Up early, having coffee, "thoughts cross my mind..." Like:

• Spirit Fest:Saw Bob Bliss in the parking lot yesterday. Flagged him down. Reminded him to remind me to do the S.F. budget, "because I get so focused on We fest it becomes sort of a back burner thing." Later, I got to thinking about how he does HIS "bible," and how it MIGHT not take too much to set up a simple database in Excel that we could use to at least print out the individual time sheets (I keep thinking of Barb standing at the counter, writing people's names, jobs, shifts, etc., on that endless stack of green sheets... We should see about computerizing that part of the process - like we did with the We fest sheets last year: Quick Books export to an Excel file; a mail merge to a Word file set up to print the time sheet form... I'm not saying Excel could be set up to manage the entire "bible" (that's more of a job for a real database like Access), but we should at least try to set something up print those time sheets. Judging from what I remember of Barb doing that job, it would save something like 3 or 4 days of work...

  What is the Spirit Fest hiring/volunteer information input process?

  Is each volunteer's info put into Quickbooks (like We fest) or is it just a big "batch thing" wherein the sponsoring church is credited with a total of hours, etc.?

  (Note: If we haven't already talked about this and gotten it down on paper, please click the "Contribute an answer" button below and describe as much as you know about that volunteer info input process.)

  Point here being that once we "define the manual process," we could think about to what extent and how best to automate it... The trick would be to get a "form" set up (in Excel or Quick Books?), and get it on the computer of whoever it is that's taking the volunteer names and giving them work assignments...

  I'm thinking of what LOOKED like the process last year: (I think)Bob contacted the volunteer coordinators at the churches; they'd get back to him with a list of names; he wrote them down in pencil in his "bible"; he gave that to us, along with that stack of green sheets; Barb wrote the names, areas, shifts, etc. on those sheets; and (if they DID go into Quick Books - or even just the chruch info), Beth or Barb probably entered (dealt with, spent more time on) some or all of that info one more time...

  The trick is to "capture" it that FIRST time: If that Excel or QB form had been set up, and Bob had a copy of it running on his computer, he could have just typed the info into the form instead of jotting it down on his "bible," and the software could've taken care of most or all of the rest...

  And with just a little more thought, huddling, and experimenting, it MIGHT be possible to get Quick Books, Excel and Word in sync enough to print out a fresh "bible" (for both S.F. and We fest) every day, or anytime a new listing was needed... MAYBE... Don't know... We'll have to see.

• 
  
  -- Anonymous, May 31, 2002

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