MMC Registration Program

A DETAILED FUNCTIONAL SPECIFICATION OF THE REGISTRATION PROGRAM AS OF 12/16/00.

This program is written in FoxPro for Unix and runs on an SCO Unix operating system at MMC. The program source can be found in this directory:

/v/reg/prg

While the source has not been changed substantially for several months/years there is no guarantee that it will stay constant as various needs may arise until it is redesigned, rewritten and can gladly retire.

As an overview, the registration program keeps track of people who have registered for programs at MMC. Housing, finances, address, phone numbers, confirmation letters, etc.

PROGRAMS

Each program has these attributes:

FIELD NAME COMMENT

ID A unique Id - assigned automatically.

NAME Name of the program (short - for searching)

DESC A short description or title for the program

RETREAT Is the program a retreat?

SDATE Date program starts

EDATE Date program ends

TUITION Tuition

HOUSING Housing cost Scheme

NUM A unique number for accounting and general ledger purposes

WHOADD Who added this program?

DATE_ADD Date Added

WHO_LAST Who last edited this program?

DATE_LAST Date last edited

RENTAL Is it a rental?

HOUSES Which houses have been used for this program?

CLUSTERS Which clusters have been used for this program?

WEB Web address for further information

NOTE1 Note 1

NOTE2 Note 2
Note lines will appear on all confirmation letters sent for this program.

PRES1 Presenter id1

PRES2 Presenter id2

FULLDESC Full description

FEES Information about program fees - for the web page.

EXTRAWEB Extra web information

SUMMARY Summary
A place to enter various special needs for this program.

LOG Log
A place to enter the history of this program. Each entry is stamped with the time and the person's login name.

WEBREADY Is this program ready for the web?

IMAGE Name of image file of presenter

HILITE Is this a highlighted program?

AFFIL The single letter code to to put in the affiliation field of the mailing list entry for this person.

The field name column is the name of the field in the prog.dbf file. Each name has a "P_" prefix.

FIELD NAME	COMMENT
ID	A unique Id - assigned automatically.
NAME	Name of the program (short - for searching)
DESC	A short description or title for the program
RETREAT	Is the program a retreat?
SDATE	Date program starts
EDATE	Date program ends
TUITION	Tuition
HOUSING	Housing cost Scheme
NUM	A unique number for accounting and general ledger purposes
WHOADD	Who added this program?
DATE_ADD	Date Added
WHO_LAST	Who last edited this program?
DATE_LAST	Date last edited
RENTAL	Is it a rental?
HOUSES	Which houses have been used for this program?
CLUSTERS	Which clusters have been used for this program?
WEB	Web address for further information
NOTE1	Note 1
NOTE2	Note 2 Note lines will appear on all confirmation letters sent for this program.
PRES1	Presenter id1
PRES2	Presenter id2
FULLDESC	Full description
FEES	Information about program fees - for the web page.
EXTRAWEB	Extra web information
SUMMARY	Summary A place to enter various special needs for this program.
LOG	Log A place to enter the history of this program. Each entry is stamped with the time and the person's login name.
WEBREADY	Is this program ready for the web?
IMAGE	Name of image file of presenter
HILITE	Is this a highlighted program?
AFFIL	The single letter code to to put in the affiliation field of the mailing list entry for this person.

There is a way to see all programs and at that place you can do these things:

Next Move to the next program.

Back Move to the previous program.

Search Prompt for a prefix of the program name and move to the first matching one.

Add Add a new program - you need to supply the critical details of the program like name, description, start and end dates, etc.

Edit Change the attributes of a program.

Delete After confirmation, delete the program and everyone registered for it.

Mark see below under "CONNECTION TO THE MAILING LIST".

Clear Housing Clear the houses and clusters attribute of the program. These fields are filled in automatically and so this is the only way to clear them.

Order Toggle whether the programs are shown ordered by date or alphabetically by program name.
If by date, the Search command above will prompt for a start date to search for. It will move to the first program that starts after that date.

Info Access the deeper details of the program.
See below under "PROGRAM INFO".

PEOPLE

Each person registered for a program has these attributes:

FIELD NAME COMMENT

ID A unique id - assigned automatically.

