Welcome to ChaiTrack!   With ChaiTrack you can manage your membership, stay connected and keep everyone on the same page, any time, all the time.

ChaiTrack includes a wealth of features to help you improve the life of your congregation:

• Membership Management
• Yahrzeits & other life-cycle events
• Mailing List Management
• Groups
• Member Communications & Reminders

Select a chapter on the left to learn how to use each of these functions.

Communicate with your members on this page.  Create rich text messages, with graphics and images and always be sure your message is getting sent to the complete list!  Access the Communicate page from the Congregation menu. There are two tabs on the Communicate page, Message History and Add/Edit Message.

Message History

The message history tab has three sections: Pending Messages, Saved Messages and Sent Messages. Pending Messages are those messages that are waiting to be sent (status shows as Ready) or are being sent now (status shows as Sending).  If a message is Ready, it can still be edited or deleted.  Once a message starts sending, it can't be changed. Saved Messages have been explicitly saved by the users who created them.  This could be to save the message as a draft, hold for others to review, or to come back to later for any reason. Sent Messages shows the history of messages already sent. You can use a sent message as a template for a new message by clicking on Resend.

Creating a new message

To create a new message, click on the Add/Edit Message tab, select your options, enter your message and click Send.

Send To

You have several options for who to send the message to, members of your congregation, people on your mailing list, or both members and your mailing list.  When you select Members Only or Both, options will appear to select which members to include: All Members All Adults All Men All Women Selected Members Selected Groups If you then choose Selected Members or Selected Groups, a list of members or groups, respectively, will appear, giving you the option to select one or multiple members or groups.  See the Groups page for details on creating groups. If you select Mailing List Only or Both, the message will be sent to all names on your mailing list.

From

In the from list, you can select who you want the message to be sent from.  This way, you can send messages for someone else in your congregation and this name will appear as the sender in the received e-mail message.

Subject

You must enter a subject for the message.

Attachments

You can optionally attach files to your e-mails that will appear as attachments to the recipient.  Attachments must first be uploaded to the server before they can be attached to the message.  Once uploaded, select a file from the pull-down list and click Attach Selected File button.  You'll see it added to the list of attachments below the pull-down.  The list will be hidden if there are no attachments yet. To upload a new attachment, click the Upload a File button.  The pull-down list will be replaced by a Browse button and text box.  Click the Browse button, locate the file on your computer you wish to attach in the File Open dialog box, then click Open.  Once the file has been verified, the Browse text box will turn green, at which point you need to click Upload Selected File.  This will immediately upload the selected file and add it to the pull-down list.  You still need to click the Attach Selected File button to attach the new file.

Message

This is the body of your message, and is sent as rich text.  You can type your message in the box or copy and paste in the message created in another application.  If you want to paste text created in Microsoft Word, use the Paste From Word toolbar button - it's the one in the top row that looks like a clipboard with a W on it.  Use the toolbar buttons to format your message as needed. To insert pictures and graphics in your message, click in your message where you want the graphic to appear and click the Insert/Edit Image on the toolbar - it's in the 2nd row, to the right of the Anchor.  An Image Properties window will pop up (you'll have to enable popups for ChaiTrack to work correctly - we promise no popup ads).  Click the Browse Server button in the Image Properties window and select the subdirectory for your congregation from the Image Gallery window that pops up next.  Select the image to insert by clicking on the image in the gallery.  You'll be taken back to the Image Properties window, where you can change the size (Height & Width), set the border thickness and spacing around the picture, and select the picture alignment relative to the text.  Then click Ok and the image will be inserted into your message. If the image you want to use is not already in the image gallery, you'll have to upload it first.  While in the Image Gallery, click the Browse button, browse to and select the image you want to upload, then click Upload New File and the file will be uploaded to your image gallery.  Once the upload completes, you can select the image from the gallery and proceed with your message. PLEASE only upload and only use images in your own congregation's subdirectory.

