21 Chapter 21 - Church Helpmate Online

Transcription

1

2 425 Church Helpmate Chapter 21 - Church Helpmate Online The information presented in this Chapter is applicable to Church Helpmate Online only. Church Helpmate Online (CHO) allows you to access our Church Helpmate Desktop product (and your data) from virtually any computer with an active Internet connection. It's PC and Mac compatible! CHO is the same proven Church Helpmate Desktop product that has been revolutionizing church offices now for more than a decade...it's just now available online through your computer's Internet connection (as a "cloud-based" service). If you are already familiar with the Church Helpmate Desktop software, the learning curve with CHO is essentially non-existent! With Church Helpmate Online, you get all of the same benefits as with the Church Helpmate Desktop product, plus... Ease of remote access With CHO, users can connect to the CHO program and data from any computer connected to the Internet. With CHO, all users share the same data file at the same time no matter where the user is located. Mac-compatibility With CHO, it s easy for Mac users to use Church Helpmate. Automatic updates and upgrades With CHO, updates and even full version upgrades of the Church Helpmate product are automatically included and implemented without any effort on your part. Automatic Backups With CHO, your Church Helpmate data file is automatically backed up daily.giving you piece-of-mind that your data (and time investment) is always safeguarded. Performance In most cases, you ll actually see a speed/performance advantage with CHO especially if you typically have more than one user running Church Helpmate at the same time (sharing the same data file). Our CHO customers have been very delighted by the quick speed of CHO many noting that it s faster (sometimes significantly faster) than their existing locally installed standard Church Helpmate Desktop software. Support Coverage Included With CHO, you'll have full support coverage - enabling you and your team to contact our friendly and helpful support team by phone and/or by with any questions you may have about setting up or using the Church Helpmate Online product. With CHO, you won't need a separate annual support plan as you do with the Church Helpmate Desktop product in order to receive support. Differences between CHO and Church Helpmate Desktop: There are only a handful of differences between the Church Helpmate Desktop program and Church Helpmate Online (or "CHO" for short). These differences are due to the server environment on which CHO is hosted. This Chapter discusses the main differences. All CHO users should be familiar with the information contained within this chapter. Chapter 21 Sections: Moving/Copying Files Between Your Computer & the CHO Server QuickLetter and MS Outlook Export Utility Exporting Files from CHO Output Configurators Using the Print Preview Menu's Export As Feature Duplex, Stapling, and Other Printing Preferences in CHO Sounds on CHO Using Photos in CHO Custom Report Generator CHO vs Church Helpmate Desktop Performance Comparison Backing Up Your CHO Data File

3 Chapter 21 - Church Helpmate Online Moving/Copying Files Between Your Computer & the CHO Server Although it s difficult to tell, the CHO program is not actually running on your computer it s running on our secure CHO Server. Your computer s Internet connection transfers the screen displays from the CHO Server so that you can see the program. In the same way, your computer s mouse and keyboard actions are transferred to the CHO Server so that you can interact with program. Since the files that are used and created by the CHO program are located on the CHO Server, there may be occasions when you want to move or copy a file from the CHO Server to your local computer (or visa versa). Examples of this might include: 1. You have exported a file from the CHO program and want to move it to your local computer to view in your Microsoft Excel program 2. You have photo files on your local computer that you want to use in the CHO program. 3. You have a CSV import file of household records that you'd like to import into CHO using the Church Helpmate Import Utility. To facilitate the file transfer process, we have provided a Windows Explorer tool within the CHO program. To open the CHO Windows Explorer, select "Tools l Windows Explorer" from the CHO program s top menubar. When you open the CHO Windows Explorer, it will initially default to display the CH2015 folder under your CHO account folder. C:\Users\[USER NAME]\CH2015 (where [USER NAME] is your organizations CHO user name) It s important to note here that this folder is actually on the CHO Server s hard-drive, not your local computer s harddrive. The C drive here is the main hard-drive of the CHO Server not your local computer s C drive. This is very important to understand. However, if you scroll down the list on the left-hand pane of the Windows Explorer tool, you will see several Client drives. These Client drives are the drives on your local computer. For example, the Client C drive in the CHO Windows Explorer is your local computer s C drive (i.e. the hard-drive of the computer you are actually sitting in front of).

4 427 Church Helpmate 2015 This Windows Explorer tool therefore allows you to access both the CHO Server s hard-drive AND your local computer s hard-drive. This allows you to easily transfer files back and forth using the standard Copy and Paste functions. When performing these copy and paste functions, you must utilize the single instance of Windows Explorer that you opened from within CHO. That is, you cannot copy a file from a different instance of Windows Explorer and then Paste it into the CHO instance of Windows Explorer. All functions must be performed within the single CHO instance of Windows Explorer. To simplify this process of copying and/or moving files back and forth between your local computer and the CHO server computer, we have provided several shortcuts to important folders under the Favorites listing along the left-hand side of the Windows Explorer window. Here you will find a Client shortcut (to take your directly to your local computer s harddrive) as well as favorites to a few key folders on the CHO server s hard-drive. Files can be copied and or moved using the standard copy & paste functions. You can choose to use the standard keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+C for copy, Ctrl+X for cut, and Ctrl+V for paste) or by right-clicking on the desired file and then selecting the desired action from the pop-up menu. NOTE: Please keep in mind that transferring large files between your local computer and the CHO Server may take longer than you might expect and will depend on the speed of your Internet connection.

