Understanding Lookup Management

What Is Lookup Management?

Lookup Management is a utility that enables organization administrators to create and manage the options that appear in drop-down lists in ParishSOFT Family Directory and Religious Education. These lists get their options from lookup tables, which are managed by the administrator and accessed from the Lookup Management page.

Organization administrators can manage only those values that are owned by their organization.

About Drop-down Lists

The primary purpose of drop-down lists is to simplify reporting and to make data entry easier. Drop-down lists limit a user's choices to a specific set of selectable options, which helps speed the entry of data into the system. In Family Directory, for example, the task of entering information into a member's census record goes much faster when users select options from a preset list instead of typing the data they want to enter. Another advantage of drop-down lists is that they help ensure that information entered into the system is correct, thereby reducing the likelihood of user error.

The Lookup Management page is where you create and manage options that appear in the drop-down lists in Family Directory and Religious Education. The entries in a drop-down list are populated by values from the lookup tables, which are accessed from the Lookup Management page.

About Lookup Tables

The illustration below shows an example of the Lookup Management page. The table groups on the left, list the lookup tables for the Family Directory. In the illustration below, Language lookup table is selected, and all of the records in the table are shown on the right.

language table.png

The add button is used to add records to a lookup table. Other toolbar tools enable you to manage those records.

The lookup table functions as a data source for a drop-down list controls the options appearing in a drop-down list. The list gets all of its options from lookup table records.

How the System Handles Lookup Records Given the Same Name by Peer Organizations

If two or more peer organizations (for example, parishes or churches) happen to assign the same name to a lookup record, a nightly merge process combines the identical records into a single record. The system assigns ownership of the record to the higher-level organization and makes the record visible to users in every organization within the higher-level organization's jurisdiction.

Roles and Permissions

User roles matter in Lookup Management as they are critical for managing access to Lookup Management and protecting changes to Family Directory lookup data. Within Lookup Management, two roles are defined: diocesan administrator and organization administrator. Each role has a defined set of capabilities with regard to viewing and modifying records in the Family Directory lookup tables.

The table below defines the requirements of each role and specifies what the user can within Lookup Management.

Role

Requirements

What This Is Allowed to Do

Diocesan Administrator

To serve in this role, the user must:

  • Have an active assignment to a diocese organization that is currently licensed for one or more ParishSOFT Family Suite modules. An active assignment is defined as one that:
  • Has a start date that is neither null nor in the future
  • Has an end date that is not in the past
  • Have the Diocesan Admin access right enabled for the active assignment to the diocese.
  • Have login privileges and access to ParishSOFT Family Suite. Therefore, these options must be enabled in the staff record:
    • Grant Login Privileges (on the Access Rights tab)
    • ParishSOFT Access (on the ParishSOFT Modules tab)

A user assigned to this role can:

  • Access all Lookup Management tables and functionality (for example, adding and merging records).
  • Control access to Family Directory lookup tables and the ability for organizations within the diocese to modify a table's lookup records.

An option visible to diocesan administrators only enables them to control access. For details, go to Change Default Lookup Table Permissions.

  • Add and edit lookup values, both those created and owned by the diocese, as well as those created and owned by all organizations within the diocese.
  • Merge lookup values, both those created and owned by the diocese and those created and owned by all organizations within the diocese. For details, go to Merge Values In Family Directory Lookup Tables.

Organization Administrator

To serve in this role, the user must:

  • Have an active assignment to a parish organization that is currently licensed for one or more ParishSOFT Family Suite modules. An active assignment is defined as one that:
  • Has a start date that is neither null nor in the future
  • Has an end date that is not in the past
  • Have the Organization Administrator access right enabled for the active assignment in the staff record.
  • Have login privileges and access to ParishSOFT Family Suite. Therefore, these options must be enabled in the staff record:
  • Grant Login Privileges (on the Access Rights tab)
  • ParishSOFT Access (on the ParishSOFT Modules tab)

A user assigned to this role can:

  • Access Family Directory lookup tables only in organizations they have access rights to.

Access rights to organizations must be explicitly granted. Rights do not cross from one organization to another unless the organization is subordinate to the organization to which the administrator is granted access.

  • If a Family Directory lookup table is not locked by the diocesan administrator, can:
  • Add and edit lookup values owned by the selected organization.
  • Merge lookup values owned by the selected organization into other values owned by the selected organization.
  • Merge lookup values owned by the selected organization into lookup values owned by the diocese.

Specific rules apply to merges of lookup values. When a rule is violated, the system displays an error message to let you know the exact nature of the problem and the way to solve it.

Updated

Was this article helpful?

0 out of 0 found this helpful

Have more questions? Submit a request

If you have an issue that requires help or feedback, please Contact Support.