Workshop^TM

 Leadership Conference Workshop Organization Tool

Introduction

&

User Guide

  September 3, 2004

Wes Bruning

© 2003-2005. Wes Bruning, All rights reserved.

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Licensed Users: Download Latest Version here
(The latest version contains only the user interface file and the latest User's Guide. To obtain files necessary to run Workshop,
contact Wes Bruning)

 Index

Introduction.

Definitions.

Session Information.

Facility Definition.

Leader Information

Workshop Information.

Create Workshop Sessions.

Assign Workshops to Rooms.

Preview Brochure.

Checks and Reports.

Futures.

Order Workshop

Introduction (return to index)

Workshop^TM is an MS Access database designed to facilitate the organization and information distribution of Awana Leadership Conferences.

Workshop is intended to greatly facilitate the assigning of workshops to conference rooms for the conference and to automatically generate the conference brochure listing sessions, workshops and room locations. Workshop produces production ready documents for the conference brochure.

Workshop provides …

1.            Organizing up to 5 different conferences;

2.            Unlimited number and types of conference sessions;

3.            Unlimited number of workshops which are entered once and available for each conference;

4.            Assigning workshops to workshop leaders;

5.            Identifying attributes for each facility's conference rooms (i.e. whether the room has light controls, a projector, screen, podium, tables, etc.);

6.            Notes (with photographs) to restore the room to its original condition during cleanup after the conference;

7.            Automatic generation of conference brochure pages: Conference Schedule, Conference Workshop Leaders, Conference Session Workshop pages;

8.            Checks to prevent overbooking of workshop rooms and workshop leaders;

9.            Pick lists of workshops available for each room for each session;

10.        Automatic generation of mail labels for workshop leaders – for all conferences or for specific conferences;

11.        Notes for workshop setup;

12.        A report of leaders with workshops.

13.        Track church registration  New

Workshop is a user-button navigated program designed for the average computer user. No special computer knowledge is required beyond basic Windows navigation and file copying operations.

Workshop User Guide

Workshop is designed to map into the Conference development methodology.

That is, Workshop's steps correspond with the phases of Conference organization process:

1. Define conference structure;

2. Identify leaders and workshops;

3. Select facilities for the conference;

4. Survey the rooms for appropriate attributes;

5. Assign workshops to appropriate rooms. 

Home Page

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This is an iterative process to ensure workshop/room compatibility and that neither rooms nor workshop leaders are overbooked.

Upon completion of the assignments, the conference brochure is developed and published. Workshop outputs camera-ready artwork for the brochure. The report may be output to MS Word for further editing if desired.

At the end of the conference, facility clean-up requires rooms to be restored to their original condition. Workshop facilitates this process by providing clean-up crews with descriptions and photographs of the room in it's pre-conference setup.

This User's Guide steps the user through the steps outlined above and identifies operational techniques to facilitate the process.

Definitions (return to index)

The following definitions are used in this manual:

·        Facility – The building where the conference will be held. This is typically a church. Workshop provides for up to 5 different facilities and, hence 5 different conferences.

·        Rooms – Rooms are physical space/areas within a facility where workshops are held. Each room must be named a unique name. The room's name may be any combination of alphanumeric characters. Typically rooms include the foyer/lobby of the facility, the sanctuary or meeting area, Sunday School rooms, etc. They may include outdoor areas as well. A room is assigned attributes describing its size (either measured dimensions or head-count capacity) as well as its features and equipment.

·        Session – A conference is divided into time-slots referred to as sessions. Typical sessions include: registration, general assembly, workshop 1, workshop 2, etc., lunch, general assembly 2, etc. Each session must have a unique name. There is no limit to the number of sessions. The Conference brochure lists the sessions with accompanying workshops.

·        Workshops – Workshops are small groups of conference attendees and one leader. Workshops are assigned to a room and have one leader.  Workshops are listed in the Conference brochure grouped by the session to which they have been assigned. The Conference brochure also identifies the audience for which the workshop is most appropriate. In the Conference brochure, a Workshop can be identified as "Very Important" which means that at least one representative from each club is encouraged to attend this workshop.

·        Leader – There is one leader per workshop. Leaders are listed in the Conference brochure along with their workshop. Leaders are defined independent of workshops. Leaders are then assigned to a workshop. Leaders may be assigned to multiple workshops.

