Frequently Asked Questions: Using Sumac

Click the topics of interest.

The icon for running Sumac, which usually lives on my desktop, has disappeared. How do I get it back?

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When I run Sumac, it tells me it cannot connect to the database server and suggests some reasons for this. How can I fix this problem?

This message means that for some reason Sumac is unable to establish a connection to the database server computer.

Single-User Sumac (Demo, Bronze, Silver)

If you are running a single-user version of Sumac, the data is on your computer, so this message almost always means that another copy of Sumac is still running. Quit all running versions of Sumac and wait for half a minute, then run Sumac again. The problem normally goes away and you can run Sumac normally after that. If this does not fix the problem, restart your computer and try again.

Multi-User Sumac (Gold)

If you are running a multi-user version of Sumac, then Sumac connects to the database through a communication network. So probably something is wrong with your network. Network communications usually work, but when something fails, you need to systematically check for several things that could cause the failure, and fix any that you identify.

Here are some things that might be wrong.Check each one, if something is wrong, fix it and run Sumac again:

• Is the server computer actually running? Check that it is turned on and connected to the network.
  

• Is MySQL up and running on the server? You can ensure that MySQL is up and running by using the Services Manager on Windows, or the MySQL System Preferences on Macintosh.

• Is the databases.txt file set up correctly? This file (which resides in a Sumac folder on your hard drive) contains a line that identifies your server and database, and looks something like this:

• Can other Sumac users connect to the server, or is the problem with only one computer? If no one can connect to the server, there may be a firewall on the server that prevents connections to MySQL.In this case, you need to add an exception to the list of programs allowed through the firewall. On Windows servers, the program for which an exception is required is named mysqld-nt.exe.

• Can your computer connect to the server? You can quickly determine this by trying to telnet to the server on port 3306. On a Macintosh run Terminal, on Windows run cmd, and enter:

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How do I set up the Time Dockets module?

Time Dockets is part of Sumac Roots – every Sumac installation has it. Before using it, you need to specify programs. Programs identify areas where people perform the work being recorded: e.g. transportation, office work, kitchen work, outreach.

Use the Lookup Lists command in the Administrator menu to specify your programs. Then at the end of the year or month, you can produce reports that break down time by program.

Note, by the way, that you can record both volunteer and staff time this way too. For example, if you get a grant to provide transportation for clients, and need to report on the time spent doing transportation, you could record both staff and volunteer time to get a complete picture of the hours being spent on transportation.

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How do I configure the information needed for ticketed events?

Before you can order tickets, you must enter information about the ticketed event, its venue, pricing of seats, and the layout of seats in the venue, taxes, surcharges, and discounts. All this information is set up using the Lookup Lists command in the Administrator menu. The Ticket Order chapter of the Sumac User Manual suggests that order in which this information can be most conveniently entered.

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Where can I get paper for printing tickets?

Sumac prints tickets on standard sized paper on standard computer printers. You can print on ordinary white bond paper and cut the tickets to size.
For a better looking ticket, you can get paper, in different weights and colours, that is already perforated for tickets. Here are links to some companies that may be able to help (use Google to find more):


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Why are some members not appearing in the membership directory?

The rules Sumac uses for putting someone in the directory are different for top level directory entries (e.g. an organization) and for secondary level entries (someone who works for the organization).

Regarding top level entries: When you create the directory, it asks for which types of contacts are to be included in the directory, and you can tell Sumac to include contacts based on membership information, and whether you have manually specified that a contact should be included in the directory (by clicking the Include in Membership Directory checkbox in the Membership Directory tab of the contact record).

In addition, to be included, a contact must have a membership contact type specified. Membership contact types are checkboxes in the Membership Directory tab of each contact record. Confirm that the organization missing from the directory has a relevant contact type checked off in the Membership Directory tab.

Secondary entries must be related to top level entries by a relationship whose name (in the Administrator Lookup Lists window) starts with md. Check that this is the case.

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I am using Search Builder to construct a list of contacts to receive a mailing. How can I remove the ones that have no address?

Create a search criterion which searches on a Contact field. The field to search is Pref Street A (the street address of the contact’s preferred address). Then choose the search relationship is null. This finds all contacts who have no street address. Click the Reverse the search checkbox to find the contacts who do have a mailing address.

You can save this single search criterion as a group, to be used in other searches or, since it is just a single fairly simple search criterion, include this box into other searches as required.

If you already have a search that produces a list of people to receive a mailing, use this new search criterion by connecting it (with an and connector) to the criterion that produces your mailing list.

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My RTF template is not working. What’s wrong?

Here are some problems that may arise when doing Mail Merge using an RTF template:

• It is possible that the template is too large. This usually happens because the template contains high resolution pictures. In RTF documents, pictures are saved in a format that makes them rather large, so a high resolution picture can make the template enormous. Shrink the template by reducing the resolution of the pictures to a more appropriate size; usually 300 dots per inch works well since that is around the resolution of what people can see.

• Another possibility is that you are saving many merged documents (for several contacts) into a single RTF file, and the resulting document is too large. Again the problem may be caused by pictures. If the template contains pictures, then make sure they are as low resolution as possible. Also, if at all possible, put the pictures into the template’s headers and footers; this ensures that the resulting output file contains only one copy of each picture, instead of one copy for each contact.

