staff or download it directly from the Help Center.

Where can I download an installation file?

The steps for installation are as follows:

  1. Make sure you are logged into Windows as a user with Administrative privileges. 
  2. Navigate to the location you have stored the installation file on your new computer, right click it, and select "Run as Administrator"
  3. A message will appear asking to allow Shepherd’s Staff to make changes to your computer. Click Yes.
  4. The InstallShield will appear, listing any additional software that needs to be installed. In most cases, you will need to install the recommended software. Click Install. This will cause a new window to appear showing the progress of the required software. (If the required software has previously been installed, you can skip this step.)
  5. Next, you will see a warning about temporarily disabling your anti-virus software. This needs to be done only if you are using a third-party anti-virus software. If you need assistance disabling your antivirus software, call support at 1-800-346-6120. Click OK. (If you are using Windows Defender, you can skip to the next step.)
  6. Click Next, and then agree to the License Agreement and click Next
  7. Confirm the location you want to house the church database. You do not need to change the location of the database at this time. Click Next.
  8. Confirm all information in the next screen and click Next.
  9. Once the installation is complete, click Finish.
  10. Restart your computer.

After you have restarted your computer, you will be ready to point Shepherd's Staff to your database. This is where the Standalone Setup and Network Setup differ.

Standalone Setup:

  1. On your old computer, make a backup of your Shepherd's Staff database to a flash drive.
  2. Take the flash drive over to your new computer, and plug it in. Make a note of what drive letter your computer tells you the flash drive is.
  3. Open Shepherd's Staff. You will be prompted to enter your church information, however, this information will be overwritten once you restore your backup.
  4. Log into Shepherd's Staff using the following credentials: 
    1. User ID: SYSADMIN
    2. Password: password
  5. After logging in, click on Tools>Backup and Restore. Then, click on the restore tab, and restore your database.
  6. After restoring your database, Shepherd's Staff will restart. Log in using your login credentials you were using on the old computer.

Networked Setup:

  1. On your new computer, set up a mapped network drive to the database folder on your host computer. The mapped network drive will have a drive letter. If you are unsure of where the database is located on your host computer, you can go to one of the other computers that is connected to your Shepherd's Staff database and check the location within Shepherd's Staff by going to System>Program Settings>Locations and reviewing the location in the Current Database line. If you're still having trouble, contact support at 1-800-346-6120.
  2. Open Shepherd's Staff. At the initial setup window, in the bottom right corner, you will see a button labeled "Change Database". Click this button.
  3. At the next window that appears, in the bottom right corner, click the "Select other database" button.
  4. In the file explorer window that appears, navigate to your Shepherd's Staff database through the mapped drive you set up, and double click it.
  5. You will be prompted to restart Shepherd's Staff. When you reopen it, log in using your normal login credentials.

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