If you are converting data from a previous version of Membership PLUS, you will need to perform the conversion first, then open the Properties dialog box to verify, add, and clean up your data set defaults.

To set Data Set Properties:

1. In Membership PLUS click File.
2. Select Properties.

   

3. Select Data Set.
4. Select the appropriate properties listed below:

   International:	Specify the formats you desire for phone numbers, ZIP or postal codes, and Social Security numbers. Membership PLUS will try to format your data as you enter it. For example, if you select the (555) 123-4567 phone format, the program will add the parentheses and dash in the correct places. 4023333075 automatically becomes (402) 333-3075.
   Members
   Address Defaults:	Specify pieces of address information that are common to most or at least many of the member records you will enter. For example, if most of your members live in Omaha, you would enter that in the City field here. When you add new members to your database, the common address fields are completed automatically.
   Display Name	Enter your preferences for the ―displayed name‖ of your family and individual members.
   Families	Enter the prefix and suffix to be used when adding family records. For example, your prefix could be The and your suffix, Family. When you enter a new family record by entering the last name (such as Smith), Membership PLUS creates the record as The Smith Family.
   Titles	Indicate your preference for whether the personal title (such as Mr. or Mrs.) should be added automatically to the mailing label name when creating new individual records.
   Status Types	Enter labels for the different statuses that a member can hold within your organization, such as Active, Inactive, Visitor, Prospective, or Former. Status types are mutually exclusive for any member. A member cannot be both Inactive and Former, for example.
   Marital Types	Enter labels for the types of marital status you want to track within your organization—Married, Single, Widowed, or Divorced, for example.
   Gender Types	Enter labels for the types of genders you want to track. For most organizations, Female and Male are adequate.

   When you enter status, marital, and gender types, us the Move Up and Move Down buttons to arrange your entries in order of frequency used. Put the most frequently used item at the top of the list.

   Date Fields

   Enter labels for any dates or events you want to track for a member. For example, many churches and service organizations like to know members’ birthdays and when each member joined.

   In addition to specifying a label such as Birthday, you can indicate the types of members to which the date applies. Only individuals have birthdays, for example—not families or organizations. you will also want to specify the default format for the date—for birthdays you may want the full month, day, and year, but tracking the date a member joined your organization may require only month and year. Date fields can be used to track both past and future events. If your group has high school and college student members, for example, you may want to track anticipated graduation dates for them.

   User Fields	Membership PLUS stores a great deal of information, but every organization has its own special needs. You can create your own fields to track any information not accounted for elsewhere in the Membership PLUS database. If each member of your organization has a unique Member ID, for example, add a user field to track it. When you add a user field, you can specify the types of members to which the item applies. You also can customize the type of field created for the information you’re trying to track:
   	Text:	Use this type of control if you want to be able to type anything in the user field. The possibilities are virtually unlimited.
   	Combo Box	Select this type of control, and click the List button, to specify allowable entries for the field. Using combo boxes for some types of user fields can enforce consistency of data entry over time. You might use a combo box user field to track the school that each child in your membership attends.
   	Check Box	Use a check box control if the information you want to track can be answered with a simple Yes or No? Question. For example, if you want to keep track of which members know CPR, you could create a check box user field. Either an individual knows CPR, or he does not.
   	Number	Use the number format if all data for the user field will be numeric. If your Member IDs are numeric rather than alphanumeric, use this type of field.

   Before you create a user defined field for something you want to track about your members, make sure it’s not something for which Membership PLUS already provides a place for your entry.

   Note Types	Enter labels for the types of notes that will be kept for your membership. The minister might want to make notes about counseling sessions, for example, so you’d add Counseling as a note type. Unlike the other lists of labels (which allow you to add an unlimited number of items), note types are limited to the five notes established by the Membership PLUS program (no more, no less). You can edit the labels so that they are more descriptive, but the labels are position-sensitive and you cannot rearrange them in a different order. The labels you specify correspond to the five pages of notes available in the Member Notes module.
   Contact Labels	Enter labels for the types of contact information you will be tracking. Generally the label will be a location, such as Home or Work; then specify the types of contacts available at this location—Voice, FAX, Pager, Email, or Web Site. Each combination of label and type of contact creates a separate contact field for which you can enter data; if you enter Home and mark both Voice and Email, the fields Home (Voice) and Home (Email) are created. When you enter data for a specific member, you can select exactly which contacts are appropriate for the individual, family, or organization.
   Family Roles	Enter roles you want to record for individuals within a family. For example, you might want to specify who are the Father and Mother within a family. Child roles could be simple and general (Child), gender-specific (Son and Daughter), or chronologically based (Oldest Child, Middle Child, and Youngest Child)—or some other plan—depending on the information you want to track about the members of your organization.
   Default Picture Path	Enter the path to the directory where files of member pictures will be stored. Click the Browse button to locate the correct directory, if necessary. Specifying the default path here will make it easier and quicker to locate the files when you attach member photos to their records.
   Groups	Enter labels for the roles that each member can have within a group. Examples might be Student and Teacher, if you use groups for Sunday School or other classes, or Member, Chair, and Secretary for a committee-type group. Group roles are mutually exclusive for any member in a specific group. That is, a member cannot be both student and a teacher of a group.
   Meetings	Enter labels for the attendance codes appropriate to the way your organization tracks attendance at meetings. (Meetings can include Sunday School classes, committee meetings, or even your regular worship service).
   Visitation	Enter the types of visitation responses that you want to track.
   Financials: Indicate your preference for each of these financial-related items.
   Fiscal year	Indicate the end of the fiscal year used by your organization.
   Pledges	Enter the appropriate day of the week on which to base weekly and biweekly pledges. Although there are 52 weeks in a year, there are 53 of some days of the week each year—and it’s a different day of the week each year. If your pledges are based on your Sunday service, select Sunday.
   Funds	Indicate whether you want to display funds using account numbers rather than their names.
   Contributions	Indicate your preferences for these options that affect the flow of contribution data entry. Use the Start at Date Field option if the date needs to be considered separately for each individual contribution that is entered. The Require Batch IDs option controls whether or not a batch ID must be entered to create a valid contribution record.
   Currency	Enter labels for the types of currency in which your contributions are received. Check and Cash are typical examples.

   Just like other lists of labels indicated earlier in this section, you will want to use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to arrange the labels in the best order to speed data entry.

   Contributors	Indicate whether envelope numbers can be alphanumeric instead of strictly numeric and whether to display contributors by envelope number rather than by name. Also indicate which types of members can pledge and/or contribute.
   Deposits	Indicate the financial software, if any, to which you will export deposit information, and enter the complete path to that software’s corresponding data files for your organization. Use the Browse button, if necessary, to locate the file or directory.
   Register (GL)	Reminders can be set for auto transactions and when checks are to be printed. Indicate whether to defer posting checks until after they are printed. Choose to have the program automatically add account numbers.
   Organization	Indicate the name of your organization, contact information, and your organization’s address. The organization name you enter here will appear in the program’s title bar; other information can be used in reports.

5. Click OK-Save to save changes.