Using the eAdventist Reconciliation Tools > Copy eAdventist Families into CMD

The third item in the Fix Differences section on the eAdventist Reconciliation dialog is designed to be used in two specific situations:

•When you are first starting to use CMD and want to use the families in eAdventist to seed your CMD files. Used in this situation, all families in eAdventist will be copied into CMD and links will be made between CMD and eAdventist data that will be valid in future reconciliations. Note that you will have some editing to do in order to make significant use of this newly copied data. Information on the editing in CMD that you will need to do is below. While the copying is being done, a small dialog appears which has a progress bar so that you can see when the copying is finished.

•When you need to transfer into CMD some families that have been entered into eAdventist since your last reconciliation. Any families in eAdventist that are new will be copied into CMD, leaving undisturbed those families already copied into CMD. When this is the situation in which this function is used, the dialog which pops up while the copying takes place will only be on your screen for a brief moment, perhaps a second or two. This is normal, because there are only a few names which will need to be copied.

Warning! Please stop and make a fresh backup of your CMD information before you click the button to actually copy the eAdventist data into your CMD file! You may end up with a lot of duplicate names if you do this before you have accurately linked all your names together! Creating a backup first is the only way to get a fresh start at using this function!

Editing Your Copied Data

Whether the entire list or a few new families, there will be some editing left over in CMD that you will need to do. This is required because there are a couple of fields that are critical to CMD that are not in eAdventist data structures, and because CMD is unable to derive the order of individuals within a family because the information necessary to make those determinations may or may not be available in eAdventist data.

In addition to all of the ministry-related items such as church offices, talents, activities, etc, you will need to make sure that you edit:

•Family Name field. CMD does its best to create a Family Name field from the data it's handed, but it will likely not be accurate. See the help topic for the Family Name field in CMD for more specific information on how this field should be used.

•Individual Name Order within the Family. We strongly recommend that individuals be listed in husband, wife, and children in age order. If the prime adult in the family is a single parent, then the single parent should come first, followed by children in age order. To alter the order of individuals in a family, first call up the family in Enter/Modify/Delete Names. Then click the Reorder button near the upper right corner of the Individuals Data area. This pops up a dialog that allows you to order the names as needed.

•Family Status. This is a critical field to get right! It determines many things in CMD's reports and lists. Since there is no corresponding field in eAdventist, you will have to set this field manually for each name in your file.

•Membership Status. During import, all names are either Member or Nonmember, which CMD changes to Active Member and Non-Member Attender respectively. You will need to change these designations as required for each name in your CMD file.

•Goes By. eAdventist does not have this field either, so you'll need to alter this field for those names for whom it is appropriate.