LAST Last name

FIRST First name

ADDR1 address line #1

ADDR2 address line #2

CITY City

STATE State

ZIP Zip code

HPHONE Home phone

WPHONE Word phone

EMAIL Email address

FAX Fax number

P_ID The id of the program this person is registered for.

A_ID The id of the housing assignment.

SEX Male, Female, or part of a Couple

REFERRAL Where did they find out about this program?

ADSOURCE If an advertisement, which one?

NKIDS How many kids have they brought with them?

AGEKID1 How old is the first kid?

AGEKID2 How old is the second kid?

AGEKID3 How old is the third kid?

1COMMENT 3 Comment lines

2COMMENT

3COMMENT

1NOTE 2 Note lines to appear on confirmation letter.

2NOTE

HTYPE Type of housing (Single, Double, Triple, Dorm, Tent, etc)

HNAME Name of house/room and/or campsite.

PERDAY Housing cost per day

WSTUDY Are they doing work study (for a discount)?

MANUAL Should the costs be figured manually?

CARPOOL Do they wish to car pool?

CAR Do they have a car?

ARRIVED Have they arrived yet?

ROOMFOOD Total cost of housing

TUITION Total tuition cost

ADJ A financial adjustment

PENNIES Should we display pennies in the finances?

TOTAL Total bill

DEPOSIT Amount of deposit on registration

DCASH Was the deposit in cash or check?

RECEIPT Receipt number for deposit

CONFSENT Date confirmation letter was sent

POST Postmark date on letter with registration form

PMT1 Amount of first payment

PMT1DATE Date of first payment

P1REC Receipt number for first payment

P2CASH Was first payment in cash or check?

PMT2 ditto for second payment

PMT2DATE ..

P2CASH ..

P1REC ..

BALANCE Current balance

CAN_DATE Cancellation date

REFUND Refund amount

CREDIT Credit given

WHO_ADD Who initially added this person?

DATE_ADD Date added.

WHO_LAST Who last modified this person?

DATE_LAS Date last modified

PSDATE Start date of program

PEDATE End date of program
These dates are usually the same as the program start and end dates but will be different if the person came or left early/late.

HOUSEKPG Has housekeeping given approval?
This applies only to PERSONAL RETREAT programs.
STATUS Are they a sponsoring or life member?
This effects the cost of tuition and housing.

ORDER ???? no longer used

AS_ID ???? no longer used

FIELD NAME	COMMENT
ID	A unique id - assigned automatically.
LAST	Last name
FIRST	First name
ADDR1	address line #1
ADDR2	address line #2
CITY	City
STATE	State
ZIP	Zip code
HPHONE	Home phone
WPHONE	Word phone
EMAIL	Email address
FAX	Fax number
P_ID	The id of the program this person is registered for.
A_ID	The id of the housing assignment.
SEX	Male, Female, or part of a Couple
REFERRAL	Where did they find out about this program?
ADSOURCE	If an advertisement, which one?
NKIDS	How many kids have they brought with them?
AGEKID1	How old is the first kid?
AGEKID2	How old is the second kid?
AGEKID3	How old is the third kid?
1COMMENT	3 Comment lines
2COMMENT
3COMMENT
1NOTE	2 Note lines to appear on confirmation letter.
2NOTE
HTYPE	Type of housing (Single, Double, Triple, Dorm, Tent, etc)
HNAME	Name of house/room and/or campsite.
PERDAY	Housing cost per day
WSTUDY	Are they doing work study (for a discount)?
MANUAL	Should the costs be figured manually?
CARPOOL	Do they wish to car pool?
CAR	Do they have a car?
ARRIVED	Have they arrived yet?
ROOMFOOD	Total cost of housing
TUITION	Total tuition cost
ADJ	A financial adjustment
PENNIES	Should we display pennies in the finances?
TOTAL	Total bill
DEPOSIT	Amount of deposit on registration
DCASH	Was the deposit in cash or check?
RECEIPT	Receipt number for deposit
CONFSENT	Date confirmation letter was sent
POST	Postmark date on letter with registration form
PMT1	Amount of first payment
PMT1DATE	Date of first payment
P1REC	Receipt number for first payment
P2CASH	Was first payment in cash or check?
PMT2	ditto for second payment
PMT2DATE	..
P2CASH	..
P1REC	..
BALANCE	Current balance
CAN_DATE	Cancellation date
REFUND	Refund amount
CREDIT	Credit given
WHO_ADD	Who initially added this person?
DATE_ADD	Date added.
WHO_LAST	Who last modified this person?
DATE_LAS	Date last modified
PSDATE	Start date of program
PEDATE	End date of program These dates are usually the same as the program start and end dates but will be different if the person came or left early/late.
HOUSEKPG	Has housekeeping given approval? This applies only to PERSONAL RETREAT programs.
STATUS	Are they a sponsoring or life member? This effects the cost of tuition and housing.
ORDER	???? no longer used
AS_ID	???? no longer used

