If you are accessing this help file, you are probably using the eAdventist clerk system adopted by the NAD for use in churches across the division. Since you are likely required to use eAdventist to maintain your clerk files, this has left you needing to maintain two separate data bases because CMD's emphasis on ministry, outreach, and contact information far exceeds the capabilities of eAdventist.

In order to lessen the time involved in maintaining two data bases, we have created a set of eAdventist reconciliation tools to help you. This short topic will give you the overview of how it works and explain its main limitation.

In the broadest terms, this is the process:

•You will download a specific zip file from eAdventist onto your computer

•You will tell the eAdventist Tools program where to find that zip file

•Once found, eAdventist Tools will import the names from eAdventist into a separate data file within CMD, and then attempt to find matches between the names in eAdventist and CMD

•You will manually link together names that were not matched during the initial import process

•You can update CMD on a field-by-field basis where eAdventist information is more up-to-date than your CMD information, and you will be able to flag those names whose data in CMD is more up-to-date than in eAdventist

•You can print a list of the flagged names with changes to be made in eAdventist

•You can even use the eAdventist Reconciliation tools in CMD to copy your entire eAdventist file directly into CMD if you are just starting to use CMD

Initially, it will take a bit of time of fully reconcile the two lists. But CMD will "remember" the reconciliations, so that the next time you bring in a new eAdventist file, most of the work will already be done. Subsequent efforts to sync the data files will require much less time than your initial reconciliation work. And since the data imported from eAdventist is held in a physically separate data file, nothing will happen to your CMD data unless and until you specifically direct it to through using the tools.

Main Limitation

The main limitation CMD's reconciliation tools is that eAdventist does not allow outside programs to gain access directly to live eAdventist data. That means the most automatic reconciliation will happen only one way: eAdventist to CMD.

Because CMD cannot directly access eAdventist data, you'll need to enter any changes directly into eAdventist using your normal login and password. eAdventist Tools will print a list of the changes that need to be made in your eAdventist file to make it easier for you to update eAdventist as needed.

Getting the Data Files You Need

Your very first step is to contact the person in your local conference office who is in charge of working with eAdventist and request that your church clerk or pastor be given what eAdventist calls a “Download Data” role. Only with the Download Role can you download the specific zip file that CMD needs to work with.

Click the Using the eAdventist Reconciliation Tools item to begin the process of reconciliation.