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We are a church diocese (a geographical grouping of churches) overseeing 45 church congregations and about 120 individual ordained clergy personnel and a similar number of individual lay church leaders within the 45 churches.


We have created three bases representing the three areas of data management: 1) The Office of the Bishop or Diocese is the top level 2) the second base is Churches where all 45 congregations information is managed and 3) Clergy.where we track the 120+ individual clergy personnel. All of those three bases were created from Excel spreadsheets where we once tracked this information.


We need someone who can help us to:




  1. Manage the three bases and link data within the bases to eliminate duplication of effort when records are updated. For example, an individual clergy person updates his/her record in the Clergy base, but he/she is also attached to one of the 45 churches in the Church base and he/she may also serve on one of several committees operating in the Diocese base.




  2. Moving records from one base to another without loosing other linked relationships. Example: we have a table set up where we track individuals in the ordination training process (OPT). Once they have been ordained by the Bishop, they need to move from the OPT table to the table where all of the other ordained clergy data is maintained. What complicated this beyond just copy and paste is that much of the data collected in the OPT table does not need to move…it can stay in the table for future reference if needed.




3.How to send forms with existing data to existing church/congregations and clergy to be updated periodically. We have seen how to create forms, but we need to have the individual churches and clergy update their own information periodically. We want to be able to send them a form with the current data already filled in and ask them to review and update any fields that need to be changed.


We are willing to pay a reasonable amount to help us optimize our existing bases and/or advise us if there may be a better way to organize our data to accomplish what we are trying to do.


Please contact me at:

Harris G. Willman

Administrator

Gulf Atlantic Diocese

4815-200 Executive Park Ct. Ste. 201

Jacksonville, FL 32216

Phone: (904) 465-7901

Email:HWillman@GulfAtlanticDiocese.org

Website: http://www.GulfAtlanticDiocese.org/

Hi Harris, here are some thoughts for you:


1 & 2) Unfortunately you can’t link between bases, so you’ll need to copy over data. You can either do copy&paste, or use an automation platform externally to do that. If you are OK with copy paste, but like you mentioned in #2 you have extra data in 1 table that you don’t want to copy over to the other table in another base, you can create a view of the first table that has just the fields you want to copy over then do a copy/past from that limited view.



  1. In order to prepopulate the form fields, here is the documentation on that: https://support.airtable.com/hc/en-us/articles/234982508-Prefilling-a-form


(use prefill_ in your url). You could create custom links by using a Formula in your table that contains all the existing information in a record to create this unique url that you then send out to your clergy. The issue is that form will not be able to update an existing row, just create a new row in a table that you would then need to copy over to update.


If you want a more sophisticated and automated approach, feel free to ping me at dan@openside.com and we can talk more.


Good luck!

Hi Harris,


This is something that is well within my area of expertise and I would be glad to help you out.

I just sent you an email


Best Wishes,

Andrew

andrewjohnson56782@gmail.com

Hi Harris, here are some thoughts for you:


1 & 2) Unfortunately you can’t link between bases, so you’ll need to copy over data. You can either do copy&paste, or use an automation platform externally to do that. If you are OK with copy paste, but like you mentioned in #2 you have extra data in 1 table that you don’t want to copy over to the other table in another base, you can create a view of the first table that has just the fields you want to copy over then do a copy/past from that limited view.



  1. In order to prepopulate the form fields, here is the documentation on that: https://support.airtable.com/hc/en-us/articles/234982508-Prefilling-a-form


(use prefill_ in your url). You could create custom links by using a Formula in your table that contains all the existing information in a record to create this unique url that you then send out to your clergy. The issue is that form will not be able to update an existing row, just create a new row in a table that you would then need to copy over to update.


If you want a more sophisticated and automated approach, feel free to ping me at dan@openside.com and we can talk more.


Good luck!


Hi Dan,


Yes, I would like to speak to you about your recommendations for our situation. Sorry for the delayed response, our grandchildren are with us this week and it has been a little hectic. Please call me when it is convenient for you.


Harris G. Willman


Administrator


Gulf Atlantic Diocese


4815 Executive Park Ct.


Bldg. 200 Suite. 201


Jacksonville, FL 32216


Phone: (904) 465-7901


Email:HWillman@GulfAtlanticDiocese.org


Website: http://www.GulfAtlanticDiocese.org/

Hi Harris,


This is something that is well within my area of expertise and I would be glad to help you out.

I just sent you an email


Best Wishes,

Andrew

andrewjohnson56782@gmail.com


Hi Andrew,


I would like to speak to you about your recommendations for our situation. Sorry for the delayed response, our grandchildren are with us this week and it has been a little hectic. Please call me when it is convenient for you.


Harris G. Willman


Administrator


Gulf Atlantic Diocese


4815 Executive Park Ct.


Bldg. 200 Suite. 201


Jacksonville, FL 32216


Phone: (904) 465-7901


Email:HWillman@GulfAtlanticDiocese.org


Website: http://www.GulfAtlanticDiocese.org/

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