The Prayer List dialog, available on the Tools Menu, helps you build and maintain a prayer list that can be used for staff use, or to make quick work of printing an up-to-date prayer list for insertion into your weekly church bulletin or other destination.

The Prayer List dialog has two pages, one for viewing/modifying the list, and the other page for printing a list.

The fields are mostly self-explanatory. Here are a couple that have specific purpose that might not seem obvious:

•Name. We suggest you enter the name as Last Name, First Name so that your list can be easily alphabetized.

•Date Added. Use this as the date the name is first added to the list.

•List Until. If you have a date limit on what you consider a current prayer list request, enter it in the List Until field. We strongly urge that you enter a date here (you can always change it later) since this date is used to generate the "Today's Prayer List" function on the SnapShot dialog.

•Known By. Sometimes folks don't want their actual name published and prefer a pseudonym. Use the Known By field to enter their preferred pseudonym, which is what is exported when you send your names to the clipboard which can then be dropped into your bulletin. We suggest you enter the name in First Name Last Name order since this will be how it comes out when sent to the clipboard.

•Confidential. There may be some requests that come in that are for staff eyes only and are not meant to be published. Check this box for any person who wants the request to stay within the staff only.

Printing the Prayer List

On the Print Prayer List page you have the controls for printing your list. You can select names based on four criteria:

•All Names. If you wish to print all names on your list, do not check any of the check box items.

•By Date Range. Use this selection if you wish to have the names print based on a date range as applied to the List Until date. This will make sure your date list is always current with what you consider the minimum date to be for a name to be included.

•By Answer. Use this selection if you wish to further filter the list based on whether or not there has been an answer to the prayer recorded for the person.

•By Confidential. Use this selection to make sure you limit the names only to those who are not meant to be confidential.

Note that you can use any of these selection criteria above in any combination to further refine your list.

Sort Order

There are a number of options for the sorting of your list. Select the most appropriate one for the list you are printing from the drop-down box.

Output Forms

Each of these choices are directly impacted by the select and sort order mentioned above. Make sure you make your selections there first before clicking any of the print buttons. There are four choices:

•Simple List. This displays the name, the confidentiality setting, the contact person and their phone number, along with the date their request was added to the list.

•Print to Clipboard for Bulletin. Use this item when you want to print the names to the clipboard so that you can drop it into your bulletin. This list uses the Known By field.

•Print Full Information. This option prints all the fields, including the comments.

•Display on Grid. This option sends the list to the Prayer List Grid form for easy viewing in a grid format.