Two new check-boxes for the Bimah List

Let’s say you’ve done a Yahrzeit query, typically by week or by month. Unless your congregation observes completely by Hebrew date, or completely by Gregorian date, you’ll see that the screen has two different lists. The first list comprises Yahrzeits that fall within the Hebrew date range; the second, Yahrzeits that fall within the Gregorian date range.

And then, the point of this article — between the Hebrew section and the Gregorian section is the button to create a combination Bimah list. So named, because it combines the two styles of observance. That has existed for some time. What is new, then?

A check-box to include all Yahrzeits with a plaque, regardless of any other selection criteria.

A check-box to exclude Yahrzeits for whom there is either no observer, or only observers with a notification flag of N (No notification).

One last wrinkle — on the combo bimah list, we’ve put an asterisk next to those who have a plaque.

Envelopes for Yahrzeit notifications.

Directly from the Yahrzeit query screen, you may now print envelopes for Yahrzeit notifications.

The envelopes come out in alphabetical order, one per person. As is the case for printing envelopes from the family query, you may choose to print your synagogue’s return address on the upper left of the envelope, or leave that area blank.

For more background on various aspects of Yahrzeits, please visit this link.

For a video specifically on printing envelopes for Yahrzeit notifications, please visit this link.

Envelopes for Yahrzeit reminders
Envelopes for Yahrzeit reminders

Yahrzeit Query by Attribute

This enhancement includes the ability to do a yahrzeit query by attribute.

To review — you can assign attributes (a.k.a. “tags”) to individuals. For example, you may wish to assign an attribute of “Snail Mail Only,” or “Send yahrzeit notifications by surface mail” to some congregants who have expressed that preference. Until now, there was no way to distinguish observers by tag.

Now, you can do so. In the Yahrzeit query, you’ll see a new selection called “Member attribute.”

Yahrzeit query by member attribute

That way, you can obtain one comprehensive list of observers. Or, you can obtain a list according to the way you’ve tagged individuals.

There is one more small enhancement along with this one. If you use the Combo Bimah List export, you’ll see the observer’s cell phone on that spreadsheet.

To see these features in action, please enjoy this short (3m, 30s) video.

Diving a bit deeper — most often, the Yahrzeit query is by a range of dates — the forthcoming week, or the forthcoming month. It’s more versatile than that. You can also query by the name of the deceased; by the name of an observer; and you can also pull a list of people who have passed away in the past year .

Mass Change for Relationship Phrases

Now available — mass change for relationship phrases.

Suppose in your list of Yahrzeits, you have some inconsistencies. Brother and brother. Sister-in-Law and sister in law. Of course, you wouldn’t want to change them one by one, to match your preferences. Now, in one easy step, you can change all the relationships from one phrase to another.

Mass change for relationship phrases
Mass Change for Relationship Phrases

To see this feature in action, please have a look at this short video.

Yahrzeit Enhancements

We have a couple of yahrzeit enhancements that may be quite useful, depending on your situation.

yahrzeit enhancements 1: Date range change

Until now, when you keyed a date range to pull yahrzeit lists, that range had to be entirely in the future. If you entered a date in the past, the system assumed you meant next year. With this enhancement, you may enter dates up until 10 days ago. For example, if you’re pulling a yahrzeit list on Friday, 11/13/2020, you may enter Saturday, 11/7/2020 through Friday, 11/13/2020. Another example — suppose it’s the 3rd of a month, and you meant to pull the entire month three days ago, but somehow missed doing it. Now it works to pull from the 1st through end of month.

yahrzeit enhancements 2: Export bimah list

After running the query, if you’ll scroll to roughly the middle of the page, you’ll find a light blue button entitled “Create Combo Bimah List.” That is not new — it presents a nicely formatted page, combining the yahrzeits with the observers by Hebrew date, along with the observers by Gregorian date.

New, though, is a button to the right of the the light blue button. This is an indigo button

Button to export combo bimah list
Export Combo Bimah List

that makes the same data available in a spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet has a few features not available on the web page:

  • the name of the yahrzeit appears with the first and last names in separate columns, and then again with the first and last names combined into one column.
  • if there is a plaque, the plaque location occupies a column
  • the first and last names of the observer, and the relationship of the deceased to the observer, appears in separate columns; and then combined into one column.

Here’s a video demonstrating these two new Yahrzeit enhancements.

Bimah List, exported
Bimah List Exported

Yahrzeit Letters – Tabular Format

If in your congregation, it is common for one person to receive multiple Yahrzeit reminder letters in the same period, you can now use the tabular format. In this format, the Yahrzeits appear in neat columns, in the middle of the page. In contrast, in the traditional format, the Yahrzeits were in-line with the rest of the text.

