The Compugene Membership System allows you to tailor supplied templates for notification letters, IRS deduction substantiation letters, many other supplied forms, and also any of your own form letters that you create to your specifications. 

You can view and edit these templates using the Main Window menu item Actions|Edit system templates.  Selecting this menu option opens and displays all existing template names in a drop-down box. Click the arrow on the box and scroll to the name of the template you want to view/edit and left-click to display the selected template.

The displayed template is displayed in color-coded text: valid symbolics are blue, text to be printed-as-displayed is black, column positioning commands are light blue, directives are orange, and invalid symbolics are magenta. 

You can edit and save your changes via this window. To save changes, click the File menu option and select Save. 
To create a new template, click the File menu option and select Add New Template.

Within the templates, you can use system Symbolic values (click for further information about Symbolic values)  which, at run time, will get replaced by the values they represent. All symbolic values start with the & symbol and end with the & symbol.

Programming note: all templates are stored in file CMS.TXT - this file must reside in the same folder as your other CMS. files (such as cms.exe). You receive pre-built system templates automatically when you install the system and you can add your own templates after you install the system. Both system and user templates are available for modification. 

Note: templates whose names begin with the characters "lab" are templates used for printing labels. There is a maximum of 20 lines permitted in such a template.

Templates that come with the system

Templates that you receive with the system are as follows:

notify	Text to be sent to notify member(s) of yahrzeit(s)
irsyear	Text to be sent to list the past year's contributions which are greater than or equal to the IRS tax  substantiation amount value (as specified on the Miscellaneous Fees window).
irsletter	Text used to produce a tax substantiation statement for a single donation
receipt	Text of receipt when a member pays for an item.
postnet	Form for USPS post-net bar-coding
statement	This template is used to add additional data to print at the end of member and non-member statements. For example, you can put the image of the signature of your financial secretary here, other notes, greetings, announcements, etc
statementrr	This template is used to specify additional data to print at the end of round-robin statements.
roundrobin	Form to be printed as a 'scroll' text to send with round-robin item. Can be used to display the recipient and sender(s) of the item to be delivered. (see Round Robin)
roundrobinnonp	Similar to the roundrobin template, but applies to those members that are non-participants; that is,  they have not opted to send any gifts to any other members, but they appear on other members  lists and will be receiving round robin items..
rrmemberlist	Contains user lines that you want to be printed after the heading but before the column names on a member listing where the "For Mishloach Manot" option box is checked  (Version 4.2.29). This would be the listing that would be sent to members so that they can choose who they want to give to in your Round Robin.

The following column-setting templates are used to set your desired column settings for various reports. You must code the parameters as displayed, otherwise the standard default column settings will be used. The amount coded between the () symbols is the number of inches to the left of the margin that the field will begin. If you use negative numbers, it means the printed values will be right-justified with the right-most character located at the location specified as the negative number. For example, date(1.3) means the date field will begin at 1.3 inches from the left margin. Specifying charge(-2.1) would display the charge field with the values right-justified and ending at location 2.1 inches from the left margin.

colsked	template for column headings for the scheduling report	date()	facility()	reserved()	function()
colstate	template for column headings for the billing statement	date()	desc()	charge()	credit()	balance()
colnotify	template for column headings for notify report	familyname()	whofor()	relationname()	relationtype()	hebrewday()
colcharity	template for column headings for charity report	date()	amount()	donor()
colassess	template for column headings for assessment report	reason()	idnum()	date()	amount()	count()	voids()
colacctpay	template for column headings for the accounts payable report	payee()	amount()	date()	reason()	invoice()
coldeposit	template for column headings for the deposits report	amount()	date()	name()	checkno()

User Templates

In addition to the above System Templates, you can create your own usertemplates containing any text and Symbolics that are available by following the template formatting rules, as detailed below. To create a new template, choose the Main Window Actions menu option and click Edit System Templates;  and select the File menu choice and then the Add New Template menu option. You then enter the name of the new template and enter the template contents; you are free to use any valid Symbolics. When done entering the template, click the File  menu option and select the Save option. To invoke user templates, use the User form option of the Reports menu option from the Main Window or the Accounts Receivable Window. You will be prompted to select your template name and the range of members you want to include in your report. You can also choose to produce one single report for all names selected or individual reports for each name selected.
Note: when creating a template that will be used to print or display labels, ensure that the first 3 letters of the template name are  'lab', such as:
labtest1. ( Note: there is a maximum limit of 5 lines per label, so your label template should contain no more than 5 lines.)

