Global Update Prospective Student Data

Global Update of Prospective Student Data

Global updates are the changing of the contents of a field for a series of records selected based on a criteria. You may also delete a series of records. Before attempting this, you should have a thorough understanding of the section Export Merge Data and have tested your selection criteria by using the Filtering function for Prospective Students.

To select the Global Update, choose the Prospective Students | Global Update menu item pictured here

Once you choose that you will see the following dialog:

This is the same dialog that appears when selecting a criteria for displaying filtered records. From this window you should select the desired filter criteria. Clicking OK will move to the next step in the process.

The drop down list will show all of the fields in the prospective student table. Any field may be chose from this list, but it is unwise to choose propsid, entcode, idcent, or studid as those fields are used to link to other sections of CrossRoad. The Delete Record check box may be chosen if what is desired is to delete rather than modify matching records. It is wise to have a known good backup of CrossRoad data prior to proceeding with deletions. If a field is chosen, then another dialog will appear.

This is very similar to the editing box for creating Filter and Export criteria. The words "Prospective Students" are entered into the editing area of this window simply as a placeholder; the value you type, or calculation you enter, should replace that test.

The objective here is to create an appropriate value to which to update the selected field. You will notice in the title of this dialog that it tells you what character type you are trying to achieve. You could type an absolute value into the main editing box, you could perform a calculation on the field you are altering or another field in the table, you can use a function to calculate the appropriate value.

To enter, for instance, the absolute value of the letter A (replacing the selected field with A for each matching record) you would type "A" (note the quotation marks). You could also replace an existing letter in a longer string by using the a function: strtran(liaison.MAILINGS,"A","Z"). Note that if you are adding a character to the end of a field (a common operation in updating the mailings field) you must first trim out the spaces using the trim() function, e.g. trim(liaison.MAILINGS)+"Z"

If the field is numeric, you could type the numbers. No quotation marks are necessary for those. Or you could enter a calculation: 10+2

If you are dealing with a date field, you may assign a specific date. However, that requires the use of a function to convert characters to a date, e.g. ctod("21/09/2009"). You may also do date calculations by adding or subtracting from the existing date, e.g. liaison.entdate + 14.

If a logical value is needed, then a logical expression is required. You can directly enter true by typing .t. (note the required . on each side of the letter t). You can enter false by typing .f. (again, note the .s). Or you can use an expression that results in a true or false value, e.g. liaison.studid > 0.

The Test button on this window will check whether what you have typed is the correct data type (that is, that it is character, date, numeric, or logical when the field is character, date, numeric or logical.

Clicking OK will execute the expression test once more, and then the replacement will occur. While replacements are taking place a dialog box showing the progress through the file.

Once complete, a dialog will appear indicating the number of records changed.

Special Case: Updating Mailings

Updating Mailings is very similar to the process above. However, once the field liaison.mailings is chosen, the criteria window does not appear. Instead a dialog with a drop list of the available mailings will appear.

From that choose the mailing you would like to add to the prospective student records. Then the update will proceed as described above.

Special Case: Updating Activity Dates

Updating activity dates is no different than updating other fields, except that entering the date to which to set either the last activity or the next activity dates is somewhat tricky as a function must be used.

For example, to update the last activity date (the field is liaison.lasact) to 15 September 2010, you would enter the following expression in the update value dialog.

ctod("15/09/2010")

Note the function is ctod() which stands for "character to date."

To update the next activity date (the field is liaison.nextact) to 15 October 2010, you would enter the followin gexpression in the update value dialog.

ctod("15/10/2010")

Two rounds of updating would be required to update both fields. Note, if you are using the Next Activity field in your criteria for selecting records, update Last Activity first, and then Next Activity. Otherwise you will not be able to find the records for the second update.

Special Case: Global Communication Log Update

You may also wish to add global communication log entries. This is done in a somewhat different manner, but is conceptually similar to the global update outlined above. To begin with you would go to the Communications Log tab.

Click on the Global Add button. This will cause the normal message dialog to appear.

Set the various fields and enter the message you wish to be recorded for everyone using your criteria. Note that I have selected "Ad Hoc Communications" for the category -- this will make this message appear in the area next to the mailings box on the Contact tab.

Once you have this set as you desire, click OK. The criteria dialog should appear.

From this select the criteria by which you wish to select records to have this communication log entry added.

From this point forward the records are selected, and the communication log item is added for each student.

As a potential scenario for this, you may have returned from Abbotsford Christian Secondary with a dozen new contacts to enter into CrossRoad. You wish to email them all in 2 weeks, and then follow that up with a phone call 2 weeks after that. You wish to globally note your email. We are also assuming that your contacted by initials are JT. To do this you would

1. Enter each student with the next activity date set to 2 weeks from today. For the sake of an example, lets assume that is 1 November 2010.
2. On the date in question you would create a filter criteria to select these records. Note that you have to use the regular criteria for global updating, not the quick criteria. In this case that might be something like
   liaison.contby="JT".and.liaison.nextact=ctod("01/11/2010").and.liaison.school="ABBOTSFORD CHRISTIAN SECONDARY".and.liaison.schcity="ABBOTSFORD"
   Save that filter with a meaningful name.
3. Using the filtered display of records on screen, you send your emails. (Note that you could export using this criteria and then merge email in Word.)
4. Using the global communications log entry, you add an ad hoc communications note recording the phone call.
5. Using the global update, you would update the last activity date to today's date.
6. Using the global update, you would set the next activity date to 15 November 2010.