Schedule

You have three options for when to send your message:  Send Now, Save & send later, and Schedule to send on... Send Now - queues your message to be sent right away.  ChaiTrack processes the message queue every few minutes, and depending upon how many other messages are in the queue from yours and other congregations, there may be a slight delay before your message actually goes out. Save and Send Later - puts your message on the Saved list.  It will not be sent until someone opens it from the message history tab and changes the message's schedule to either Send Now or Schedule to send later. Schedule to send on - allows you to create your message ahead of time, then set the date you want it sent.  The message will remain in the queue until the date you specify, then will be sent automatically. Note - the determination of recipients for a message is made at the time the message is actually being sent, not when it's created.  This feature ensures that, for example, any changes in the membership or mailing list between when a message is created and when it's sent will be automatically picked up and your message will always go to the most current list!

What if a person on the list doesn't have an e-mail address?

ChaiTrack keeps track of everyone you said you wanted your message to go to.  If any of the names you selected do not have an e-mail address on file, you'll get a message status e-mail from ChaiTrack listing the names of those the system couldn't reach, along with a copy of the original message.  This gives you the option to reach those people by different means.

Will recipients be able to see everyone's e-mail address?

The short answer is no!  All e-mail communications in ChaiTrack are sent individually, never as a list of names and not cc'd or bcc'd.  Every recipient receives an e-mail addressed to them individually.

What if two family members are sharing an e-mail address?

ChaiTrack is pretty smart about this too, and they'll only get one copy of the message!

Your Congregation's settings are found under the Settings selection on the Congregation menu.

On this page you can view and edit the details for your congregation.  All members of your congregation can view this information.  Only users with permission, according to the role(s) they have been assigned, may make changes.

To revise the settings, click the Edit button, enter any changes, then click Save to save your changes or Cancel to discard the changes.

Below the settings, you will find sections showing your ChaiTrack subscription status and statistics on your congregation.

This page also includes your congregation's unique identifier. This code is required to enable RSS feeds. See the chapter on RSS feeds for more details.

Overview The Mailing List feature allows you to create a mailing list of non-members.  There is no limit to the number of mailing list entries you may have.  Mailing List entries allow you to communicate with with your list, electronically via e-mail on the Communicate page, to print mailing labels or a list on the Reports page.

Creating new mailing list entries Click the Add to mailing list button on the Mailing List page to open the entry form. Enter the applicable information, then click Insert to save your entries.  All fields are optional.  Entries will appear in the mailing list alphabetically by organization (if you enter an organization name), last name and first name.

Viewingm Editing & Deleting mailing list entries Select the name from the list of mailing list names.  That record's details will be shown to the right of the list. To edit an entry, select the name from the list and click Edit.  Enter your changes, then click Update.  To delete an entry, select the name from the list and click Delete. The entry will be immediately deleted without warning.

Mail-Merge provides a way for you to export data to your computer for mail-merge and other uses.  Access the Mail-Merge page from the Congregation menu. There are three options on the Mail-Merge page, one for Yahrzeit reminders, one for Birthdays and one for Anniversaries to export the respective data.  More data export options will be coming in the future - tell us what you'd like and we'll consider it for a future version!

Executing Data Export

To execute a data export, select your data option (yahrzeits, birthdays or anniversaries), enter a date range for the records you want, then click the Export button.  You will be asked whether to Open or Save the file.  For most mail-merge operations, you'll want to save the file.  The file name will be a combination of the data option you selected plus the date range (e.g. Yahrzeits_Tuesday,_January_01,_2008_to_Friday,_January_01,_2010.csv).

What is the file format for the exported data?

The data is exported to a tab-delimited file that includes data headers in the first line.  This is the optimal format for mail-merge using the most popular word processing programs.  However, if you try to open the file in a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel, you will need to change the file extension from .csv to .xls. You might wonder why the file uses tabs and not comma-separated values, as implied by the file extension.  The simple reason is that tabs avoid confusion when a comma is present in the data, such as in a date, which would throw off the columns for those lines.

Creating Your Mail-Merge Document

Due to the wide range of versions and brands of software, please refer to the documentation for your software.

The Map page shows where your members live on an interactive map.  Access the Map page from the Congregation menu. All member families will automatically appear on the map (provided you have entered a valid address), though you may have to zoom in or out to see all locations.  Remember, only members with an address entered in the system will appear on the map.

