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Assign Member Phones & Emails

Move the phone numbers and email addresses that belong to members from the Family record to the appropriate Member record.

Why is this required? Moving phone numbers and email addresses to Member records ensures they will display on the appropriate Contact record in MinistryPlatform. For eGiving processes, it is very important that your primary (head and spouse) records have correct and valid phones and emails assigned to them.

What does this step entail? You'll start by running part of the Clean Up Data process in PDS to clean up your Phone Type and Email Type lists. Then, you'll download, add, and run a report that identifies any records that need to be manually updated.

How long will this take? This process can take some time, so be sure to plan accordingly. If you need assistance, call PDS Support at 1-877-737-4457.

Clean Up Phone Type and Email Type Lists:
  1. On the File menu in your PDS program, click Test/Fix/Clean Up Data > Clean Up Data.
  2. Click Yes to continue with the process.
    It may take a few minutes to examine your data.
  3. After the first window displays, click Next until you get to the seventh window (titled "Phone Type List").
  4. Review the information about phone types.
    1. You may have phone type descriptions that indicate some relation to a certain family member. For example, "Spouse Cell", "Dad's Office", or even "Mary's Phone". Click 2-Assign Member Phones to assign matching phone numbers to member records (as indicated in the list below). You can print a report of the changes that are made.
      • Types with "Head" or "H" in the description are assigned to the record for the head of household.
      • Types with "Spouse" or "S" are assigned to the spouse's record.
      • "Husband", "Husband's", "Dad", "Dad's", "Father", "Father's", or "His" are assigned to the head or spouse marked as Male.
      • "Wife", "Wife's", "Mom", "Mom's", "Mother", "Mother's", or "Her" are assigned to the head or spouse marked as Female.
      • The first word in each type is checked for a person's name. If the member's first name matches exactly, the phone is assigned to them. (Note that this doesn't match nicknames or double names, such as "Bob"/"Robert" or "Mary Ellen"/"Mary".)
    2. If prompted to print the list of assigned phones, click Yes if you want to view those.
    3. Don't change anything else in this window for now.
  5. Click Next.
  6. Review the information about email types.
    1. You may have email type descriptions that indicate some relation to a certain family member. For example, "Spouse", "Dad's Office", or even "Mary's Personal". Click 2-Assign Member Emails to assign matching email addresses to member records (as indicated in the list below). You can print a report of the changes that are made.
      • Types with "Head" or "H" in the description are assigned to the record for the head of household.
      • Types with "Spouse" or "S" are assigned to the spouse's record.
      • "Husband", "Husband's", "Dad", "Dad's", "Father", "Father's", or "His" are assigned to the head or spouse marked as Male.
      • "Wife", "Wife's", "Mom", "Mom's", "Mother", "Mother's", or "Her" are assigned to the head or spouse marked as Female.
      • The first word in each type is checked for a person's name. If the member's first name matches exactly, the email is assigned to them. (Note that this doesn't match nicknames or double names, such as "Bob"/"Robert" or "Mary Ellen"/"Mary".)
    2. If prompted to print the list of assigned emails, click Yes if you want to view those.
    3. Don't change anything else in this window for now.
  7. Click Cancel to exit the Clean Up Data process. (Any changes you made have already been saved.)
Download the Report Files:
  1. In your web browser, open this link, which connects to a secure file-sharing location.
  2. Click Select All to select all the available files that you will need. (If you don't need to run the report in Formation Office, you can clear the checkboxes for "Formation Data Cleanup...".)
    File-sharing website showing 7 Data Cleanup files selected and a Download button
  3. Click Download.
  4. Open the location where Files.zip was downloaded.
  5. Right-click Files.zip, and select Extract All.... Choose a location you can easily get to (such as your desktop), then click Extract.
    You should see the files you need in the selected location.

    Example showing the computer Desktop file location with a Files folder containing the 7 downloaded files

Add the Report to PDS:
  1. On the Information tab, click Members > Reports.
  2. At the bottom of the report window, click Add, then click Custom Report.
  3. In the Add Custom Report Files dialog box, navigate to the location where you saved the report files, then select Data Cleanup Phone and Email.cr, and click Open.
  4. Verify the information for the report, then click Build.
    You should see the Member Phone & Email List in your Member Easy Reports section.

    Member Reports window showing the Member Easy Reports section expanded and the Member Phone & Email List report selected

Run the Member Phone & Email List Report:
  1. In the report list, double-click Member Phone & Email List, then click Next.
  2. In the Select Printer window, under Orientation, select Landscape.
  3. Click Next two times.
  4. At the bottom of the Select Members window, click Import Sel. from a File.
  5. In the Read Selection from a File dialog box, navigate to the location where you saved the report files, then select Data Cleanup Phone and Email.sel, and click Open.
    You should see the Data Cleanup - Phone and Email selection in your List of Selections.

    Select Members window showing the Data Cleanup - Phone and Email selection in the List of Selections

  6. Click Preview to run the report. It may take a few minutes to build the member list.
  7. Review the report, and use it as a guide to manually move any phone numbers and email addresses from the Family record to the appropriate Member record.
  8. If needed, run the report again to be sure all member phones and emails have been moved to correct record. (If that's the case, the report will display as blank, with no records listed.)
  9. Make a note of the date you completed this process.

All member phone numbers and email addresses display on the correct Member records and not the Family record.

After you've assigned member phones and emails, you can run the Clean Up Data process.