The field name column is the name of the field in the reg.dbf file. Each name has a "R_" prefix.

CURRENT AND PAST SEASONS

There are reg and prog tables as above for the current season. When the programs are complete they can be archived into past seasons - there are two seasons per year: Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter.

There is a way to switch into a past season where you only see programs and people in that season. And there is a way to switch back to the current season.

START UP

When the registration program is first started it comes to a screen where the "current" program is displayed. This program is the one happening right now or the one coming up next.

The details of the people who are registered for this program are shown starting with the alphabetically first one.

There are many things you can do at this point:

Next Move to the next person.

Back Move to the previous person.

Search Ask for a prefix of a person's last name and move forward to the first person with that last name.

Program Ask for a prefix of a program name. If there is only one program starting that way move to it and show the first person in that program. If there are more than one matching programs, display the list of such programs and let the user choose one to move to.

Add Add a new person to the current program. Prompt for all the relevant attributes.

Edit Change all or some of the details of the current person.

Finance Modify the finances.

Lodging Modify this person's housing choice.

Work Study Toggle the work study status.

Arrived Toggle the arrived status.

Manual Toggle the manual finance status.

Pennies Toggle showing pennies in the finance section.

Cancel Cancel this person's registration. Enter a refund or a credit.

Uncancel Undo the cancellation - revive the registration.

Delete After confirmation, delete this person from the program.

Vacate Clear out this person's housing assignment.

Info Show various details that are not shown on the main screen - like dates of adding, payments confirmation letter sent, etc.

Receipt Prompt for a receipt number. Search for a person within the current season with this deposit receipt number. This may change the current program.

PrintConf This will reprint the current person's confirmation letter. It can be viewed on the screen, printed to the current printer or sent to an email address (if the person has given theirs). See below for the details of the "CONFIRMATION LETTERS".

SameAddr Register another person (with a different name) who has the same address. All the information will be the same except first and last names, sex, and housing information.

Move

Copy Move or copy this person's registration to another program. Used when you mistakenly entered them into a wrong program or if they are registering in more than one program at the same time.

Email Assuming the person has provided an email address, compose a letter and send it off.

UnLodged Show the people (in this program or all programs) who have not yet been assigned lodging. Display them in postmark order.

Not Sent Show the people (in all programs) who have as yet unsent email confirmation letters. In both of the above you can choose a person and be immediately moved to their record within their program.

Order Change the order of displaying persons to postmark order. Next and Back will move by postmark date. And Search will ask for a date instead of a prefix of the last name. The alphabetical order is restored when you move to another program.

Receipts Bring up the screen where extra monies are recorded. This is for non registration related expenses - like purchasing of a flashlight or earplugs. You can enter the extra receipts via the registration screen or via the top level main menu.

CONNECTION TO THE MAILING LIST

The mlist program maintains names and addresses for mailing list purposes. When someone is added to the registration program, they are automatically entered into mlist.

On adding a person to a program the program searches mlist for the person and if found, fills in the registration form with the address, phones, fax, and email. If they are not found by matching first and last names it will try to do a match against the Sanskrit name in the mailing list.

If a person is not found in mlist anywhere, a warning is printed and the bell sounded. Perhaps the name was misspelled. At this point one can access (in reg by pressing F5) names in the mailing list that may be close to the one being entered. This will help avoid creating duplicates in mlist.

On initial entry if a person's address has changed from what was brought over from mlist, you can change it on the registration screen and it will be reflected in mlist as well.

In mlist, a record is made of the date and the name of the last program that the person was registered in.

If the person is found in the mailing list, their affiliation is checked. If 'B' is present it means that the person is a Life Member. If 'C' is present they are a sponsoring member. These special statuses effect the COMPUTATION OF FINANCES (see below).

