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I am new to F1 and working with the attendance process as my first assignment at our church. We do not use the automated check in process (hopefully we will in January) so everything is still done manually. We print rosters and use them for sign in and then to post attendance. An issue that we are having is that a new person may not fill out a new contact card but still sign in on the roster. We can not enter them into the database because we have no information for them. When it comes time to post attendance, we know they were here but can't add them because they are not in the database. It is causing our attendance reports and head count reports to differ. Is there a best practice we can use for these people so at least  their presence is accounted for when posting attendance? Thanks for any suggestions.

Aweaver, you can enter a person into F1 with just their name and no other information. That way you can at least get your numbers correct and THEN tackle the process of obtaining that person's information. There are a couple of things you could also do:

     In our childrens ministry we have several separate places for people to sign in, some for regular attenders and some for visitors. This way the regular attenders just sign in and the visitors are required to fill out information cards.
     If you go ahead and put them in the system with just a name, you can also add 'NEED INFO' as an addition to their first/last name(or middle, if you ask for that part of their name in the reports) so that when the rosters are printed out, the volunteers working will be able to spot the people whose information is incomplete and ask them to fill out their cards then. I know some people aren't so keen to this idea because of the addition to their name that then has to be removed later, but for your purposes, it might help.

 Hopefully this will help you out a little!

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Whitney Storey
Database Manager
East Bayou Church
(337)-984-8291

Thank you Whitney. I like the idea of having a separate visitor sign in area. I also like the idea of having the NEED MORE INFO printed on rosters for people that did not fill out a card. Thanks for all of your ideas. I am going to run them by our Directors.

Angie Weaver, Crossroads Church