·        Audience – These are the Conference attendees. A Workshop may be targeted for a specific set of attendees.

Session Information (return to index)

The overall conference is defined in terms of sessions. There can be any number of sessions. Sessions can include: Registration, General Assembly, Workshops and Lunch. Sessions can be named virtually anything, however, each session must have a unique name. For example, Workshop I, Workshop II, Workshop III, etc., General Assembly 1, General Assembly 2.

Sessions are numbered. The sessions are put in order according to their Workshop/Session number (left side of the screen).

Session times are identified as well as an optional short description for each session. This information will be included in the Conference Brochure.

Defining Conference Sessions

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Sessions may be deleted; new sessions may be added.

Facility Definition (return to index)

Facilities are identified by their name. The screen provides fields for address, contact and phone numbers.

Rooms are identified and named within each facility. Each room's attributes are identified:

·        electrical power

·        table

Defining the Facility

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·        exterior windows

·        whiteboard

·        window shades

·        projector

·        podium

·        screen.

·        light control (i.e. can the room ambient light be dimmed)

Room attributes are noted with a check in a check box. The room's attributes are available during workshop assignment.

Notes can be added regarding each room. The notes are available during workshop assignment.

A room's size or maximum capacity (number of people) can be added.

Pre-conference photographs and notes can be added to each room to facilitate post-conference room restoration. These notes and photographs can be printed (one page per room) and distributed to the clean-up detail.

Leader Information

Conference leader information is entered:

Leader information is not conference specific. That is, all leaders are available for all conferences. Hence, leader information is only added once and used as often as needed.

Church/ministry data need be entered only once. Click a [new] "Update Church List" button at the bottom of the screen and Workshop updates a pick list from all existing Church/ministry entries.

TACO USERS

Import your counselors from Scholarship Camp directly into your leader's table. Many camp counselors and staff participate in your conference. Click a [new] button at the bottom of the screen and Workshop automatically imports all counselors from both Camp 1 and Camp 2 to your leader's list.

Workshop Information (return to index)

Workshops are defined separate from leaders. Leaders are then assigned to the workshop using a pick list. In this way workshop leaders may be easily changed. However, only one leader may be assigned to a workshop. If multiple leaders present the same workshop, the workshop must be entered multiple times each with a specific leader. The leader name is listed in the workshop pick list when assigning workshops to a room for a specific conference. (See Assign Workshops to Rooms, below).

Workshop attributes are defined with a check in a check box.

Workshop attributes are divided into three categories:

·        Audience: Pastor, Commander, Secretary, Directors, Game Director, New Leaders, and/or General.

·        Club: Cubbies, Sparks, TnT, Trek, JV, and Journey.

·        Needs/Characteristics: Podium, table, whiteboard, projector/screen, electrical power, and light control. Also, it may be noted if the workshop is easily moved from one room to another to provide scheduling flexibility.

Workshop Information and Leader Assignment

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A Brochure Description is entered in a comment box. This description will appear in the Conference Brochure. A separate comment box is used for general notes.

A Workshop may be marked as "Very Important." This designation will appear in the Conference Brochure with a footnote that every club should have at least one representative attend this workshop.

Workshop keeps a running total of the number of workshops.

Create Workshop Sessions (return to index)

After identifying facilities, rooms, workshops and leaders, the user creates session/room combinations. This is an automatic process whereby conference sessions are created for a particular facility and rooms are made available for each session.

As example, a user would select a facility (e.g. First Baptist) and create a conference. For that facility, Workshop would list each conference session for First Baptist and create a room entry for every room in the facility for each session. If the Conference was to have 8 sessions (Registration, two general sessions and five workshop sessions) and the facility had 20 rooms, Workshop would create a working area with all 20 rooms for each of the eight sessions: 160 room/session combinations. Each and every room/session combination may be assigned a workshop.

This step is typically done only once for each facility. The date and time is noted as to when this step is executed. If this step is done a second time, the new session/room combinations overwrite the first set of combinations along with all workshop assignments.

Before actually creating session/room combinations for a facility, Workshop provides a warning and allows the user to reconsider the action as it is irreversible.

Assign Workshops to Rooms (return to index)

For a selected facility, workshops are assigned to rooms with a drop-down pick list.

