ACF EDITING BENEFICIARY CARDS TOOL FOR DUMMIES
V1
24/10/08
1. Objective
This tool is using access software for one and only one purpose:
From a list of beneficiaries entered on excel, you can copy paste this list on access and in
less than 15 minutes edit beneficiary distribution cards:
FROM:
TO:
2. What do you need ?
Access software : normally on all mission there is pack office professional. ACF has
normally pack office 2003 or at least we need pack office 2000.
Excel software…I hope you have it…
PDF creator software: you need it if you want to print the cards with professional editors in
order to provide him with a PDF file. If not on your computer you can download from there:
http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator/download
3. What you do not need?
to be an expert of access
4. How to proceed
Edit list of beneficiaries on xls
-
as mentioned, this is designed to edit cards from excel files as all of you are working
on excel to enter the list of beneficiaries
so first is to enter benef on excel file as the one given as an example with 7 columns:
Number
Country
Region
District
Village
Full name
Type of ration allocated
We designed this part in order to suit most of our programmes. It should be considered as
basic package with the minimum information needed for all the missions. Some columns can
be left without information, this is not a problem. But to add a new column, it needs some
changes: these changes can be easily done but we would like here to have the less changes as
possible.
-
before editing, you need to know 3 rules:
o Access has been here designed to refuse 2 beneficiaries who have the same
number: if 2 numbers are the same, access will refuse them and will tell you
which one are not correct
o All the columns are designed in access to be “text” with maximum 50
characters (in “number” you can put some letters like ET112). The problem
with this is that 1 is treated as a text in the number column so for example 2 is
coming after 19 when classified by order.
o You can, on excel have more columns that these ones, but not less and you
need to keep the same order
-
Example of edited file in excel : (see excel file provided)
Number
ETS1
ETS2
ETS3
ETS4
ETS5
ETS6
ETS7
ETS8
ETS9
ETS10
ETS11
ETS12
ETS13
Country
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Region
SNNPR
SNNPR
SNNPR
SNNPR
SNNPR
SNNPR
SNNPR
SNNPR
SNNPR
SNNPR
SNNPR
SNNPR
SNNPR
District
Village
Aleta Wendo
Dale
Wensho
Wensho
Wensho
Wensho
Wensho
Dale
Dale
Dale
Dale
Aleta Wendo
Aleta Wendo
For example, here “district” was not relevant so not edited
Open Access file
You should automatically reach this page:
Full name
Kefele Birku
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
g
Type of ration
allocated
full
full
full
full
full
full
full
half
half
half
half
half
half
If not, go to « WELCOME » in the “form” window displayed on the left
Enter beneficiary list from excel to Access
Click on “open table of beneficiary list” and you will see:
If you don’t see this, go to “table” window on the left part and clik on “list of beneficiaries”
table
From Excel, select all your beneficiary list for the 7 columns, click copy (do not select the
title of your column)
Back to access, and the open table, click on the small “►” in order to select the column and
click paste.
All the table from excel should now be in access in this format:
You can close this table by clicking the cross on the top right
It brings you back to the “welcome” form:
Normally the graphs are updated:
The first one indicates the total number of beneficiaries you have on your database
The second one is the same but display the number by district and by village (not by
region or by country)
If not, click on “UPDATE DATA DISPLAYED ON THIS GRAPH” button
Edit your beneficiary list cards
It’s almost done:
Click the “edit beneficiary cards” button that should display:
If not, click on the “edit list of beneficiary” in the “report” or “etat” window listed on the left
side
Important to know:
The cards are displayed by region/district/village by alphabetic order (so all the benef from
one village then all benef from another village etc…)
If you want to change the presentation:
Click on the green triangle which is going to display this new window:
You can manipulate picture, logo, copy, paste delete…
You can delete some information: for example if you don’t want to display the “region”
information you can delete it. IT WILL DELETE IT ON THE CARDS BUT NOT IN THE
DATABASE, it does not delete your table.
If you have deleted it and you want to put it again, you can take it back by clicking the list
button. The list of the headline of your table will appear and you can slide the one you want.
When you are satisfied, click on the zoom button to come back to the cards edited.
Print your cards
Once satisfied, you can directly print your cards with your printer.
If you want to print on another computer or with a professional editor, you have to export
your cards on a pdf format.
To do that you have to install pdf creator software (see section what do you need) and it
appears as a printer so you click on print button and instead of selecting your printer, you
select “pdf creator” and he will create a PDF file.
5. You want to change some parameters
To change the name or to delete some columns
It is easy. You need to understand 1 thing:
The “report” or “etat” (in French version) from which you edit your card is just a tool to
display your data. When you modify this tool, you do not modify your data, you just modify
the way you want to present them.
So if you want to change the way the data is displayed on your beneficiary card, you just have
to change the “report” or “etat” as indicated in the “edit your beneficiary card” section above.
You keep the excel file with the 7 column format but you are not obliged to display all the 7
columns. You will be able to change the name “district” by “suburb” if you like without
changing anything else for example.
To add some new columns
You need 8 columns to be displayed
You need to create one more column.
For example you want to display the family size on the beneficiary card.
1. click on the “open table of beneficiary list” (the table is empty)
2. click on the green triangle top left corner
and this window appears:
It is where you are going to define your table.
The columns are displayed here. You just point the mouse on the next empty line and you
enter the name of the new column you want to create, for example “family size”. On the
second column you have to specify if you want this data to be a text format or a numer
format. Here it would be a number format. Then on the table at the bottom left, you have more
precision on this format and you can select the type of number you which “integer”, “reel”
“decimal”. In this example we select “integer”.
Save and close your table.
You have now to include this new column on your beneficiary list. Refer to section “edit your
beneficiary card”. When you are at the stage to click on the “list” button, the new column
“family size” is now here and you can slide it to your beneficiary card somewhere.
You need 7 columns but different ones
Example: you want to change the “district” which is useless for you with the “family size”
You just have to change the name displayed on the card by modifying the “report” or “etat”
(see the “you need to change the name..” section above).
In this example it is not sufficient as the new column is a number whereas the old column was
in text. In this case you can manipulate directly the table as indicated in the “you need 8
columns” section.