I made a sign up sheet. It offered the twenty
different volunteer activities.
I made a database with separate fields for the parent's name,
phone number, the student's name, the student's class, and finally a
separate field for each volunteer activity.
I entered all the data from the sign up sheets. Each parent had a
separate sheet. Some parents volunteered to help with up to ten of
our projects! Rather than type out each activity's name, I chose to
put an x in the field if the person elected to do it. I left it blank
if they did not.
Update: I created this database back in the
ClarisWorks 2 days. Beginning with ClarisWorks 4 a check box Field
Type was added. This is a great example of when you could use
them.
Here is the powerful part:
Go Layout...Find.
You are presented with a blank record. Note: when you use Find,
the Database Status Panel (the gray strip on left) is slightly
modified. As you become more sophisticated in database, I urge you to
explore the options it presents in ClarisWorks/AppleWorks Help. We
are going to stick to basics for now.
Enter the data you want to find in the appropriate field. For the
volunteers, I tabbed to the Fall Book Fair field and entered an x.
Hit the return key. Or click the Find button in the Database
Status Panel. A moment later I was presented with a list of all the
folks who said they'd help with the book fair.
In the Database Status Panel, I have a report. It shows that of
the 50 people who had offered to volunteer for the school, ten wanted
to help with the book fair.
To print the result.
I created a new layout which reported just the basic
personal info like name, phone, student name. I called it "Chair
Report". (This is optional! I could just print
the report, but there would be all those extra event fields. I hate
to waste ink and paper! More about New Layouts in another tip.)
I switched to that layout by going Layout...Chair report and
printed the subset list.
I titled each subset before I printed it.
1. Go View...Page View.
2. Use Format ... Insert Header.
3. Enter the title. Fall Book Fair
4. I returned to my original layout by going
Layout...Layout 1.
5. I still had only a sub list of those who offered to help in the
Fall Book Fair.
To see all the records in the database
again: Go Organize ..
Show All Records.
Sometimes, no lots of times, people forget to Organize
.. Show All Records. When they Find again the database looks only
within the records located in the last Find. Typically, you get no
records as a result. Just a blank page. Do not panic. If you entered
the records and saved it is still there.
Go Organize...Show All Records. Now try your next Find again.
You might elect to save the subsets. Go File... Save As and name each one
appropriately. I don't do this. I find it too easy to "refind" if I
need the information. In fact, several chairpersons lost their lists
and came to me months later. They asked if I had saved a photocopy. I
told them no. (You should have seen them pale.) But I gave
them a new one in about two minutes. I could not have run the PTO
without CW/AW database.
One improvement I could have made would
have been to import the school phone directory database, rather than
enter all the personal data from scratch. Yes, I would have gotten a
lot of folks who did not volunteer. I could easily delete them from
the volunteer database. If I ever do this again, that is just what
I'll do. ;-)
When would I ever really use this?
Digital address book
Find makes it very easy to use a digital address book.
If I need Aunt Tillie's address, I go Layout... Find, type her name
in the name field and up she pops. This is much faster than scrolling
down through the list. You could also find all the family that lives
in North Carolina or in a particular zip code by entering that data
in the appropriate field in Find.
Event organization
The guidance counselor at school was having a career
day for the sixth graders. She offered multiple speakers for the
sixth graders to hear. They had to choose four from the list. She
came to me with her problem and 120 sheets of wishes. In a few
minutes, she was entering in a database and had her student/speaker
lists in no time. Thanks to database she could easily give each
teacher with a list of kids to expect for each presentation along
with a list to each student of where they were to go.
Do I have one of those?
Organize your collection of books (card catalog),
Hummels, cds, plants, baseball cards, kid's sports program, charity
event donors or quotes using database. Now you can harness Find to
locate individuals in a flash.
Book survey
For the Read Across America event at a local school, I
offered to conduct a favorite book survey. I made a database with the
fields: title, author, teacher, boy or girl & grade. About 300
kids participated. I entered the individual votes in records. I
harnessed Find to obtain the results. Using database meant I could
Find: the girls' favorite book, the 3rd grade's favorite book, the
favorite book in an individual teacher's class and the whole school's
favorite author - EASILY!
Want to share the info in your database with another computer
user?
The very last thing I would do is give a printed copy
of a database to someone. I MIGHT give them a digital copy via email
or on a floppy/cd. Save As it to DIF.
They'll be glad you did.
One caveat to remember about sharing
databases with others is - are you sure you want to give all that
info away?
Your club members might not want you to give out their
names and addresses, for example. (Never release a database with Social Security Numbers or other private
personal data without each individual's consent.)
"The mark of a well educated person is not necessarily in
knowing all the answers,
but in knowing where to find them." --Douglas Everett
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©1998 Cynthia O'Hora All rights reserved. Posted 1/1998
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