You can now track a student's progress for each class/session. First, set up progress definitions for the reporting periods, the marks/grades, and the categories/subjects you want to record. On the File menu in your PDS program, click Setup > Student Progress Definitions.

Once you've defined these, you'll see the new section for Student Progress in the Detail window.

You can post student progress information for a group of individuals or a certain class/session.

We also modified the End of Year process. If you select to add the year/period information to permanent records, the new fields for periods, marks, and categories are recorded.

There's also a new report called the Student Progress Report Card. For details, see "Reports for Student Grades" under New Reports and Fields below.

You can define the dates that a group of classes/sessions will not meet. For example, you can set holidays as exceptions for all classes at the same time. On the Information tab, click Students > Processes then, on the Formation Processes tab, click Set Exception Dates for All Classes/Sessions. For steps, see Set Class Exception Dates.

The dates you set here display in the selected class/session date lists with the Class will Meet checkbox cleared.

You can post general and confidential remarks to multiple family records. On the Information tab, click Families > Quick Posting > Family Remarks. For steps, see Post Family Remarks.

We added other address sections to the Primary Information window. Now, you can send letters to personnel using their street, mailing, or alternate address.

You can post user-defined keywords to the Primary Information window on personnel records. If the personnel is linked to a member, the keyword is shared on that record as well. These are the keywords managed under File > Keywords > Member/Personnel Keywords > User Keywords. For steps, see Post User-Defined Keywords.

You can track information about the workshops and courses that personnel participate in. This might include any training and events that don't fit under education/credentials, achievements, attendance/history, certification, or safe environment. Go to the personnel's record, then click Workshops/Courses in the navigation menu.

Workshop/Course names can be set up under File > Keywords > Personnel Keywords.

If you use Sacramental Registers, you can add contacts for individuals who have passed away.

You can enter email addresses for sponsors/witnesses on sacrament records and for next of kin in memorials.

You can remove duplicates from the Celebrant Names keyword list. Click Delete Duplicates to display any matching names, then select the ones you want to remove.

You can export fund setup information from one program and import it into another. When you export, a suggested file name using the fund number displays, saved by default in your \Data folder.

Now there's an easy way to find all of your favorite reports... with the Favorite Reports feature! Right-click a report in the list, and click Add to Favorite Reports. This adds an asterisk (*) beside the report so it stands out in the list.

To quickly view all of your favorites, click Show Only * Favorite Reports at the top.

In any calculation field, you can click the plus sign (+) on your keyboard to quickly display the calculator. View more keyboard shortcuts.

We updated the Hours of Service/Retreats quick posting. Now you can change the name of an existing service/retreat using the Replace option. You can also select what has to match in order for a replacement or addition to take place. For details, see Post Service or Retreat Hours.

Create emails and text messages more easily using the new navigation item. In the Families, Members, or Personnel sections, click Quick Emails/Text Msgs.

Send your message to just the current record you came from (if they have an email or text phone number listed), or you can select a group of people to send to. If you plan to use this message again in the future, you can select Save as a Report.

You can also create emails or texts in the Reports window. Just click Letter/Email/Text and select an option. For steps, see Email Letters and Statements.

We modified all of the applicable quick postings and processes to include more student information to help ensure you've selected the correct individual. At a minimum, the name, ID, address, and the relationship or member type display for the individual you selected. This is useful if you have students with similar or identical names.

The family import now displays the list of information that will be imported from your file. You can view and edit any information before importing the records into PDS.

We heard requests from folks who wanted to see the same person's record when moving between different sacramental registers. Now, you can do this using the Link button. After you link to a member record or to another register entry, you'll see the same person between registers. For steps, see Link Records in Sacramental Registers.

Previously, when adding a sacrament place in Canada or Mexico, you had to configure the list to include these dioceses. Now, by default, the list includes dioceses in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico/Other. If you don't need any of these in your list, you can clear the checkbox in the Configure drop-down list.

If you include sacraments on your online registration forms, you'll notice the date is split up into month, day, and year drop-down fields. That means families can select partial dates, which is useful if they don't know the exact day or month that the sacrament was received.

When posting payments/donations, you can view either the total for the batch or the running total up to the line you are currently on. Select Total to Cursor to see the running total.

Vanco has started issuing user IDs that are longer than the previous 10-character limit. PDS now allows up to 15 characters for user IDs.

After running a batch of payments, the total amount is posted in the log of user activity. This applies to Payment/Donation Entry, eGiving, Post Family Fees, Post Student Fees, Pledge Card Entry, and Terms and Rates Entry.

