Go to the GCFA Statistics portal website. It's the same one you used to enter church statistics in January. In fact, if you've kept your logon information for that task, the same logon will work--but not the password. (It's been reset.) Click here for the link for that website.

The Statistical Entry login page. Click on image for a larger version.

This is the page you will arrive at. (Click on the thumbnail to enlarge.) A couple things to keep in mind:

• You will have a different Username for each church.  The Username will consist of the GCFA number for each church PLUS a letter "o" for "office" or a letter "p" for "pastor."  This enables pastors and secretaries (or other officers) to log in separately.
• The first time you log on to the site, your password will be "worship"--without the quotes, of course.  Your next task will be to change the password for that Username.
• Each Username will have its own password.  To save trouble working with my two-point charge, I've used the same password for both.
• I don't usually advise this for passwords, but write these down.  There's nothing of value worth stealing should someone hack in.

You know the drill: Enter the Username and password for your church or one of your churches, and then press the button named "Login."

The page after you login. Church number and name are on the left, the link to Weekly Attendance is on the right. (Click on image to enlarge.)

Once you've made it in to this page, you need to get oriented. (If you have never logged in before, it will ask you for a new password. Don't forget, the program will ask this for each church. Then you'll log out and log back in.)

Ignore the "Statistics for the year 2009" at the top of the page.  Programmers can't be expected to get things right--that's why we had the Y2K thing, remember?  DO look, though, to make sure you've got the right church.  You will be entering statistics for this church only until you log off.  The first time I did this, I entered the data for the wrong congregation--frustrating!  If you have more than one church, you will have to log on again.  (Sorry, everyone out there who has a four-point charge!)

If you are logged in to the church for which you want to enter statistics, look on the right and click on the link marked "Weekly Attendance."

The data entry page. At last! Click on the image to enlarge.

You have finally arrived at--the holy grail--the data entry page!

A quick scan will orient you.  At the bottom of the page is the list of all the entries made for this church.  You'll see that I have one special service (Easter sunrise) and two regular Sunday services (April 4 & 11).  If no one has entered anything for this church, there will be no display.  At mid page is the area where you will put data in.  This is where you can do your work to enter date, time, attendance, the check for a special service, and any comments.

I've circled the big problem here just to call your attention to it.  The system automatically defaults to the date when you are entering data, not when the service was.  After having entered all my data for Easter (two services each for two churches), I discovered that I had entered them all for April 7--the Wednesday when I logged in--rather than April 4, Easter!  These are Windows drop boxes, should be easy to handle.  I would still prefer a calendar selector, but nobody asked me.

Remember--you have entered no data until you hit the "Add Service" button.  Once you have this service done, click on that button and the page will update to include the service you entered.

Take a moment to review what you just put in.  If it is incorrect, you cannot correct it.  But you can delete it.  Just click on the "Delete" link at the end of that row.

The top of the Reports page. Each check box on the left enables a different kind of filter. Click on the image to enlarge.

Once you have entered a few weeks' worth of data, the time will come when you want to look at your work.  The link to go look at this information is on the data entry page--look for the link on the right that says "Weekly Stats Report Page."

What you get is a long page which really only does one thing, but allows you to do it with a variety of nuances.  Turning database searches over to users actually drives programmers crazy--they're used to terms like "filters," but you may not be.  So, quick database lecture: a filter is just a way of looking at only some of the information you want to see out of the entire pile you put in. The only thing most of this long page does is let you filter out the data you want to see--it's just that you have so many options: date, special service, a particular comment, deleted entries, etc.  There are two rules:

1. The program won't filter anything out until you click the little box for that particular kind of filter.  For example, you can't filter out by dates until you click the check box before "Date Range." (Goodness! You can't even enter a date until you do that.) If you don't want any filter, uncheck all the little boxes.

2. The bottom of the Reports page. The button at left displays the data that match the filter you've chosen. The links download this to an Excel file on your computer or display a graph. Click image to enlarge.

   The program won't display any data until you go all the way down to the bottom and click on the button labeled "Refresh Data."  Then the table appears with what fits your filter. (Right now, with just a few entries, an unfiltered display will look a lot like the data entry page, but I expect that page will cut the list short once there's lots of entries.)  This also means that if you change the filter, then the display won't change until you click on the "Refresh Data" button again.

When you finally have the data you want on display, you can now do a couple of other things. If you want this displayed data in an Excel file (a spreadsheet) on your computer, click the "Download Excel" link. You will be prompted where to save what is downloaded.

A chart with just a bit of data. No controls here, but you can save the chart as an image file. Click on the thumbnail above to enlarge.

On the other hand, if you want to see the graph of your data, click the "View Chart" link. This pops up a new window, containing the chart for the data you have displayed. The graph is an image that can be saved on your computer: right-click on the chart and then select "Save image as..." When you are done with this graph, just close the browser window or tab.

When you have finished with your task, go to the very top of any of the GCFA pages. (This is, by the way, what a so-called "dashboard" really looks like.) On the right side, over the User Name is the link that says "Log Out." Click on it, and you will be returned to the Log In page that you saw when you first came to the site.