User Support Forum

I am in the process of helping my church move from running PowerChurch versions 9, 10 and 11 installed on computers locally with each having a different database to running with a single database on a server. I moved the bookkeeper's database to the server this weekend when I installed a new computer for her. Now I need to encourage some to the staff to update the database on the server and move away from their local copy. Some questions today that may help me encouraging staff to make this move.

1) When was version 11 released?
2) When will version 10 be considered at end of life?
3) Suggesions?

Thanks,
Ken Schmid

KenS wrote:I am in the process of helping my church move from running PowerChurch versions 9, 10 and 11 installed on computers locally with each having a different database to running with a single database on a server. I moved the bookkeeper's database to the server this weekend when I installed a new computer for her. Now I need to encourage some to the staff to update the database on the server and move away from their local copy. Some questions today that may help me encouraging staff to make this move.

1) When was version 11 released?
2) When will version 10 be considered at end of life?
3) Suggesions?

Thanks,
Ken Schmid

Ken,

Having three different versions of Powerchurch also means that you cannot share ANY data between them as each as a different, upgraded database structure.

Version 11.5 is the latest upgrade, I think its available now. Version 11 was released 2009. Based on the history with previous versions, 10 will be maintained until v12 comes out, again speaking as a user here that appears to be the history.

The problem I see is converting data to the v11 database, you would have to install v11 on all the machines, allow it to do the conversion, then use the selective backup feature of powerchurch to backup only the area of the database used by that user, and restore it to the centralized database.

I'm assuming that (for some reason) Membership information was kept on one machine, Contributions (along with another version of membership files) on a different machine, and Accounting on a third.

Since Accounting (which does NOT include Contributions) is a completely separate set of database tables, you can back that up and restore it after the Membership and Contributions are upgraded and restored. The problem lies in the fact that while one machine used for Membership may have all the current information on members, visitors and the like; the Contributions machine may only have a subset of the Membership data, and if the envelope numbers kept on the Contributions machine, are not entered in the Membership machine's database, any linkage between the member's data and their contributions could be lost in the restores.

Not knowing how those machines are setup makes it harder to give suggestions. However, I'm fairly sure that if you call the Powerchurch office, they can give you some advice on how to proceed. I'm guessing that the first thing they'll say is make sure that the envelope numbers are entered on all the personal profiles properly before conversion. The best option that I would use, is update the envelope numbers so that they are correct, then have Powerchurch do the conversions and merge.

It will involve a fee, but I suspect that there will be less of a worry about lost data.

The Accounting and Contributions are on one computer running version 11 and membership is on a second computer running version 10. The main issue I have is how to easily update the membership data to the server. I did find an article at PowerChurch that discussed this merge some. Example 2 is almost exactly my situation http://www.powerchurch.com/support/kb/k ... icle_id=82 . The envelope numbers appears to be the key item.

Thanks,
Ken

KenS wrote:The Accounting and Contributions are on one computer running version 11 and membership is on a second computer running version 10. The main issue I have is how to easily update the membership data to the server. I did find an article at PowerChurch that discussed this merge some. Example 2 is almost exactly my situation http://www.powerchurch.com/support/kb/k ... icle_id=82 . The envelope numbers appears to be the key item.

Thanks,
Ken

Definitely ... what I would do is first do a backup of the v10 files using the internal backup routine.

Then install v11 on the standalone to convert the database. Then using the directions in that Knowledgebase article, update the personal profiles to reflect the correct envelope numbers.

Backup the Membership files using the built-in Powerchurch backup system to a thumb drive, or network storage.

Using Windows Add/Remove Programs, remove v11 from the standalone machine.

Map the server's Powerchurch shared drive to the standalone, then install v11 by running the netsetup11.exe program in the Install directory of the PCPLUS11 directory from the server. When it completes, start PCPlus, and restore the Membership Files from the backup taken previously.

You should now have all the church data on one database. Do a full backup of that, and then disable access to the old v10 Powerchurch on the 'membership' machine. I find that a simple delete of the desktop icon does the trick for most.

You really don't want to completely remove the v10 program until everyone is satisfied that all the data is correct.

Neil:

Thanks for the recommendations. The suggestion of installing PowerChurch on a stand alone and converting the data was the direction I was starting to consider. I started handling the church IT administration for my church about 18 months. I am familiar with some of the overall operation of PowerChurch, just not some of the day to day details. I have used the backup and restore utility - no problem. It is going to be a least a couple weeks before I have the time to do this data transfer. I will let you know how it goes.

Thanks again.
Ken Schmid