A workshop's requirements are displayed and easily matched with the room's attributes. In this way, rooms are selected that match the workshop's needs. For example, if a workshop required a projector screen,  the user could easily see which rooms have a projector screen, then assign the workshop to one of those rooms. When assigning workshops to rooms, the user may make notes (i.e. Sam needs an overhead projector.) regarding the workshop. A report prints all workshop notes for each Session. In this way the Conference Administration can be aware of and provide for the needs of each workshop.

During the assignment process room notes and workshop notes can be compared.

The workshop leader is displayed with the workshop. Therefore, if one workshop has multiple leaders, the user can pick the workshop with a particular leader for assignment.

Assign Workshops to Rooms

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Once a workshop is assigned to a room, the workshop name, and leader name is dropped from the pick list for that session. The workshop/leader combination continues to be available for those sessions where the leader has not been assigned.

Upon refreshing the data, all assigned leaders are removed from the drop-down pick list for a particular session. In this way it is not possible to double-book a workshop leader in a session. The leader will be available only for sessions in which they are not previously assigned.

Refresh the pick list by pressing the "Ctrl" key on the keyboard (bottom row on either side of the main keyboard) and the "L" key simultaneously.

Filtering is used to select sessions and/or rooms. Hence, the user can work with just a particular session (and all rooms) or a particular room (and all sessions).

Filter for a session or a room by clicking on the session or room, then pressing the "Ctrl" key on the keyboard (bottom row on either side of the main keyboard) and the "F" key simultaneously. 

Remove the filter by pressing the "Ctrl" key and the "R" key simultaneously.

Preview Brochure (return to index)

Upon completion of assignments and verification checks, the user may preview the Conference Brochure for a selected facility.

Four documents are generated with the click of a button:

1.      Conference Schedule – this is a single page listing the sessions and respective times. The short session description is displayed.

2.      Workshop Pages – Each session is printed with its respective workshops. The workshop room, title, leader, target audience and description is displayed. Workshops identified as "Very Important" are noted with **.

3.      Workshop Leaders – Each leader for the conference is listed with their workshops and church affiliation.

4.      Grand Prix Organizer Ad – this is a ½ page ad to be included on the back/last page of the Conference Brochure. The ad describes the Grand Prix Organizer which is a tool for organizing Grand Prix events. The ad provides the Grand Prix's key features along with a website address to learn more about the Grand Prix Organizer ( www.artofinvention.biz).

Pages for the Conference Brochure are set-up as 5 ½ x 8 ½ (a landscape sheet folded in half) with ½ inch margins. All pages (as well as reports) can be output to MS Word for further formatting or editing.

Conference Brochure Page Selection

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Conference Brochure Schedule

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Conference Brochure Workshop Listing

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Conference Brochure Leaders

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Checks and Reports (return to index)

For a selected facility, the following reports are generated:

1.      Leaders, Sessions and Rooms – This report is a table format listing rooms vs. sessions. The workshop leader's name is listed in the corresponding session/room combination. This report quickly allows the user to see who is in which room for each session. It is handy to identify if someone is booked twice for the same session as well as an overview of where each leader is. Printing this report at the beginning of the workshop assignment task provides a matrix of sessions and rooms the user can use as a reference. (Jot down the workshop leader's name in the appropriate slot as the leader's workshop is assigned.)

2.      Leaders and Workshops – This report lists all leaders in alphabetical order along with the workshops they are leading.

3.      Comments Summary – This report lists all comments the user input when assigning workshops to rooms. The listing is by session. The report identifies workshop needs such as "room needs a white board" or "needs overhead projector." In this way, the Conference Director can accommodate the workshop's special needs in a proactive manner.

4.      Room Descriptions – This report provides detailed restoration set-up information for each room. Upon post-conference clean-up, photographs and descriptions can be give to the clean-up crew to enable them to restore the room to pre-conference configuration. Additionally, notes can be made on each room's sheet to be added to the database to facilitate next year's conference.

5.      Leader Mailing Labels – Mail labels (Avery 6810 3x11 format) are generated for workshop leaders. Labels may be printed for all workshop leaders or only the leaders for a particular conference.

Futures (return to index)

At this point, Workshop is in its infancy. As the database is used, more needs and features will be identified. These will be added as appropriate.

Report Selection Screen

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Leaders, Sessions and Rooms

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Leader and Workshop List

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Workshop Comments

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Leader Mail Labels

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Order

Click the button to order Workshop:

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