Template Formatting Rules

Templates must be formatted according to the following rules:

There are 3 types of records in a template file; they are identified by the contents of the first column(s) of the record:

Type 1) /*indicates a comment card; the rest of the record is ignored

Type 2) @ indicates this record contains field displacement(s) for various fields of a report.
The format is (blanks are optional): @ fieldname1(inches) fieldname2(inches)
Templates supplied for field displacements have names beginning with: col (see list of templates above)

Type 3) A record beginning with any other characters or directives (see below for a description of available directives) indicates that the record contains text and/or symbolic variables that will be replaced by text at run time. Symbolic variables begin with &ew and end with &. At run time, the text will be displayed as indicated and the symbolics will be changed to their value at the time of the run See Symbolics for a list of valid symbolics and their values.

For example, a template record that is coded as:

Welcome &ewahfirst& to our institution!

will have &ewahfirst& changed to the man's first name of whichever member we are processing; so, if the member man's first name is Larry, the line for that member will be previewed/printed as:

Welcome Larry to our institution!

Please see below for a full template example and explanation.

Directives

Directive values provide special information to tell the system how to handle the display and printing of your template. Since the following directive values are delimited using the < > and [ ] characters, those characters should not be used anywhere else in your template except to delimit directives; if they are used for anything other than a directive, it is likely you will get an error message and your template will not produce the results expected.

Directive values permitted on template records are:

<inches>  numeric value indicates location in inches from left of page to begin the text following this directive; if negative value, indicates the text data printed should be right-justified, thus ending at the numeric value indicated, rather than beginning at the numeric value indicated. Special values are:
<100> means center the data following on the line.

<H>  identifies a header record which is to be printed at the top of each page of the report. A maximum of 10 header records can be specified.

<T>  identifies a trailer record which can be used to print totals at the end of user reports. Unlike Header (<H>) records, trailer records print just one time, after all data has been printed or after all individual reports have been completed. A maximum of 10 trailer records can be specified.

<Sx>  identifies a Line skip indicator, where x is the number of lines to skip

[imagefilename]  means place the .bmp-format image located in the specified imagefilename on the output line at this location; this can be used to place signatures or other graphics items on a document. Imagefilename must be a complete path/filename designation. Example: [c:\folder1\filename1.bmp]

[logo x=xx y=yy]  indicates that you want to display your logo, as set via the Options window/Formatting tab, at the x/y location (in inches) on the document as indicated. The x location is the number of inches from the left margin and the y location is the number of inches from the top margin. You can place the logo multiple times on the same document by specifying the [logo] directive multiple times in your template.
Note: for the statement template, if you have your own printable items to be produced after the statement, such as a signature line or officer name and you also want a logo to display elsewhere, code the other items first and place the [logo] directive as the last item in your statement template even if the logo will be printed ahead of the other items.

[heading fn=ffff fs=ssss x=xx y=yy]  indicates that you want to display your organization's name and address. If x is specified, it represents the left-margin in inches of all lines printed; if not specified or is zero, all lines will be centered from left margin. If y is specified, it represents the inches from the top of the page to start printing the first line. If not specified or is zero, the first line will print at the topmost line of the page. The fn value allows you to specify the font name of the heading and the fs value is the font size to be used for the heading. The defaults are to use the existing font name and font size at the time the [heading] directive is encountered.

{c &ewxxxx& x value}  where &ewxxxx& is a symbolic, x is a comparison, such as <, >, or = and value is a value such that, if &ewxxxx& compared to the value using the comparison operation is true, then print the line containing the directive, else don't print the line.

Note: all inch specifications, as in (inches) for column heading templates and the <inches> directive, imply left justification at that location (the leftmost character of the string will be placed starting at that location). To force right justification, such as you might want for numeric fields, specify the number of inches as a negative quantity. Example: (-4.5) means right-align the data value at 4.5 inches – the rightmost character of the data value will be placed at 4.5 inches from the left margin.)

Special Directives for rrmemberlist template:

The following directives are special and apply only to the rrmemberlist template to enable you to format the list of members that you will produce to send to your membership so that they can choose the members they want to give to for your Round Robin:

<E>   data following this directive will be placed immediately after the member names in the list followed by one blank space; for example, if you want to say Lastname, Manfirst & Ladyfirst & family for each name in the list, specify <E>& family  as a directive in the rrmemberlist template.