CONFIRMATION LETTERS

Confirmation letters are generated dynamically. As variable length information is added the lines are filled to a maximum line length.

A car pooling list is included if the person expressed interest in car pooling.

If the letter is being emailed rather than printed, a map of how to get to MMC is included drawn in ASCII characters. If it is printed, there is a map is on the back of the pre-printed sheet.

The information in the letter depends on whether the event is a center sponsored retreat, a personal retreat, or a regular program. If the person is camping rather than staying inside, information specific to camping is included.

Optional notes at the bottom come from the registration record and/or the program record.

Full details can be found in pr_conf.prg

COMPUTATION OF FINANCES

Computation of the registrant's financial obligations depends on many factors:

how long they will stay
the type of housing they have been assigned
how many children they brought and their ages
whether they're a life member or a sponsoring member with days remaining in their account.
work study program
center sponsored retreats versus programs
manual versus automatic calculation
how many days of the program they are actually attending (it is prorated)
the particular housing pricing scheme for this program

Full details can be found in r_comput.prg

PROGRAM INFO

There is a place in the program area for Summary and Log information but it is currently not being used. This area is also where the details of the program and it leaders are entered so that web pages and program brochures can be generated from one source - to help ensure consistency.

LISTINGS

Various listings of the data:

For a program, the list of all registrants. Includes their name, balance, housing type and postmark date. You can get the list in name or postmark order. For a program that spans several weeks where people come and go, there is a way to get only a list of people who are still here.
Totals - various statistics on a program. Numbers of people registered, arrived, males, females, children, etc. Figures about finances - separate tuition and lodging totals.
Name and address for all people in a program.
Work study people for a program.
Just the names of people - double spaced.
A list of people registred but not yet arrived - the missing list.
Mailing labels for everyone in the program.
The car pooling list - riders and drivers names, address, phones.
Those with an outstanding balance for this program.
Print the confirmation letters in the queue - this may be for many different programs. If they printed successfully, clear the queue.
A way to search all or the current season for a person. Shows their history - which programs they have attended over the years.
Bank Deposit report - to summarize all funds collected so far before taking the monies to the bank. You can get it for 1) Filing - sorted by program then by last name, cash/check?, receipt number, amount, date received. Subtotals per program and a grand total at the end. 2) Jiving - for reconciliation - in last name order across programs - includes date received, cash/check?, program name. Total at the end. If the filing report is printed (to paper) ask if it reconciled successfully. If so, clear the financial data and begin again. Actually the data is archived for historical purposes.
Month end processing. One can supply a date range (default is the entire previous month) to see what kinds of finances there has been for the prior month. Summarizes it by program with totals. Includes the general ledger number - this is for re-entry into the accounting program. Also lists the various bank deposits that were made in the date range.
When producing reports for a program named "PERSONAL RETREATS" you can alter the date range.

MAINTENANCE

Various maintenance tasks:

Change what today's date is (for time travel to adjust various date related things).
Cost of housing figures. This fills in a matrix of costs - one axis is the 8 or so types of housing, the other axis is the housing cost scheme that the program uses.
Adding/deleting campground names. These are used to ensure some consistency in campground assignments.
Adding/deleting accounts - for Extra Receipts.
A list of people with outstanding balances. This is list is used to keep track of people's debts. If someone registers for a program their balance is checked and a warning given during the registration.
Confirmation letter queue pruning. Non-email confirmation letters are put in a queue to print. This allows taking someone OUT of that queue.
Sponsoring members - those with a certain affiliation in the mailing list. This keeps track of how many days of their benefit they have used this year. Their is a command to reset everyone's tally to zero (used at the beginning of the year).
Confirmation letter notes. A set of notes (with abbreviations) that are used in the registration Note field. Speeds entry and makes it more consistent. This may not be used much.
Purge - move completed programs and their participants to a prior season. This clears out the data from the current season. This also clears out the housing assignments - but preserves them in the prior season. If a program is named "PERSONAL RETREATS" do not move the program itself to a prior season. Simply move the people whose retreats have completed. The program record remains.
A command to reassign the program affiliation to to all participants in programs. This may not be needed after its one time use... The program affiliation code was not part of the program until very recently.

EXTRA RECEIPTS

See the receipts field in the people record above. This is the entry to this data from the top level.