Zooming In/Out

You can zoom the map in several ways: Click on the +/- buttons in the upper left corner of the map to zoom in or out, respectively. Double-click on the map to simultaneously zoom in and center on the point clicked. Use your mouse scroll wheel while the cursor is on the map to simultaneously zoom and center on the location pointed to.

Panning

You can move around on the map interactively in two ways: Click on the Up/Down/Left/Right arrows in the upper left corner of the map to pan in the selected direction. Left-Click anywhere on the map other than on a location flag and, while holding down the left mouse button, drag the map in the desired direction.

Viewing Point Information

Click on any location flag on the map to display the name and address associated with the location.

View & maintain your membership list on the Members page.  Access the Members page from the Congregation menu.

Selecting Members in the Membership List

Memberships and members are organized hierarchically - that is, each family or household is treated as a Membership, with one or more individual Members in the Membership.  Settings that are common across all Members in the household, such as home address and home phone number, are stored in the Membership block.  Settings that are unique to an individual member, such as mobile phone and e-mail address, are stored under the Member's name. This relationship is illustrated in the two lists on the left side of the Members page.  Each membership is shown in the Membership list box by family name, alphabetically.  Each individual member in the household is listed below in the Members list box.  The individual names within a membership are in order by adults first, then children, and alphabetically by first name within each of these sub-groups. To view or edit the details for a Membership, click on the family name and the details will be listed to the right of the Membership list box.  Similarly, to view or edit the details for an individual Member, click on the individual member's name in the Members list box and their details will be shown to the right. With either a Membership or Member name selected, to edit the details, click on the Edit button below the corresponding details.

To Add a Membership

Memberships are created using the Add a Membership wizard.  To start the wizard, click the Add a Membership button below the Membership list box and follow the steps through the wizard.  You can back up to make corrections at any point in the wizard without losing any data you've entered. In wizard page 1, select the type of membership, and complete the form.  A first and last name are required for the first person.  If the last name is left blank for any others, we assume they have the same last name.  Middle, Hebrew and Nicknames are optional.  After entering the information, click Next.

On page 2 review the membership names.  These entries are created from the names you entered on page 1, and are used in various ChaiTrack lists and reports.  If you decide to change these from the names proposed, be sure to be consistent so you can find the membership when you need to. The alphabetical name is also used in the Membership list box.  Formal and informal names are used based on the context and need. In the lower half of page 2, enter the home address, phone number, the date this family/household joined your congregation and any notes you would like to enter about this membership.  Then click the Next button.

Wizard page 3 gathers more information on the adults in the household, including gender, work & mobile phone numbers, e-mail addresses and any notes about the individual members.  In case you were wondering, ChaiTrack uses gender in the Communications module where you may want to send a message to only men or only women.  All of the fields on page 3 are optional except gender.  Click Next to continue.

Wizard page 4 is for entry of the children's information, if any.  If there are no children in this membership, you can skip this page by clicking Next.  If you selected Single or Couple for the membership type, the wizard will skip this page automatically.

Wizard page 5 provides a brief summary of the information entered so far.  If the summary looks correct, click Save to continue. Page 6 confirms that the membership has been saved and allows you to exit the wizard or repeat the process for the next membership.

If there are more people in the household than the wizard allows for, you can add those names after running through the wizard.  Click on the the membership name in the membership list, then click the Add New Person button at the bottom of the page, enter the information, then click Save.

View & maintain your members' life-cycle events on this page.  Access the Life-Cycle Events page from the Congregation menu.

Selecting Members List

Members are listed alphabetically by last name.  To view or edit the life-cycle events for a Member, click on the name and the details will be listed to the right of the Members list box.

To Add a Life-Cycle Event

Select the member in the members list box first, then click the Add a new event... button. In the Event Details section select the event type, enter the date and any notes, and click Save.  You can enter Secular Date, Hebrew Date, or both.  The system will automatically convert a date in one calendar to the other provided you enter a full date (month, day and year).  Dates cannot be converted without all 3 parts.  If you don't know the full date, ChaiTrack will accept partial dates too!  Put in what you know...