There is one thing you should be aware of, though. The tabular format is fixed–it has the name of the deceased, relationship to the living person, and Hebrew and Gregorian dates. There is no flexibility to include or exclude fields in that table.

With the Yahrzeit letters tabular format, you still do control the rest of the text of the letter–the areas above and below the table are free-form.

Here’s a video (3:51) showing how this works.

Yahrzeit letter tabular format

Consolidated Bimah List

Now available–a consolidated Bimah list.

We’ve added another button to the Yahrzeit query. Just a little background would be in order. On the Yahrzeit query, the top half of the screen shows all the Yahrzeits matching the Hebrew date range. Conversely, the bottom half of the screen shows all the Yahrzeits matching the Gregorian dates that you’ve entered.

If your congregation concentrates on one or the other — all Hebrew or all Gregorian — you can use the long-standing buttons to create a Hebrew or Gregorian Bimah list.

On the other hand, if your congregation has a mixture, the new Combination Bimah List button will serve you well.

combination bimah list

With this button, the system combines the Hebrew lines with the Gregorian lines, to give you one list. Along the way, at your option, it sorts by the dates the Yahrzeits occur, according to the Yahrzeit observer.

If you haven’t used the Yahrzeit area before, you might find it helpful to have a look at this instructional article and video.

Or, if you’d like to see the new “Combo” Bimah list in action, here’s a link that will step through the process.

Consolidated Bimah List

Improvements within Yahrzeit Queries

You’ll see three improvements within Yahrzeit queries. Those changes are as follows:

  • If you’re entering a Gregorian date range, the program had been adding a day to the end of the range. Why? you might ask. We were being extra cautious. We were including Yahrzeits that began after sundown on the “to” part of the date. However, none of our customers thought that made sense. Consequently, we have removed the extra day tack-on. If you enter July 1 through July 31, you’ll see July 1 through July 31, alongside its equivalents on the Hebrew calendar.
  • When sending emails from the member query, you may be taking advantage of the ability to use an alternate sender email address. (If you missed that announcement, here’s the post that will fill you in.) All well and good–but that same idea was not available if you’re sending out Yahrzeit notifications by email. For example, you might wish your Yahrzeit notifications to be sent from a general address, such as “yahrzeits@yourtemple.org.” If you do wish to use an alternate sender address, please do get in touch with us. We’ll need to have our email handler verify the new email sender.
  • Last thing–on smaller screens, or screens that were less than maximized, the buttons below the listings collided with the drop-down boxes to their right. The system now handles those situations gracefully, even to the size of a cell phone.
action buttons on Yahrzeit queries
Actions Buttons on Yahrzeit Query

Here’s an under-four-minute video that runs through these improvements within Yahrzeit queries.

How to: Input and Report on Yahrzeits

This post runs through most aspects of updating Yahrzeits, especially connecting members of your congregation to their loved ones who have passed away.

The video also shows how to

  • Pull Yahrzeit lists by both Hebrew date range and Gregorian date range.
  • Obtain a spreadsheet with both lists.
  • Create Yahrzeit reminder notifications, honed specifically to the recipient’s preference of Hebrew or Gregorian.
  • How to create a printable list of Yahrzeits, using either a Hebrew date range or a Gregorian date range.

In contrast to most of our posts, which announce new features, this is meant as an instructional video. Enjoy.

How to: Maintain and report on Yahrzeits.

Yahrzeit Query by Billing Status

Hang onto your hats, folks. This one goes a mite deep.

First, in order to understand this change, let’s outline how some of the data relates to each other. Modeled after the real world,

  • ShalomCloud houses family units, sometimes referred to as households.
  • One or more individuals reside within those family units.
  • Yahrzeits, in and of themselves, are records of deceased persons, containing, among other details, both the Hebrew and Gregorian dates of death.
  • Yahrzeit relationships, then, are the ties between the deceased and the individuals defined and maintained by you.

The family units / households contain a field called “billing status.” Thus, a member of a household listed as “Active” can also be thought of as Active. Likewise, a member of a household with status “Inactive,” for example, can be thought of as Inactive.

And now, at last we arrive at the change. Within Yahrzeit queries, you can now select billing status(es) for relationships you want to appear in the answer. For example, let’s say that there are two brothers, Adam and Billy. Adam is a member of your congregation; Billy is indeed tracked in your data, but has a status of “Out of Town.” Let’s say, also, that their father David’s Yahrzeit is in the system.

In this example, if you run a Yahrzeit query without specifying billing status, you’ll see both David, father of Adam and David, father of Billy. However, if you run that same query, specifying only Active, you’ll see only David, father of Adam.

Also, the actions that flow from the query screen–the mail merge export, the Yahrzeit reminder letters, and the Yahrzeit reminder emails–match what you’ll see on the screen.

Here is a five-minute video that shows how this works.