EVENTS

A way of entering various events happening in relation to or in addition to the programs. These events appear on the 'daily picture' to give context. Events have a start date and an end date. I am not sure if this feature is used.

RENTALS

The center rents its facilities to groups that handle their own registration, housing assignments, individual finances. We provide a certain number of housing units of various types and charge a single grand total fee - paid by their leader.

Support for these kinds of rentals is minimal. Adding a way of keeping track of rental housing is a critical need.

WEB PAGE GENERATION (and for the brochure)

See www.mountmadonna.org/programs for the format of the pages generated by the reg program.

For each program we enter descriptive information for the web site and brochure. Also included is fee information and link to extra information for the web site (information that would not fit in the brochure but for which the web site has no limit to the space), a URL link to a remote presenter's web site. Which leaders are directing this program.

Leader names and biographies and images are kept in a separate database - so they won't need to be reentered each season. We also keep track of leaders address, phone, fax, email, etc. but these do not appear on the web page.

If the program qualifies for Continuing Education credits (for nurses or MFCC or LSWC) this is indicated by a * after the short description/title.

For the web page generation the tricky part is to get the links from one program to the next or to the next month.

There are commands to initiate the generation of HTML for the web or Quark source files for the brochure. The brochure text is simply dumped to a text file in program date order so that it can be easily imported into Quark for further manipulation. The HTML is ready for direct upload to the web.

Two fancy processings for the HTML: 1) Images are sized and WIDTH, HEIGHT values inserted in the IMG SRC tag. 2) References to "Babaji" or "Baba Hari Dass" within the program description are replaced with a link to the biography of Babaji on the MMC web site. These occur in center sponsored group retreats.

See webgen.prg and brochgen.prg

HOUSING RESERVATIONS

A large difficult subject. This portion of the program is the part most likely to be completely redesigned so I will keep my comments at a general descriptive level.

MMC is a residential retreat center. People come to stay with us overnight for several days - sometimes even weeks at a time. The kinds of places they stay fall into several categories. Here is a list in decreasing cost order:

Single
Single with Bath
Double
Double with Bath
Triple
Dormitory (7 to a room)
Economy (more than 7 in a room)
Own Tent
Center Tent
Van
Commuter

People can be put in a double room with someone that they do not know. Depending on demand, rooms that are naturally a triple may be "resized" to be a double or a single. Triple rooms may only have two people in them. Dorms may have less than 7. Basically the rate that people are charged is determined by the number of people that they share the space with.

There is space for approximately 250 people in perhaps 60 different spaces on the land (these numbers are wild guesses).

These 60 spaces fall into perhaps 12 natural 'clusters' depending on the geographic location.

There is an overall 'Daily Picture' - a way of seeing who is where on the land and what program they are attending. There is a way to jump from this picture to a person's individual registration record within the program they are attending. And a way of moving to different days to see how the housing assignments vary from day to day. On the daily picture you also see a 'total' number - the current guest population on the land.

The layout of the daily picture can be changed by the user - by modifying rows, columns in 'housing configuration' records.

Another view is a 'cluster overview' - to see all housing spaces within a cluster for a period of perhaps two weeks at a time. Again one can jump from here to a person's individual record.

When a person is registered, their housing type is determined and then a search is done for available vacant spaces. The genders are not mixed (unless the person is part of a couple). The first spaces that are offered are ones that do not need to be resized. A maximum of 10 (configurable) choices are offered. If a person in the same program has previously been put in a given house/room or cluster, spaces in that house or cluster are given priority in the offerings.

Mixing programs in a single space is avoided. When the listing of available spaces is offered, there is also a way to jump to the 'Cluster Overview' screen where you can manually 'Place' a registrant into a room of your choosing (of course the suitability of that space is checked and warnings given).

To illustrate the complexity:

Seminar House room 2 holds 3 people. It is now empty. A person is registered that wants a Double. No other doubles are free so SH2 is offered to the registrant with an indication that a resizing of the room would be needed. SH2 is accepted and the person assigned. The room is now a double. If another person comes wanting a Triple, SH2 is not available. If you manually 'Place' this person in SH2, the room will be resized back to triple. The first person will still be paying the Double rate. This does not seem right!?? :(

When looking at the Daily Picture or the Cluster Overview you can toggle the screen to show 1) gender and room size OR 2) which program is occupying this room. Sometimes there are people from two programs in one room (not encouraged) ... in this case an indication is made that the room is 'mixed'.

