Transition Checklist for the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux

To Be Completed by the Parish Prior to Transition:

Family Directory Module:

1. Notify your Diocese about any known duplicate families.
2. Make sure all ParishSOFT Desktop users have a named Staff Member Record in your database with login credentials, and both a Family and a Member record in your parish database for that staff member.
   • This is required for the staff record to be displayed in the new ParishSOFT Family Suite platform. 
     • Passwords must be at least 8 characters long and contain two numbers.
     • Pass will no longer be a valid password.
3. Member/Family pictures do not migrate over to ParishSOFT Family Suite. You will have to re-import once on the new system.
4. Please record the following counts from desktop prior to transition. They will be used for post-transition review in ParishSOFT Family Suite: 

Family Directory Counts

“Registered” Families
“Both” Families
“Both” Families in the “Active” Family Group
Families/Members to Receive Envelopes
“Do Not Send Mail” Families
Family Workgroups

Offering & Pledges Counts

Funds – must have fund access to view funds
Pledge Totals

Offering and Pledges:

ParishSOFT recommends that you close all Batches in the Offering module before transition.  If you are unable to do so, you will have the opportunity to mass close the open batches once in ParishSOFT Family Suite.

1. Hidden batches will not display in ParishSOFT Family Suite. You must unhide these batches prior to transition.
2. Review and update Fund Numbers, ParishSOFT Family Suite only allows numbers and dashes.
   • For example: 123.4  or 123/4 will not transition, acceptable format is 123-4.
3. Review and update Fund Descriptions, ParishSOFT Family Suite only allows letters, numbers and dashes.

Religious Education Module:

There is no work to be done on your part in preparation for the transition of Religious Education data.

 NOTE: The following fields do not transition to ParishSOFT Family Suite

1. Student Records-fields
   • Attendance records
   • Knowledge
   • Attitude
   • Grade Pt.
   • Promote
2. Milestones

Tuition Module:

Tuition data does not transition from the desktop application.  If you plan on using Tuition in ParishSOFT Family Suite you will need to set up that module and start fresh following your transition.  To help with this process we recommend you print out any open invoices from the Desktop.  Additionally, you may want to run a Full List Tuition Report for each year you have recorded Tuition in the Desktop.  Please refer to pages 166-170 in your Religious Education User Guide for instructions.

Time & Talent Module:

Print/Save a copy of at least three months of your schedules before the transition, so the person doing the scheduling has time to learn to use the new system. 

NOTE:  Time & Talent Schedules, Exception Dates and Time Served Counts do not transition from the desktop.

Parish IQ and Custom Reports:

Parish IQ queries and Custom Reports do not transfer into ParishSOFT Family Suite.  You will need to recreate any queries you wish to use in ParishSOFT Family Suite IQ.  Print out each of your desktop Parish IQ queries so you can easily rebuild them in ParishSOFT Family Suite IQ with the same columns and conditions.  Custom reports should be printed out if you plan to recreate those using ParishSOFT IQ and Mail Merge functions. 

To Be Completed by ParishSOFT During Transition of Data to ParishSOFT:

Family Directory:

1. We will verify you do not have any duplicate envelope numbers assigned (the same number associated to multiple families/members). Any envelope numbers that are duplicated will NOT be moved into ParishSOFT. We will remove the duplicated envelope numbers from all records involved. You will receive a report of these envelopes to reassign to the correct family/member post-transition.
2. The transition tool will replace any data that contains a "/", with a "-".  For example,
3. The Last Name of Doe/Smith would be changed to Doe-Smith.  
4. We will verify that all records have a valid Family Group associated with them. All records without a valid Family Group will be set to Inactive in ParishSOFT Family Suite.
5. We will insert the parent name link in the child’s record. Note this overwrites any Mother or Father text entered manually.

Offering and Pledges:

If you have posted contributions through the Desktop Offering module that should be applied to a Pledge, we will run a script as a part of the transition process that will ensure the link between contributions and pledges is correctly established.

Religious Education:

1. If you have any incomplete Religious Education information, ParishSOFT will populate it using the following guidelines:
   • Add missing session start/end dates and times – the start dates will default to 7/1/xxxx to 6/30/xxxx, the following year.
   • Ensure sessions end on or after their start date/ time
   • Ensure sessions for a school year have a start date of that school year and an end date of the following year are contained within the corresponding school year.
     • For an example: as session in school year 2017 that has a start date of 6/2/2017 and an end date of 6/28/2017, the end date will be updated to 1/1/2018.  This will ensure you will see your sessions grouped as in desktop.
2.  ParishSOFT will migrate your Religious Education data into ParishSOFT Family Suite using the default settings listed below:
   •  Grades
     • Map one to one (2=>2, K=>K, etc…)
   • Catechists
     • Catechist 1 =>Catechist
       • Catechist 2 =>Assistant Catechist
       • Catechist 3 =>Assistant Catechist
   • Rooms
     • ParishSOFT does not set up rooms in the default migration. The user can set up new rooms in ParishSOFT following the completion of the transition.

 If desired, you may reset the Religious Education Migration done by ParishSOFT in your transition and migrate the data again yourself using the migration tool.  NOTE: If you added new Religious Education data in ParishSOFT Family Suite and then reset, you will lose the information you added.  Use the link below to view the video in the link below before using the migration tool.

Religious Education Migration Tool Video

Ministry Scheduler Module:

1. We will ensure that ALL Ministry Groups have an Event associated to them. If no event it present, we will create an event of ‘N/A’ for you as a part of the transition.
2. We will verify that ALL Ministers are associated with a ministry and event. If there are any ministers not associated with a ministry and/or event, we will provide a list to you post-transition so you can update them accordingly in ParishSOFT Ministry Scheduler.

To Be Completed by the Parish After Transition:

ParishSOFT will provide you a transition report post-transition with counts comparing your Desktop data to the data transitioned to ParishSOFT Family Suite.  Please review the counts and validate they represent your expected values.

You may also use our Data Validation Checklist and Video Validation links below to assist you with your validation.  

Data Validation Checklist
Data Validation Video

Parish IQ and Custom Reports:

Parish IQ queries and Custom Reports do not transfer into ParishSOFT Family Suite.  You will need to recreate any Parish IQ queries and Custom Reports using the ParishSOFT Family Suite IQ tool.

SYNCHRONIZING PARISHES ONLY

Compare a few Family records in your Desktop database that are Registered to another parish to the same records in ParishSOFT Family Suite to verify the data is consistent between the two systems.

3767 Ranchero Drive, Suite 100 | Ann Arbor, MI 48108 | Toll-Free 866.930.4774 | Fax 734.205.1011
www.parishsoft.com

April 17, 2023 17:51