<B>  data following this directive will be in bold type

<I>  data following this directive will be in italic type

<U>  data following this directive will be underlined.

<>In addition, you can mix B/I/U together, such as <BI> which will display text as bold and italicized and you can also use these values following the H (header) directive, for example: <HB>Header  which will display your Header in bold at the top of each page except the first page.
You can also mix the inches directive (see above) with the other directives, so that   <B 1.2>text   would mean display the text in bold type beginning 1.2 inches from the left margin of the page.

<*>  this directive will display a square check box that you can use to have users check off if they want reciprocation or if they want to give to all other members; example: <B 2>Do you want to give to all members? <*>     will display in bold, 2 inches from left margin of page and will display a box after the sentence.

Template Example:

(Note: line numbers to the left are for reference purposes only and do not appear in the actual template file CMS.TXT)




1  <H><100>Balance Forward Paid Report &ewcurdate&  &ewcurtime&

2  <H>    

3  <H><.3>Name<2.5>Bal Forward Amount Paid

4  <H>   

5  <0>&ewcol1& <.3>&ewcol2& <2.5>&ewbalfwdpayz&<5>&ewgrid2balfwd&

6  <2.8>&ewgrid2bfpaid&

7  <S2>

8  <T><S5> 

9  <T><.3>Total<2.5>&ewbalfwdtotal&



Explanation of template example:

Line 1: The <H> indicates this is a heading record and <100> means it will be centered on the line. The text following is the header data that will print as displayed, followed by 2 symbolics; the first symbolic, &ewcurdate& will resolve to the current date at the time the report is run and the second symbolic, &ewcurtime&, will resolve to the current time at the time the report is run.

Line 2: The <H> indicates the start of a new header line and the absence of any data following it means it is to be a blank header line.

Line 3: The <H> indicates the start of a new header line; the <.3>Name means place the word “Name” at 3/10 of an inch from the left margin of the page; the <2.5>Bal Forward Amount Paid means place those words at 2 and ½ inches to the left margin of the page on the same line as the word “Name”.

Line 4: same as line 3

Line 5: <0> indicates the start of a new line and the data is to start at the left margin of the page; &ewcol1& will resolve to the contents of Accounts Receivable window column 1 (the member number); <.3> indicates start the following field at 3/10 of an inch from left margin of the page; &ewcol2& will resolve to the contents of Accounts Receivable window column 3 (the member name); <2.5> indicates start the following field at 2 and ½ inches from the left margin of the page; &ewbalfwdpayz& will resolve to a non-zero balance forward paid amount for this member at report time; <5> indicates start the following field at 5 inches from the left margin of the page; &ewgrid2balfwd& will resolve to individual balance forward amounts incurred for this member at report time.

Line 6: <2.8> indicates start the following field on a new line at 2.8 inches from the left margin of the page;
&ewgrid2bfpaid& will resolve to individual balance forward amounts paid for this member at report time.

Line 7: <S2> indicates to skip 2 lines.

Line 8: <T> indicates a new line that is to be a trailer line; <S5> indicates skip 5 lines.

Line 9: <T> indicates the start of a new trailer record; <.3>Total indicates to put the word “Total” at .3 inches from the left margin of the page; <2.5>&ewbalfwdtotal& indicates to put the resolved value for the balance forward total amount paid at 2.5 inches from the left margin of the page.


End of template example

See the Symbolics topic to view a list of the available symbolic names that can be used in templates.


User Reports Record Selection
You can select which Member/Non-member records you want your forms to be previewed/printed for in several different ways. One way is to use the "Select by Name" option on the user report window which will allow you to select which members or non-members your report should be produced for. To do this, click the Select by Name check box and a Select window containing a drop-down list box will appear. To select a name, scroll to the name, click on it, and press the OK button. Do this for all names to be selected and then press the Done button. In addition, you can use the Lists option of the Action menu choice on the Accounts Receivable window or the Non-members window. Below the Lists options are two options, Build and Display. When Build is clicked, the check mark will turn on and from this point on, anytime you click on any row of the displayed window, the id of that row will be placed in a list. When you want to print templates for just the names in this list, follow directions as above and press the Done button on the Select window. You can also add additional selections to the already created list via the Select window. A name will be entered in the list only once and there are separate lists for the Member window and the Non-member window. If you click the Lists|Display option, you will get a preview listing of all names you have selected. If you click Lists|Build while Build is checked, Build will become unchecked, and the lists will be cleared and able to be re-used.