This mechanism for housing reservations does not do an adequate job for Rental Housing. This is a hole that needs filling - that has needed filling for a good while. A challenging task.

These attributes are kept for each housing space:

Name
Comment
Maximum occupants possible
Current occupancy
Cluster number it belongs in
Order within the cluster (for the Cluster Overview screen)
Place on the screen (row, column) for the Daily Picture
Priority (which should be offered first, which last? i.e. which spaces are more desirable?)

An example of the Daily Picture screen:


 SH1  ...          101  ...    CS1  FF.....
 SH2  F.          102B  ..
 SH3  MM|          103  ...

SH1 is an empty triple.
SH2 is a double with one female in it.
SH3 is a triple resized to double with 2 males in it.
Rooms 101-103 are empty. 102B has a Bath.
CS1 is a dormitory holding 7 with 2 females in it.

At MMC there are many campgrounds with multiple numbered camp sites. Currently the only computer assistance with the assigning of these sites is to verify that the campground name is found in a list. The site number is not checked. Computerizing/automating this would also be a boon to the registration office.

This is all. This is enough.

Next	Move to the next program.
Back	Move to the previous program.
Search	Prompt for a prefix of the program name and move to the first matching one.
Add	Add a new program - you need to supply the critical details of the program like name, description, start and end dates, etc.
Edit	Change the attributes of a program.
Delete	After confirmation, delete the program and everyone registered for it.
Mark	see below under "CONNECTION TO THE MAILING LIST".
Clear Housing	Clear the houses and clusters attribute of the program. These fields are filled in automatically and so this is the only way to clear them.
Order	Toggle whether the programs are shown ordered by date or alphabetically by program name. If by date, the Search command above will prompt for a start date to search for. It will move to the first program that starts after that date.
Info	Access the deeper details of the program. See below under "PROGRAM INFO".

Next	Move to the next person.
Back	Move to the previous person.
Search	Ask for a prefix of a person's last name and move forward to the first person with that last name.
Program	Ask for a prefix of a program name. If there is only one program starting that way move to it and show the first person in that program. If there are more than one matching programs, display the list of such programs and let the user choose one to move to.
Add	Add a new person to the current program. Prompt for all the relevant attributes.
Edit	Change all or some of the details of the current person.
Finance	Modify the finances.
Lodging	Modify this person's housing choice.
Work Study	Toggle the work study status.
Arrived	Toggle the arrived status.
Manual	Toggle the manual finance status.
Pennies	Toggle showing pennies in the finance section.
Cancel	Cancel this person's registration. Enter a refund or a credit.
Uncancel	Undo the cancellation - revive the registration.
Delete	After confirmation, delete this person from the program.
Vacate	Clear out this person's housing assignment.
Info	Show various details that are not shown on the main screen - like dates of adding, payments confirmation letter sent, etc.
Receipt	Prompt for a receipt number. Search for a person within the current season with this deposit receipt number. This may change the current program.
PrintConf	This will reprint the current person's confirmation letter. It can be viewed on the screen, printed to the current printer or sent to an email address (if the person has given theirs). See below for the details of the "CONFIRMATION LETTERS".
SameAddr	Register another person (with a different name) who has the same address. All the information will be the same except first and last names, sex, and housing information.
Move
Copy	Move or copy this person's registration to another program. Used when you mistakenly entered them into a wrong program or if they are registering in more than one program at the same time.
Email	Assuming the person has provided an email address, compose a letter and send it off.
UnLodged	Show the people (in this program or all programs) who have not yet been assigned lodging. Display them in postmark order.
Not Sent	Show the people (in all programs) who have as yet unsent email confirmation letters. In both of the above you can choose a person and be immediately moved to their record within their program.
Order	Change the order of displaying persons to postmark order. Next and Back will move by postmark date. And Search will ask for a date instead of a prefix of the last name. The alphabetical order is restored when you move to another program.
Receipts	Bring up the screen where extra monies are recorded. This is for non registration related expenses - like purchasing of a flashlight or earplugs. You can enter the extra receipts via the registration screen or via the top level main menu.