5 Chapter 21 - Church Helpmate Online QuickLetter and MS Outlook Export Utility In an effort to keep CHO pricing affordable and to a minimum, it is cost prohibitive for Helpmate Technology Solutions to license and install MS Word, MS Excel and MS Outlook onto our Church Helpmate Online servers. Unfortunately since the QuickLetter and MS Outlook Export Utility functions both require one of the above mentioned Microsoft programs, these features are not available on CHO.

6 429 Church Helpmate Exporting Files From CHO Output Configurators When running the Church Helpmate Desktop product, whenever you export a CSV file from the Export tab of one of the Output Configurators, the resulting file is automatically opened and viewed in the MS Excel program (if installed on your computer). This is possible because both the Church Helpmate Desktop program and MS Excel are installed and running on the same computer. As mentioned in the previous section, Microsoft Excel is not installed on the CHO Servers (for licensing and cost reasons). With CHO, in order to open an exported CSV file with the MS Excel program that you have installed on your local computer, a few extra steps are required. 1. From the Export tab of the desired CHO Output Configurator, you will notice that the FileName value defaults to a folder on the CHO Server s hard-drive (the C drive here is the CHO Server s main hard-drive). 2. Use the Browse button to open the Export to File dialog box. 3. Using the Save in pull-down list (at the very top of the dialog box), select the Client drive representing the drive on your local computer where you d like to save the file. Most commonly, this will be the drive listed as Client C (this represents your local computer s C drive)...and will typically be referred to as the "M" letter drive by the CHO Server. Once you ve selected the desired Client drive, you can then select the desired folder location beneath this drive. If your client computer is a Windows computer running a newer version of Windows (i.e. Win7, Win8, etc.), there will be a "Users" folder off your Client drive and beneath it will be folders for each of the Windows Login Names on your computer. From there, you can choose the desired folder such as "Documents" or "Desktop". You will also need to specify a name for the exported file (on the File Name line). Click the Save button once you ve selected the desired location and filename for the exported file. 4. From the CHO Output Configurator, click the Export button to create the exported file. 5. At this point, the CSV file has been saved to your local computer s hard-drive (in the location you specified in Step 3 above). You can now open the MS Excel program on your local computer and open this file to view and/or modify it.

7 21.4 Using the Print Preview Menu's Export As Feature Chapter 21 - Church Helpmate Online 430 When previewing reports Church Helpmate, a Print Preview Menu will be displayed along the left-hand side of the screen. This Print Preview Menu includes an "Export as..." section with buttons to export the currently displayed report as a PDF file, a Rich Text Format (RTF) file, or an Excel file. Upon clicking any of these three buttons, an Export To dialog box will be displayed prompting you for the desired location and filename of the exported file. The default location here will be a folder on the CHO Server's hard-drive. If, however, you would like to create the exported file directly onto your local computer's hard-drive, you can choose the desired Client drive. Most commonly, this will be the drive listed as Client C (this represents your local computer s C drive)...and will typically be referred to as the "M" letter drive by the CHO Server. If your client computer is a Windows computer running a newer version of Windows (i.e. Win7, Win8, etc.), there will be a "Users" folder off your Client drive and beneath it will be folders for each of the Windows Login Names on your computer. From there, you can choose the desired folder such as "Documents" or "Desktop". You will also need to specify a name for the exported file (on the File Name line). Click the Save button once you ve selected the desired location and filename for the exported file. Once the export has completed, you will be prompted as to whether or not you want to open/view the file. If you choose "Yes", the file will be displayed with the appropriate program/application. When running Church Helpmate Online and

8 431 Church Helpmate 2015 exporting as a PDF file, the CHO Server's PDF viewer software program will be used to open the file. When running Church Helpmate Online and exporting as an Excel file, an Excel Viewer program will be used to open the Excel file - since the full MS Excel program is not installed on the CHO Server (for licensing and cost reasons). When running Church Helpmate Online and exporting as a Rich Text Format file, the file will be opened by the Windows WordPad application.

9 Chapter 21 - Church Helpmate Online Duplex, Stapling, and Other Printing Preferences in CHO Printing from CHO, has a couple of limitations as compared to the Desktop product. This is because the reports have to go through an extra processing step before they are sent to your local printer. This processing step essentially converts the CHO report to a PDF file and then sends the printout to the physical printer. This is all normally transparent to the user. During this process, a somewhat generic print driver on the CHO server is used...and thus not all of the printer s options are available (ie. duplex, stapling, etc.). CHO will basically use the default settings that you ve set up on your local computer for these additional options. So, if you have your local computer configured so that duplex printing on the printer is enabled, then when you print to that printer from CHO, it will print in duplex mode. There is an option available to provide you with more control over the printer settings, rather than relying on the printer default option settings. The steps below explain how to utilize this option. 1. From CHO, print preview the desired report. 2. From the left-hand Print Preview Menu, click the Print button. 3. From the Print dialog box, choose "Preview PDF" from the pull-down list of printers. 4. Click the OK button. This will convert the report to a PDF file onto your local computer's hard-drive and will use your computer's PDF reader to open/view the PDF file. Here, you will have all of the normal print options (color/b&w, single-sided/duplex, etc.) - since you will be working with the PDF viewer software installed locally on your computer (and it would be like printing any other PDF file from your computer).