To Edit a Life-Cycle Event

Select the member in the members list box first, then select the event to edit in the Events list box and click the Edit button, make your changes and click Save.

What's the After Sundown box for?

You may recall that days on the Hebrew calendar begin at sundown, leaving several evening hours of overlap where it's the same day on the secular calendar and the next day on the Hebrew calendar.  If you know the event occurred after sundown, check the box to ensure the correct date conversion between the secular and Hebrew calendars.  If you don't know, don't worry about it.  TRICK:  If you already know both secular and Hebrew dates but aren't sure if the event was before or after sundown, enter the secular date and save the event.  Then check the Hebrew date that ChaiTrack calculates.  If the calculated Hebrew date is one day earlier than your records show, then edit the event and check the After Sundown box and the date should be correct.

How can I add a list of upcoming life-cycle events in my web site?

ChaiTrack supports RSS feeds for embedding lists into your own congregation's web site. Feeds using life-cycle event data include birthdays and anniversaries, and you can specify how far ahead to include, such as birthdays occurring in the next 30 days. See the RSS Feeds section of this user's guide for details.

Reminders are another way for you to communicate with your members.  Create rich text messages, with graphics and images and always be sure your reminders will go out on time!  Access the Reminders page from the Congregation menu. There are three tabs on the Communicate page, one for Yahrzeit reminders, one for Birthday messages, and one for Anniversary messages.  More reminder options will be coming in the future - tell us what you'd like and we'll consider it for a future version!

Setting up Reminders

To enable a reminder, check the Enabled checkbox, then click the Save button. Additional options include: Advance Notice - how many days or weeks in advance you want the message to go out.  The default is 14 days for yahrzeits and 0 days (no notice) for birthdays. Read Friday Yahrzeits - some congregations prefer to read yahrzeits that fall on a Friday on the preceding Shabbat, while others prefer to read them that evening.  The default is on the preceding Shabbat. Subject - this will appear in the subject line of the e-mail message. From - this will select who the e-mail message is sent on behalf of.  You can select Congregation to have the message sent using the e-mail address in the Congregation Settings, or you can select a particular member to be the source of the message. Message - this is the body of the e-mail message, and can include graphics, rich text and replaceable token parameters.  Tokens are described below.

When Do Yahrzeit Reminders Get Sent?

Yahrzeit reminders are always sent the specified number of days or weeks in advance of the Service date. The Service date defaults to the Shabbat immediately preceding the yahrzeit occurence that year.  Yahrzeits falling on a Friday may optionally have their Service date be that same day by setting the Read Friday Yahrzeits option to That Evening. Each yahrzeit entry in ChaiTrack has an option to observe the yahrzeit on either the secular date or on the Hebrew date.  When the yahrzeit is to be observed on the Hebrew date, ChaiTrack uses that date, not the secular date, when calculating when to send the reminder.

Creating Your Message

This is the body of your message, and is sent as rich text.  You can type your message in the box or copy and paste in the message created in another application.  If you want to paste text created in Microsoft Word, use the Paste From Word toolbar button - it's the one in the top row that looks like a clipboard with a W on it.  Use the toolbar buttons to format your message as needed. To insert pictures and graphics in your message, click in your message where you want the graphic to appear and click the Insert/Edit Image on the toolbar - it's in the 2nd row, to the right of the Anchor.  An Image Properties window will pop up (you'll have to enable popups for ChaiTrack to work correctly - we promise no popup ads).  Click the Browse Server button in the Image Properties window and select the subdirectory for your congregation from the Image Gallery window that pops up next.  Select the image to insert by clicking on the image in the gallery.  You'll be taken back to the Image Properties window, where you can change the size (Height & Width), set the border thickness and spacing around the picture, and select the picture alignment relative to the text.  Then click Ok and the image will be inserted into your message. If the image you want to use is not already in the image gallery, you'll have to upload it first.  While in the Image Gallery, click the Browse button, browse to and select the image you want to upload, then click Upload New File and the file will be uploaded to your image gallery.  Once the upload completes, you can select the image from the gallery and proceed with your message. PLEASE only upload and only use images in your own congregation's subdirectory.

