Installing WardInfo on Your Computer

Installing WardInfo on Your Computer

What You Will Need for Installation

1) A PC that has 30 or 40 Megabytes of free disk space, and is running a (relatively) modern version of Microsoft Windows.

1) Input files from your ward’s computer. See here for instructions on how to obtain these files.

2) The WardInfo program.

3) A directory (or two) on the computer that you can put all of the necessary files into.

What You Will Find Useful for Using WardInfo

1) Microsoft Excel installed on your computer.

2) Internet access if you plan to distribute it to ward leaders via email.

Unpacking WardInfo

The WardInfo program should be unpacked into a directory on your hard drive by running the program that is the distribution source in a directory you want the files to be in.

1) Create the directory C:\WardInfo

2) Copy the distribution file onto your hard drive by:

1. If the distribution is named WI-185.EDE (which allows it to be distributed via email), rename it to WI-185.EXE.

2. If the distribution is named WI-185.ZIP, copy it to the hard drive.

3) Extract the WardInfo program and support files by:

1. If a ZIP file, use one of the ZIP or similar tools, and put the files in the C:\WardInfo directory.

2. If an EXE file, run it and extract the files to the C:\WardInfo directory.

4) Read the documentation, which starts with the WardInfo.Htm file in the C:\WardInfo\Documentation directory.

Using the WardInfo Program for the First Time

The following steps are necessary to run the WardInfo program successfully, and to set up the environment that it needs. If you run these steps in this order, you should have immediate success in producing the WardInfo output files.

A note about pasting text from the web browser to the command line: Sometimes the characters shown on the screen may be different than what you really thought they were. For example, the double quote character, (“) will not paste correctly into the command line environment!

1) Unpack the WardInfo program and documentation (which presumably you’ve done since you’re reading this!) in a directory such as C:\WardInfo. Read the documentation.

2) Copy the file from the ward computer into the C:\WardInfo directory. See here for instructions on how to obtain these files. From a DOS command prompt you would type:

For MIS software:

C:\> Copy A:\Memout.Dat C:\WardInfo

C:\> Copy A:\Orgout.Dat C:\WardInfo

C:\> Copy A:\Htvtout.Dat C:\WardInfo

or for MLS software:

C:\> Copy A:\Membership.csv C:\WardInfo

C:\> Copy A:\Organization.csv C:\WardInfo

C:\> Copy A:\HomeTeaching.csv C:\WardInfo

C:\> Copy A:\VisitingTeaching.csv C:\WardInfo

3) If you want to use Excel spreadsheets to add to the information in your WardInfo files, you must create the spreadsheets. The easiest way to do this is to run the WardInfo program using the /CreateSpreadSheets option. Do this by opening a DOS window, go to the C:\WardInfo directory, and run the command. To start a DOS session, Click on the start button, then on the Run option, and type in ‘Command’ or ‘Cmd’ and press the OK button. Then from the DOS command prompt, issue the command: WardInfo.Exe /CreateSpreadSheets. For example:

C:\> C:

C:\> CD \WARDINFO

C:\> WardInfo.Exe /CreateSpreadSheets

4) This will produce the following (empty) spreadsheets:

A) ChurchLocations.Xls - ready for chapel location information.

B) Directory.Xls - ready for supplemental entries for the telephone directory listing.

C) FamilyLocations.Xls - each family, with address information, but no latitude/longitude coordinates.

D) Members.Xls - with all of your ward members in it (and some non-members) and example columns of data you might want about your ward members. Of course only basic information is filled in from the MIS program.

E) YouthTempleTrips.Xls - with all of your youth in it, ready for a date and attendance of your temple trips.

You may edit these spreadsheets to include information that you want to see in the hyperlinked text files. See here for more information on the spreadsheets.

5) If you have access to the Home and Visiting Teaching visit reports from the ward’s MIS program, copy them into the C:\WardInfo directory, and name them HTVisits.Txt and VTVisits.Txt. See here for instructions on how to obtain these files. Note that these files are not available on the MLS software.

Now run the WardInfo program by issuing the following command in the DOS window:

WardInfo.Exe /Unit=”your ward name” /mode=Bishopric /verbose=medium

You can build all 6 versions of the output, with file ready for the palm PDA (Isilo format) and PCs (html format) by using the BuildAll.Bat procedure, as explained here.

This will produce a sub-directory of the source directory (such as C:\WardInfo\Bish) which contains all files necessary to view your ward’s information.

Finally, point your favorite browser at the Index.Htm file in that directory (such as C:\WardInfo\Bish\Index.Htm) to view your ward’s information. (If this doesn’t work, there is something major wrong, and you may need to repeat the above steps and correct the causes of any errors that are reported.) Now bookmark this location so it is easy to look at next time.

Each time new information is ready to be included in the WardInfo output files, the WardInfo program must be run again with the new input available. A new set of output files are then produced which may be distributed and/or viewed.