You can choose which window you see first when you go to an area of the program. The default shows the Overview first, but you can change it to show the Primary/Personal window or the Listing screen first.

To do this, click the My Settings icon at the top, and click Other Screens. Select which window to display first for each area.

You can also use the gear icon on each of these windows to change your selection.

You can decide what displays on the Overview screen for families, students, personnel, and funds. Click the gear icon to select which sections to display.

When you send an email as a PDF document attachment, you can include a plain text version of the letter in the email body. This allows recipients to view the email without having to open attachments.

If families are residing at their alternate address, such as a vacation home, and are not marked to receive mail there, you can skip them when sending letters. By default, this option is selected when you run any family, student, parent/guardian, or fund report.

We updated some back-end database settings to increase your program's performance. If you've experienced memory errors with previous versions, this should help!

Have you ever tried to search on a name, only to find that the ID option was selected and the record wasn't found? Now, the program can detect when you enter a letter (for a name) versus a number (for an ID), and switch to the correct search option automatically. In the Students, Families, Tuition & Fees, Parents & Guardians, and Personnel sections, Auto Detect is enabled by default for all Name and ID options.

For example, if you type a number when the Family Name option is selected, your Search By field is automatically switched to the Family ID option, without interfering with your search. Likewise, if you type a letter when the Family ID option is selected, your Search By field switches to the Family Name option and the family you're looking for will display.

When you order a column, the ascending icon or descending icon displays beside the column header. When you filter, the filter icon displays. If a column is both ordered and filtered, both icons display; for example, .

You can sort and filter multiple columns at the same time. But be aware that the options you select apply to columns from left to right. So, if the list is not sorting the way you expect, check the order of your columns.

Your sort and filter options are saved when you navigate away from the listing screen. When you come back, the list is still sorted/filtered the way you left it.

To clear the order or filter on a single column, click the column header and click Clear. To clear the options on all columns, click Clear Order/Filter at the top-left of the listing screen.

The ability to order and filter is enabled by default. If you decide you don't want to use this feature, you can disable it using the gear icon at the top-right of the listing screen.

We added the ability to export listing reports as well as the items from listing screens. Click Export List at the bottom of any listing screen or the bottom of any listing report overview window, and you can save the file in a simple column format. The default file type is .csv, but you can export to .xml, .txt, .xls, or .ods, depending on how you want to use the file.

Note that advanced reports cannot be exported due to their complexity, so you won’t see the button on every report. However, you can save advanced reports directly to a file, where you have options for .xls and .txt. You may have to work with the alignment in the file to get the results you want.

When processing an online form that matches a record in your database, any differences display in blue text. To filter out the information that's the same, click Show Only Differences. Also, any fields that are blank on both the registration form and the matching record will not display. This way, you can process forms more easily and focus on the information that matters most.

After hearing your feedback, we changed the way some settings are saved on the backend. Some settings were being saved based on the computer you were using, but now, they're saved based on your PDS user login.

Want to see how things are done in PDS? Now, you can learn how to do certain tasks with reports, records, files, and eGiving. Click the video player icon at the top of your program for quick access to the PDS Video Library. We plan to provide more videos over time.

Now you can create reports that include student grades, such as report cards. There is a student listing report called Student Progress Report Card. For steps, see Print Student Progress Report Cards. Grades are also included on the Student Complete Information Form and the Student Schedule Listing reports.

You can provide parishioners with an invoice that includes different funds. This way, you don't have to run the same report multiple times. Use the new report under Financial Statements called Chg & Pay with Return Coupon-MultiFunds. Each fund is separated into its own running total, and the coupon shows the sum of all balances due.

You can analyze up to 3 years of weekly, monthly, and quarterly totals for a certain time period. For example, you can compare the totals for January through April of this year, last year, and the year before. Under Financial Analysis Reports, select Financial Comparisons for Partial Years.

We added more information to the report that prints after you process online registration forms. It now displays the ethnicity and birthday for each family member.

We added a field that you can use in reports and selections called Fam Formation Years Registered. This displays the number of years from the Registered date on the family record to either the Left Parish date (if applicable) or today's date.

We heard a request about recording a residential address for first communion candidates as well as deceased individuals. Now, in the First Comm and Death registers, you'll see the field called Residence, along with City/State, ZIP/Postal Code, and Country. These fields are only available when printing reports from the Sacramental Registers.

We added fields for Sponsor1, Sponsor2, Sponsor3, and Sponsor4 under the Sac List section in Member reports. Sponsor1 prints the first name in the list of sponsors, Sponsor2 prints the second name in the list, and so on.