Using Tokens

You can personalize reminder messages by inserting tokens into the subject line and message body.  The applicable tokens for a reminder are listed to the right of the Message text box. Tokens are enclosed in square brackets and are case-sensitive.  You must enter the token exactly as shown. When your reminder is prepared for sending, ChaiTrack looks up the corresponding information in the database and replaces the token with the data found.  For example, if you enter "Happy Birthday [MemberFirstName]!" in the subject, if it's my birthday then the e-mail I receive will read "Happy Birthday Marty!"

So, you've expended a great deal of effort getting information into ChaiTrack.  Reports are one way to get information back out! There are a number of common reports already in the system, with more options coming in the future - tell us what you'd like and we'll consider it for a future version, or we can build a custom report just for you!

Selecting a Report

To select a report, pick one from the list of available reports.  Keep in mind that your congregation's administrator may have limited which reports you're allowed to run, so you may not be seeing them all.  See the section on permissions in the User Logins section of this manual. Once you select a report from the list, the report will automatically run, and will appear below the report toolbar. A few things to point out: Multiple Pages - Depending upon the amount of information and the format of the report, reports often extend over multiple pages.  You can use the left/right arrows in the center section of the toolbar to advance forward/backward through the report, a page at a time, or advance to the beginning or end.  You can directly select which page to display using the page number pulldown in the middle of the toolbar. Printing - You can print a report (all pages or the current page) directly from the web page using the print buttons on the left side of the toolbar.  Direct printing of reports requires that you have Adobe Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader installed on your computer.  You'll find a link to download the Adobe Reader on the right side of the page, just under the People Online box.  If you don't want to install Adobe software, you can still print your reports by downloading the file in a format you can print from. Downloading - You can download your formatted report in a variety of file formats, including Adobe (pdf), Excel (xls), Rich Text (rtf), Plain Text (txt), Comma Separated (csv), or Image (png) files.  You have the choice of saving the file or opening it directly using the appropriate application.  First select the file format from the pulldown on the right side of the toolbar, then click the Save or Open button just to the left of the pulldown. To switch to a different report, just select it from the list and the new report will be displayed.

RSS is an acronym for really simple syndication. ChaiTrack supports a number of feeds for your data to allow you to show selected information on another web site or in a feed reader.

Supported feeds include upcoming birthdays, anniversaries, yahrzeits, new members, and recent deaths. In most cases you can specify the time window to look forward or backward. The exception is the recent deaths feed, which follows Jewish tradition of showing the name throughout Sheloshim, the 30-day period of mourning for most individuals, and 11 months for a parent.

You'll find links to the RSS feeds on the Members, Life Cycle Events, and Yahrzeits pages - just click the orange RSS icon on those pages to open the feed in a new window.  You can then copy the address from the browser address bar and paste it into your feed reader.

You can modify your feeds.  To start with, you'll need to know the address of the feed. Get that by clicking on the RSS icon for the feed you're interested in.  A complete feed address looks like this:

http://www.chaitrack.com/chaitrackfeeds.aspx?uniqueidentifier=123ab839-4e22-4590-a822-2253ed68e4ab&feedname=yahrzeits&time=30

To break the address into its parts:

• The primary url is http://www.chaitrack.com/chaitrackfeeds.aspx
• Next, your congregation is identified using the unique identifier found on your congregation settings page as:
  ?uniqueidentifier=123ab839-4e22-4590-a822-2253ed68e4ab. 
• Next, specify which feed you want as: &feedname=yahrzeits (or birthdays, anniversaries, newmembers, or recentdeaths)
• Next, specify how many days to look forward or back to fill the feed as: &time=30 for 30 days

Note, there are no spaces or quotation marks, and everything is on one line. If you omit the time parameter, ChaiTrack will use the default time of 14 days.

Most modern web browsers will display RSS feeds - just paste the feed address into your browser's address box and hit enter. This will allow you to preview the data and be sure you've got the address constructed correctly!

