The Job Fields:

Title, Dept, Bldg, Mail Bldg - These fields are Drop Down Lists which you should fill in using the Building List, Department List, and Title List options of the Main Menu. It is not possible to enter data directly into these fields.

Shift, Room, Mail Room - No special restrictions are placed on these fields.

Note: Use Mail Bldg, and Mail Room when an employee's mail must be delivered to an address different from the work location (Room, Bldg), such as a central mail room or box number.

% time - Percent Time is a numeric field. You cannot enter "Full" or "Part"...

The Employer Fields:

Name, Addr, City, State, Zip - No special restriction are placed on these fields except that Zip will warn you if you enter a string that cannot possibly be a postal code.

Work Phone(s), Fax, E-mail, Home Phone(s) - E-mail has no special formatting and is not forced to upper case as email addresses are usually case sensitive. All telephone number fields are formatted as shown above, but are w ritten to the Main Data Table in the form 999-999-9999x999999 and this is also the form used in Your Table. Keep this in mind if you build a Query (see The Filter Screen) that includes a phone number.

Signed Authorization Card, Signed Membership Card - The checkboxes to the left of these fields are simple True/False. The text space to the right of each is for the signing date. The date fields require the year to be enter ed in full as shown but note that in Your Table the year will appear as only two characters.

Area - This field allows you to assign geographical areas to your union or group. This is handy for understanding your organizing needs when your people are spread across multiple geographical or political areas. Of course, you can assign any other sort of division you like. This field is a Drop Down Menu whose values you must assign. Direct data entry to this field is not allowed. See User Preferences on the Utilities Menu for more informatio n about assigning Areas. If grouping your people just by Area is inadequate to your need, see User Preferences

Organizer - This field is also a Drop Down Menu and direct data entry is not allowed.

Date of last organizing visit - This is important. Regular human contact is the way to keep a union healthy. Don't use the date of the last time you mailed a flyer.

Home Address, City, State, Zip - No special restrictions are placed on these fields except that data is forced to upper case and Zip will warn you if you enter a value that cannot possibly be a postal code. Default values o f City and State will automatically fill in when you add new records. These values are based on the addresses in the Building List. Naturally, you can overwrite these values if they are inappropriate.

Activist, Attends Meetings, Steward, Will Phone Bank, Eligible to Vote, Will Organize, Get Out the Vote Contact - These are simple True/False fields. Steward is primarily relevant to established unions, Get Out the Vote to new organizing campaigns. The other fields are relevant in both cases.

Dues Amount, Up to Date, Salary - Dues and Salary are numeric, Up to Date is True/False. The Union Organizer makes no attempt to be accounting software. If you would like to track other financial info see the User Defined Fields tab of the User Preferences option on the Utilities Menu.