Experience.FellowshipOne.com

Just wondering how other users feel about the reporting capabilities of F1. We have been using the product since the beginning of the summer and have found the reporting to be extremely difficult and non-intuitive. I love the potential for ministry that I see in F1 but so far I see that it is being hindered by the difficulty of getting information out of the system. We transitioned over from Shelby and we loved the reporting capabilities in that system. If we could combine the features of F1 with the robust reporting of Shelby we'd be extremely happy. Anybody else have any comments on this?

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Rob Guilliams
Director of Computer Services
Highview Baptist Church
Louisville, KY

Hi Rguilliams,

I am looking forward to hearing from others about their reporting hits and misses.  I can think of a couple of things that may help you right off the bat with finding your reports.  I hope this helps.

I don’t know if you have had a chance to use our new "Report Library" link to find your reports.  The link is located on the top right side of the page inside of Fellowship One. This section of the program was created to help you to find your reports easily, and then tag them so that you can retrieve them easily when you need them.  We have a great class offering quick tips on how to use the search capabilities and tag your favorite reports offered weekly through FT eUniversity.  It is only a half hour class and may assist you in the transition to our reporting structure.  Send us an email at education@fellowshiptech.com if you would like to get a schedule or attend the class.

If you are looking for a query that you used to regularly use or a particular bit of information, we will find a report for you.  Just go to the support link in Fellowship One and choose "Ask a Question".  Let us know exactly what you are looking for – we will let you know if the report already exists and where to find it in the Report Library.  You can add your favorite reports to the “My Reports” section of the Report Library so you won’t ever have to search for them again. 

Yes, I've used the Report Library and I find it very confusing and extremely hard to find the report I need. The naming conventions for the reports do not seem to be standardized and many times the name doesn't seem to tell you what the report actually returns. I've taken the Reporting class, along with most of the other classes offered and it did explain how the use the system. I just don't think the system is very good as it currently functions.

I am used to the reporting functionality in Shelby which allowed you to filter the data for any report on any available field in the database. So if I wanted to search for all males, between the ages of X and X, who are assigned to a certain class, and who meet certain requirements (and who have red hair if you have that information recorded) I could do so without having to submit a request for a new report that will allow me to filter on those fields. F1 doesn't allow me to do this, or at least I haven't found out how to do it.

Shelby had stock reports like F1 does, but it also allowed the user to format their own custom reports that could be exported to an Excel or CSV file and manipulate the data. F1 only allows me to get the data in the stock formats that are already there or at least I haven't found out a way to export custom data. Yes, I realize that F1 has the query builder functionality under the People tab, but not all fields in the database are searchable in the query builder. And yes, I realize that F1 has the Data Exchange capability, but that is yet another function that my users have to learn to use instead of being able to export the data directly from the report generator the way they could in Shelby.

Like I said before, I see vast potential for ministry in F1 but this potential is being hindered by the fact that getting the requested information out of the system is such a confusing process. Maybe this has to do with the fact that we don't understand the system fully yet, but I dont' think so. I've heard from other users that their biggest issue is with the reporting. I've even heard of churches that have reverted to their previous CMS simply because of the difficulty with reporting. 

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Rob Guilliams
Director of Computer Services
Highview Baptist Church
Louisville, KY

I would like to reinforce what rguilliams mentioned above about the Report Library.  Overall, I like F-1 very much, but a more powerful reporting tool would be nice - something like an enhanced Query Builder (found on the People tab) with the ability to save the report that that you have created.  I understand the reason for a Report Library to cater to users that are not comfortable using a more powerful report building tool, and I think the Report Library functionality is a great improvement over the old way of doing it in the report sections of the various tabs.  But I still cannot often find the report that I need.  While it is sometimes useful to see the other reports that various users have requested, I am frequently surprised that I cannot easily find a report that I would think would be very commonly desired.  Again, the few reports in the Report Library that I have used seem to be a little better, but still sometimes difficult to understand how they work (i.e. why certain parameters are included as options, why certain fields that I want to see are not there, and so on).  Thank you.