 If you use the URJ's RJ-WebBuilder program, follow these steps to add a feed to your page:

1. Log into your web site as a page editor or webmaster.
2. Put the page into edit mode from the Current Page menu.
3. Click the Add Program button to add a content program to the target region of the page, and select where in that region to place the program.
4. Select RSS Viewer as the program type.
5. Select the container type and enter a title for the program (e.g. Upcoming Yahrzeits).
6. On the web page you'll now see your new program on the page, but it will indicate "There are no feeds to display."
7. Right-click on the new program and select Change Options from the context menu.
8. In the RSS Feed URLs box, enter or paste your feed address, select from the options for update time, etc., then click the Update Options button.
9. Your feed should now appear.

The RJ-WebBuilder feed viewer allows you to specify more than one feed in the URL box, separated by commas, but the viewer will not sort the items together - one list will appear after the other, so it's better to use a separate program for each feed you want to show.

 

Logins permit you to control who is allowed access to your congregation's information, and which information and parts of the site each person is permitted to use. When you create a login for a user, you assign them to one or more roles in your congregation (member, officer, etc.).  Separately, you select the permissions each role has.  This way, when you change the permissions for Board Members, for example, your changes are made in one place and immediately affect the permissions for all users in that role.

Creating a New Login

From the User Logins page, click the Add a new Login button. On the New Login page: Select a member from the pulldown list to fill in the text fields automatically from data already in ChaiTrack, or manually enter the information. On the right side of the page, select the roles this user belongs to. You may leave the Create Random Password checkbox checked to have the system create a temporary password for this user.  ChaiTrack will e-mail them their temporary password, and they'll be prompted to change it the first time they log in.  If you uncheck the checkbox, you'll be able to manually enter a password, select whether to have ChaiTrack e-mail them their password (you may want to tell them privately, in which case make sure that box is unchecked), and select whether you want ChaiTrack to require a password change when they first log in.

Changing a User's Roles

To change the roles a user is assigned to, click the Edit Roles button next to the user's name in the list of users.  Make your role changes as needed, then click Save to return to the List.

Deleting a User's Login

Just click the red X delete button next to the user's name in the list of users.

Changing the Permissions for Each Role

Click on the Change Role Permissions button on the User Login page to access the Role Permissions page. Then, select a role from the pulldown list at the top, and the list of permissions will update to the current permissions for the selected role.  Change the permissions as needed, then click the Save Changes button at the bottom.  NOTE:  If you select a new role from the pulldown list before saving your changes, any changes will be discarded without warning. When you're finished making changes to permissions, click the Finished button to return to the User Logins page.

Which Permissions to Use

Permissions work together to with Roles to control access to the feature of ChaiTrack.  Since access control is very fine-grained, the following should help you to better understand how to set permissions. View permission controls access to the page.  Before a role can do anything with a feature, they must have View permission.  For example, if you want to give permission to edit Yahrzeits, you must give the role View permission for Yahrzeits so they can acces the page, and Edit permission so they can make changes.  So, always start with View, then add other permissions. A number of features have a Report permission.  This controls whether the related reports appear in the list of reports available when they go to the Reports page.  If a role is to have Report permission for any reports, you must also check Reports-View to grant access to the Reports page. User logins, although listed in the permissions table, are only available to Congregation Administrators for security reasons. Several functions include a Change/Edit Own permission.  This grants permission for a user to change information if it is their own record, but not to change the information for anyone else.  Using this permission, you could grant members permission to maintain their own Member, Life-Cycle and Yahrzeit records without them being able to make changes to other members' information. Communicate has some permissions that are a little different - View, Add and Edit control Viewing the page, creating new messages and editing saved messages, respectively.  You must check Send to enable a role to actually send a message.  This allows you to give certain roles permission to create and edit messages, saving them for someone else to review and send.  If you want a role to have full permissions to create and send messages, you must check all the options. There are a small number of permissions in the list that refer to future features of ChaiTrack.  You can set those at any time to be ready or wait until those features are released.  Each time you see a new feature released in ChaiTrack, you'll want to check your permissions settings to be sure and give permissions to the roles you want.  As new permissions are added to the list, the default setting is always not checked.  As with everything else in ChaiTrack, if you have questions, please feel free to ask, either in the forums or by e-mail.

