Cecily, Bear in mind, in all your questions, that member level on the Home screen is based on dues payments only. Note that the Level field is calculated for all payments entered (check it out for payments marked contribution - the Level calculation is based on the field <<Amount>>, which exists for _all_ payments entered), but the DUES relationship somehow restricts the use of anything but Dues payments in the MBR Level fast find field in the Names file. (I haven't figured out just how this works yet...)
Now, you should typically enter only one dues payment per year (that's a membership management issue), and if someone gives a $25 dues payment but a $250 additional contribution each year, their "member level" will be based on the $25 contribution. You could change the lookup and calculation for "member level" to reflect either the biggest contribution in any one fiscal year or to the total of all contributions for the year, but that would take some customization work. You can change the format of the Level field (using Layout mode in FMP) to allow entry into the field. Beware, though, that the Level field is not defined as "prohibit modification" so anyone entering data could mess with the values. Your odd variations on the "Member Level" field have to do with changes made in that field over time. Payments entered under old member levels (e.g. the "factory" settings under the setup wizard) will remain as those levels unless manually updated using the Update Level button. As you note, this allows only updating single records at a time. I suspect you could create a new script to update the level for a found set, but haven't really looked into what that would entail. If I get around to it, I'd be happy to share it with the list... As for the sort problem, I think you've got the gist of the problem. As Dave mentions, it is done via ASCII alpha numerics. Thus, sorts start with the first character, sort accordingly (e.g. numbers before letters), then sub-sort on the second character in the same way, etc. If you have two categories for $25-49.99 and $25.00-49.99, these will be sorted based on the fourth character (dash in one case, period/decimal point in the other). To take care of this problem, I name my payment categories in the Setup Wizard as: 1. Student/Senior 2. Individual/Family 3. Partner 4. Steward Etc. Once you have the system set up properly, you shouldn't have a problem with this confusing reporting mess after a year or so (as all future payments will be based on this logically sorted scheme). In the interim, the Update Level option is the only way to go. Here's an off the cuff idea for perhaps an easier fix to updating the Level field. Backup your database first in case things get messed up. Clean up your Setup Wizard payment levels. Then, go into the payments file and go into Layout mode. Select the Level field and select Field Format. Make sure it is set to a pop-up field using Member Level List AND is set to "allow entry into field." Now, still in the payments file, go into File->Define->Value Lists. Select the Member Level List and make sure it is set to "Use values from" and specify the Setup file and the LevelsList field. This will give you a pop-up list of the level codes you've set in the setup wizard any time you enter the Level field. Now, carefully execute queries on that field to find specific sets of payments. Be sure to omit payments you don't want to change (for instance, if you had old levels that don't correspond to current levels, you may not want to update them b/c you don't want to call an old "Steward" payment a "Partner" payment). Now, with this found set, do a FMP replace with the proper value from the value list, and those payments should all be updated. Repeat for all the levels you want to change. You'll be updating specific payment entries. When done, I'd recommend setting the Level field back to not allowing entry. HTH, Carl -- Carl Paulsen New Hampshire Rivers Council 54 Portsmouth Street Concord, NH 03301 603-228-6472 603-228-0423 Fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------ Reminder to each recipient: To change your list account preferences, go to http://email.sparklist.com/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=support and enter the email address you used to subscribe to the ebase support list:: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ebase - Relationship Management for Nonprofits, http://www.ebase.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------