Thank you for the feedback.  We are currently investigating some solutions that would allow users to search on reports better than the current one; even if it is which reports are the most used in the system.  We actually have created reports in the past that our Delivery Managers will take to a church upon implementation which allow the new users a good foot hold on some of the most commonly used reports for most of the common situations that arise in each department (Finance, Ministry, or Administration).  

We understand that we have differing user types regarding reports.  

• Users that want full control, who want to practically write the SQL Query themselves. 
• Users who just want reporting where they select fields, sort columns, and filter criteria based on the basic data points in the system. 
• Users who want the "canned" reports that do not require any intervention in the result set (just give me the labels without any manipulation). 

We strive to find the best way to label the reports and categorize them, and it is a challenge at times with so many reports and so many different ways that users use our system.  We are open to any and all suggestions and really enjoy hearing the feedback from the users.  If I could ask you to expound on your last point ("I am frequently surprised that I cannot easily find a report that I would think would be very commonly desired.").  We are always looking for better ways to categorize the most general report. 

I am just interested to hear your take on what are the common reports.  Some reports have too many filters and we would like to start an initiative that would give users a sub set of "canned" reports that provide a good starting point for any user in Fellowship One depending on their position at the church (Finance, Ministry, or Administration).  I truly feel that this forum is a good tool that will provide our users a voice which can influence our decisions for the future.

Thanks so much for your time.

Sure - here's an example.  I just had a fellow pastor call me to ask how to do a People List  in F-1 because he wanted to send out an e-mail to a group of people.  I explained how to create a People List simply enough and he created it.  After we did this, he asked me how to attach a document to a Group E-mail (which was why he wanted to create the people list in the first place).  I told him that F-1 did not support that functionality at this time, so he asked what he should do.  I told him he would have to go to the Report Library and find a report that would give him his People list in Excel.  Then he could cut and paste the e-mails from the e-mail column and paste them directly into an e-mail in Outlook (to which he could attach an attachment).  So we opened the report library and went to People--->people--->People List and selected report A1030E.  I then walked him through the filters:  he selected the User List he wanted; I didn't know what "Alternate address to show" was or why it was an option; we selected all of the "Status" lines (though I didn't understand why that was there, since we wanted everything on the people list irrespective of status); then we went to "Exclude individual having attribute" (but I didn't know what to tell him here because this makes no sense to me - why is this a required field?  I don't want to exclude anyone because I just want a spreadsheet of the contact info for the people on a People List, yet this required field forces me to select something to exclude); so we just selected one that we didn't think would affect the output AND we clicked "False" in the "Use Attribute Filter" - that, I assumed, meant that the "Exclude individual having attributes" field would not be considered in the query.  Then we ran the report.  When the report finally appeared in Excel, there was no data in the spreadsheet.  At this point we gave up.

It was very frustrating, but this is a practical example of a user trying to use the tool for practical work.  Please let me know if I can answer any other questions.

 

I want to add my 2 cents, too.

A much easier way to do this is just to create a Mail Merge file directly from your people list. Just go into your people list, select all, and instead of "Create Group Email" at the bottom select "Create Mail Merge File". This will create a comma seperated value (CSV) file that can then be opened with Excel. Much easier that messing about in the Report Library.

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Rob Guilliams
Director of Computer Services
Highview Baptist Church
Louisville, KY

Good suggestion - thanks.

Actually, we do find the reporting system hard to find exactly what we need and would love to have the ability to construct our own reports instead of spending time looking through all the reports to find what we need. We need some very detailed reports that we can not get right now thru FellowshipOne. We too changed over from Shelby but our main problem with Shelby was that we could not get everything out of Shelby that we put into it. We saw the ability to get out of FellowshipOne whatever we put into it and have been able to do that. We just can't get it into the reports we would like to see the information dumped into.

Sorry, this is the first time I've used this and I forgot to enter my contact information.

Christie Savage

First Baptist Carrollton

2400 N Josey Lane

Carrollton, TX 75006