• If Sumac complains about a formula, inside angle brackets <<...>>, but the formula works fine in Sumac’s Make Template window, or when you use it in a text-only template, then the problem is probably embedded formatting codes.

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How do I remove countries from addresses when doing mail merge and generating labels?

First, tell Sumac which country to remove. You do this by ensuring that the country in your Office record is correct. A Sumac administrator can choose Offices from the Administrator menu, and put the correct country in the default office record.

Second tell Sumac that when it is performing  a mail merge, it should remove the country from mailing addresses. A Sumac administrator can choose Preferences from the Administrator menu, click the Mail Merge tab, then click the checkbox telling Sumac to remove the default office's country name from addresses.

Third, whenever you generate labels, choose an office record (usually the default office record), to tell Sumac not to put the default office's country in the labels.

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Contact expansion: Why don’t all  of a contact’s donations show when I click the expansion icon for a contact?

Expansion control fields in the contacts list allow you to specify how far back in time Sumac should look when gathering data to show in the expansion. The default is 24 months, so when you expand a contact, only the last 24 months of data are displayed. If you change the number from 24 to, say, 60 months, you see more information when you click the expansion icon.

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Campaigns: What is the difference between a fund and a campaign?

Typically a fund is the purpose for a donation. If you allow donors to specify that a donation is for a particular purpose (e.g. "here is $100 to use for the Triple A Production next year" or "here is $10,000 for your capital campaign"), then the purposes (e.g. Triple A Production and the Capital Campaign) are funds. Sumac can keep record and report on which pledges relate to a which funds and which donations were allocated to which funds.

A campaign is a set of steps you pursue to get donations. For example, your Christmas Fundraising Drive might be a campaign. Sumac can record which communications, pledges, and donations relate to a particular campaign.

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Campaigns: What is the difference between a solicitation and a campaign?

We found that some people consider a campaign to consist of several solicitations, while others reverse this and refer to a solicitation containing several campaigns. So we made Sumac neutral on this issue: from Sumac’s perspective, a solicitation and a campaign are exactly the same thing.

Sumac generally uses the term campaign to refer to these kinds of things. But when you define a campaign, you can indicate that it is of type campaign or solicitation, and use whichever terminology you are most comfortable with.

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Should I use the Inactive checkbox in contact records to indicate that someone is no longer a member?

Generally you should not use the inactive checkbox to indicate that a membership is no longer current. If a member contact lapses, then there would be no current membership record for the contact which, by its absence, indicates that the contact is no longer a member.

The Inactive checkbox indicates no further relationship of any sort is likely with a contact. But a lapsed member may become a member again in the future, or may even be a current donor or attend current events.

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Sumac says someone else is editing a record, but no one is. How can I edit the record?

When you edit certain types of records (e.g. contacts, programs, ticket orders) Sumac locks the record so that only one person can edit it at once. If, while the record is still being edited, Sumac is terminated or the computer crashes, the record is left locked.

Later, when someone tries to edit the locked record, Sumac prevents the record from being used, thinking it is already in use.

If you are sure that no one is editing the record, a Sumac administrator can unlock it by choosing the Clear All Locks command from the Administrator menu.

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Can I use Sumac to make PDF tax receipts? How can I email tax receipts using  Sumac?

Sumac can do a mail merge directly with a pdf template, and can then email them to the donors directly. This saves many steps in the receipting process.

The Sumac Administrator Manual explains how to put formulas into fields in PDF documents to create the template. When Sumac does a mail merge with a pdf template, it encrypts the resulting document with a key that is not known to anyone, so the document cannot be changed, thereby satisfying government rules for electronic receipts.

Then use the Email Receipts button in the Donations list window to email them.

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How should I record organizations with multiple contacts?

The best way to record this is:

• Create a contact record for the organization itself, with no particular individual's name in it. Give this contact record a gender of organization.

• Create a contact record for each of the people associated with the organization. Then enter relations that relate the individuals to the organization. You may want to use relations that provide useful information. For example, if the organization is a school, you might want three or four relation types like "is teacher at/has teacher", "is primary contact for/has primary contact", "is principal at/has principal", "is billing contact at/has billing contact". Since relations can be searched, you will then be able to do a search like "Find all people who are principals at a school".

The advantage to this approach is that it does not mix up an organization and individuals within one contact record (is this phone number for the person or the organization?). It also defines the organization independently of any individuals that work there.

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People enter name and address information on our web site. How can I get this information into Sumac?

Usually you must check  any data that comes off a web site: people  enter things incorrectly, whether maliciously or inadvertently. You will also likely get information from people who are already in the Sumac database and you won't want them in there twice.

Web sites typically store the information entered on their forms into databases. They can make this information available as files. Import these files into the Sumac database. Sumac has a very powerful and flexible Import command, that looks for duplicates, validates fields, etc. The import can be semi-automated, so that column selections and other time consuming parts of the process don't have to be repeated.

If firewalls and server security allow it, Sumac is also able to import directly from the Web site’s database, making the operation much faster and simpler.

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