Ward Photo Directory Template

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mtvandersloot-p40
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Ward Photo Directory Template

#1

Post by mtvandersloot-p40 »

I have been called to put together a ward photo directory for my bishopric here at a BYU-I Campus ward. This is a very common thing for wards here on campus because the ward membership changes so often. Unfortunately, as I have found, almost every tech who is asked to do this has to come up with a way to get it done. Almost every tech comes up with a different way after hours of experimenting (many of us ward techs really don't know what in the world we're doing when we are called :o) . Perhaps I've missed something, but it would be wonderful to have an excel template or another program which we can use to copy the member's pictures, enter the names, and have it sort alphabetically.
russellhltn
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#2

Post by russellhltn »

A couple of thoughts - one could load the photos up on the local unit website where everyone can reference it. At long as the members are comfortable with doing that. The key there might be to find someone who's a good photographer and can help model the students to get good shots of them and not just some digital mug shot. The local unit website does allow print of the directory with photos.

The other thought is that now that OpenOffice 2.x has "Base" perhaps a empty database would be the way to go. I'm assuming that it will be compatible with Access for those who have the full MS Office suite. I think Base/Access would be the way to go rather then Excel.
dshep2020
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#3

Post by dshep2020 »

Our ward is growing fast and the previous photo directories that we had put together went quickly out of date. We decided to use the ward web site at the defacto directory for members to use. We made a big push to take member photos and upload them to the church web site here in the past three months. Unfortunately, the ward web site doesn't prove to print up very well.

So...a member of our ward developed a application that scrapes the photos and member information off our ward web site and formats it into a nice printable pdf book. We print up a number of them for the elderly or those that may not have access to a color printer and distribute the a PDF version to those that want to print it out on their own.

It would be very nice if the church could provide something like this from the ward site. At the very least a little better format for printing the membership directory with photos as someone mentioned before.

Dave
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thedqs
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#4

Post by thedqs »

I had some software that I developed for use with the old DOS MLS system's export feature. It could be easily modified so that it could use the website, IF there was a way to authenticate the user and request XML versions of the ward directory. Just wondering if there is a way to do that and if not then suggest it.

This would also allow other devs to be able to release similar software, with different formatting options.
- David
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WelchTC
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#5

Post by WelchTC »

To my knowledge there is no way to do that currently but we are looking into providing web services into the data.

Tom
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thedqs
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#6

Post by thedqs »

After thinking it over and getting the idea for a program to import the vCard into Outlook, it might be useful, if the picture is placed on the vCard too, to use the vCard for Ward List creation.
- David
jmgalloway-p40
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Here's what I did

#7

Post by jmgalloway-p40 »

A few years ago I was in a college student ward, and I made a simple application in VS .NET 2002 that read names and adresses and image files from a csv file, and then created a MS Word document with them sorted. It required you to have MS Office 2000 or XP though, and of course the .NET framework. There is not too much error checking, and I didn't spend much time documenting the code well, but I thought I would post it for anyone else to download if they like. It has saved lots of time manually creating a ward list with photos.
I have the source code, and the install files for it zipped up if anyone wants to look at it. I also have an example set of files in the zip, please excuse the silly photos used in the example. :)

You can get it from my web site:
http://users.telenet.be/galloway/
or here is the link directly:
http://users.telenet.be/galloway/Download/WardList.zip
mtvandersloot-p40
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#8

Post by mtvandersloot-p40 »

It looks like this program would be perfect! Can anyone tell me how to create a .csv file?
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greenwoodkl
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#9

Post by greenwoodkl »

In MLS - File > Export
chuck_jameswyo-p40
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.csv files

#10

Post by chuck_jameswyo-p40 »

can someone tell me how to export from MLS to my Palm.

I tried exporting today and got a .csv file. However, when I try to install/sync with my palm, I received an error msg saying that there was no application on my palm to read the file. I currently have; Documents-to-go, Mobipocket and of course Contacts on my Palm

The only instructions I found on the Training CD was how to export but found nothing else.

Chuck James
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