10 433 Church Helpmate Sounds on CHO The Church Helpmate Desktop program provides an option to play various sounds as feedback to the user when they are using the program (i.e. clicking buttons, saving data, etc.). With CHO, these sounds occur on the CHO Server computer. Unfortunately these sounds are not transmitted back to your local computer.

11 Chapter 21 - Church Helpmate Online Using Photos in CHO STEP 1 - Preparation of Photos With Church Helpmate Online, the size of the photo image files used can dramatically affect the overall performance of the system. Using very large photo image files that are created by today s digital cameras and scanners with CHO will likely cause unacceptable performance sometimes even causing CHO to appear "frozen" or "locked up". As such, our strong recommendation is to create smaller versions of your photo image files. We recommend reducing the size of the image files used in Church Helpmate such that the longest dimension of the image (the width or the height whichever is larger) is about 400 pixels. For a photo image file from a typical modern digital camera, this will dramatically reduce the image file size (by approximately 95%). There are image editing software programs available that can resize a large batch of image files, making this process quite simple. If you don t already own an image editing software program with this capability, we highly recommend a free image editing program called IrfanView ( This program can quickly resize large numbers of image files in one step. Once you have resized your photo image files to smaller sized files, you are then ready for Step 2 of this document. Note: Since Church Helpmate typically displays photos in roughly a 200x200 pixel-sized box, resizing the image files as recommended above will have no negative impact on the image quality of the photo displayed in Church Helpmate. In most cases, the images will actually look better.

12 435 Church Helpmate 2015 STEP 2 - Copying Your Photo Image Files to the CHO Server 1. Open Church Helpmate Online. 2. From CHO s top menubar, select Tools Windows Explorer. This will open an instance of Windows Explorer on the CHO server. 3. From the left-hand side of the Windows Explorer, locate the Favorites. Underneath the Favorites menu, click on the Client drive. This Client drive provides you access to your computer s local hard-drive. (i.e. the computer you are sitting in front of). You can now browse to find the folder on your computer where you have saved your photos. 4. Select (highlight) the desired image files that you want to upload to your CHO account (you can use the <Ctrl>+<A> shortcut to select all files), and copy them to the Windows Clipboard. You can invoke the Copy command by pressing <Ctrl>+<C> on your keyboard, or by selecting Organize Copy from the top menubar of the CHO Windows Explorer window. 5. From the left-hand side of the CHO Windows Explorer window, locate the Favorites section, and from this list click on the CHO Server-Photos folder.

13 Chapter 21 - Church Helpmate Online Once you have your account s Photos folder highlighted, press <Ctrl>+<V> to invoke the Paste command. Or click Organize Paste from the top menu bar. This will paste the photo image files you copied to the Clipboard (in Step 4) into your account s Photos folder. Once this process is completed, close the CHO Windows Explorer window. NOTE: This process may take several minutes to complete depending on the number of image files you are uploading and the speed of your Internet connection Your photos are now on the CHO server and ready for use in the CHO system through the Household Detail, Individual Detail, and Contact Detail forms.

14 437 Church Helpmate Custom Report Generator With both Church Helpmate Online and Church Helpmate Desktop, we provide an additional reporting tool called the Custom Report Generator (found under the Outputs menu of the program s top menubar). When running CHO, only one user from your organization can be using the CHO Custom Report Generator (CRG) at a time. If a second user attempts to open the CHO Custom Report Generator, an error message will be displayed letting them know that the CRG is in use by another user and cannot be run.

15 Chapter 21 - Church Helpmate Online CHO vs. Church Helpmate Desktop Performance Comparison As far as performance comparisons go between Church Helpmate Desktop (CHD) and Church Helpmate Online (CHO), you can typically expect the following: 1. CHD with one user using a CH data file on its own local hard-drive versus CHO with one user: Performance should be about the same, though CHO may seem slightly slower if you have a slow Internet connection. 2. CHD with one user using a CH data file across a local area network (LAN) versus CHO with one user: Performance of CHO will be slightly faster 3. CHD with multiple users sharing a CH data file across a local area network (LAN) versus CHO with multiple users: Performance of CHO will be faster (the higher the number of simultaneous users, the more difference there will be)

16 439 Church Helpmate Backing Up Your CHO Data File One of the nice benefits of Church Helpmate Online over the Church Helpmate Desktop product is that we automatically back up all CHO accounts every night. Therefore, although you can still use the Church Helpmate Backup & Restore Utility to create backups of your CHO data, this is not necessary (since nightly backups are already being created for you).