Important Points about User Logins and Permissions

A user's permissions are the sum of the permissions from all of the roles they belong to.  For example, if you put all users in the Members role, and the Members role has permission to add life-cycle events, then that person will be able to add life-cycle events regardless of any other roles they may be assigned to that don't have that permission.    Some permissions are in the category of "Change Own", which means users with that permission may change (edit) their own information in ChaiTrack but cannot change the information of other members.  In order for this to work, you must create the login by selecting from the member list, not from manual entry - this is the only way for ChaiTrack to know the connection between the member entry and the login being created.    The Congregation Administrator role is a super-user role - anyone assigned to this role has unlimited privileges on the system automatically.  You'll note that this role does not appear in the list of roles on the Role Permissions page - you can't change it!    Every congregation MUST have at least one Congregation Administrator (CA).  ChaiTrack will not allow you to delete the only CA from your congregation or change them out of that role.  If you're the last CA and you want to get out of that role, you'll have to assign someone else to the CA role and they will have to remove that role assignment from your login.

View & maintain your members' yahrzeits on this page.  Access the Yahrzeits page from the Congregation menu.

Selecting Members List

Members are listed alphabetically by last name.  To view or edit the yahrzeits for a Member, click on the name and the details will be listed to the right of the Members list box. You'll notice that Congregation is at the top of the Members list.  If you have yahrzeits you'd like to remember that are not connected to a current member, you can add the names under this selection.  Congregation yahrzeits will appear on yahrzeit reports under your congregation's name, but will not generate any yahrzeit reminders.

To Add a Yahrzeit

Select the member in the members list box first, or select Congregation if the yahrzeit is not associated with a current member, then click the Add a new Yahrzeit... button. In the Yahrzeit Details section enter the names, relation, date and any notes, and click Save.  You can enter Secular Date, Hebrew Date, or both.  The system will automatically convert a date in one calendar to the other provided you enter a full date (month, day and year).  Dates cannot be converted without all 3 parts.  If you don't know the full date, ChaiTrack will accept partial dates too!  Put in what you know...

To Edit a Yahrzeit

Select the member (or Congregation) in the members list box first, then select the yahrzeit to edit in the Yahrzeits list box and click the Edit button, make your changes and click Save.

What's the After Sundown box for?

You may recall that days on the Hebrew calendar begin at sundown, leaving several evening hours of overlap where it's the same day on the secular calendar and the next day on the Hebrew calendar.  If you know the event occurred after sundown, check the box to ensure the correct date conversion between the secular and Hebrew calendars.  If you don't know, don't worry about it.  TRICK:  If you already know both secular and Hebrew dates but aren't sure if the event was before or after sundown, enter the secular date and save the event.  Then check the Hebrew date that ChaiTrack calculates.  If the calculated Hebrew date is one day earlier than your records show, then edit the event and check the After Sundown box and the date should be correct.

What's the Observe on Hebrew Date box for?

Traditionally, yarhzeits are observed on the anniversary of the death according to the Hebrew calendar.  Some congregations, and some individuals, prefer to observe yahrzeits according to the secular calendar.  ChaiTrack give you the choice!

What's the Send Reminder box for?

If you enable reminders to be sent electronically for yahrzeits, reminders will only be sent for those that have this box checked (default is checked). This feature permits recipients to opt out of a reminder for some yahrzeits and not others. The reminder e-mail will include links at the bottom of the message to allow them to opt out of reminders for the particular yahrzeit in the reminder or for all yahrzeits. Once they opt out, whether for one or all yahrzeits, the only way to re-enable reminders is to edit each yahrzeit record individually and check the box.

How can I add a list of upcoming yahrzeits to my web site? ChaiTrack supports RSS feeds for embedding lists into your own congregation's web site. Feeds include yahrzeits, and you can specify how far ahead to include, such as yahrzeits occurring in the next 7 days. See the RSS Feeds section of this user's guide for details.