WHAT A WORKSPACE GIVES THE PARISH ================================= A workspace is a private area for one parish on parishrecordkeeper.com. It belongs to one datafile - the server recognises the datafile by its Backend ID, an internal value the datafile already carries - and it is what makes the whole server side possible: the parish data kept on the server that everyone works from, an account for each person who needs one, the records searchable in a browser, the app on their phones, the parish transport register, and shared logins for people who have no account at all. The word means all of that together. A workspace is hired as one thing, for one term, at one contribution: the parish data on the server is one of its parts, and so are the online search, the phone app, the transport register and the shared report logins. Where this documentation needs to speak of the data-sharing part on its own, it calls it THE PARISH DATA ON THE SERVER, and keeps "workspace" for the whole. Registering is done once for the datafile. After that it works for every member of the parish, on every computer, without anybody registering anything again. This page is about WHY a parish would want one. How the buttons actually work is described in "The Server Sync window" (Documentation\ServerSync.txt) for the data and "The Server Actions window" (Documentation\ServerActions.txt) for the workspace itself, and the terms are in the Cloud Service Agreement (Documentation\CloudServiceEULA.txt). WHAT ALREADY WORKS WITHOUT ONE -------------------------------- Everything on this computer. Parish Record Keeper is a desktop program with its own datafile, and it neither needs the internet nor asks for it: entering records, printing, the accounts, the reports and the duplicate checking are all local and always were. Datafiles can still be passed around on a memory stick or through a shared folder and merged with the ordinary sync and import screens. A workspace adds the server side to that. It switches nothing off, and a parish that never registers loses nothing it has today. ONE SET OF RECORDS FOR THE WHOLE PARISH --------------------------------------- Without a workspace, several people working on the same parish means several datafiles going back and forth, and somebody keeping track of which is the newest. With one, the server keeps the parish data itself - one source of truth for the whole team. Every computer sends what it changed and takes in what the others changed, a few lines at a time, so everybody is certainly working from the same records. Members only propose: an administrator takes their work in, and the live log brings the result to everybody. A member who worked on a copy of their own can also hand the whole datafile in, and it waits in a queue until an administrator merges it - it never overwrites what is on the server. Administrators send security copies of the whole datafile now and then; the latest and the two before it are kept, and taking the parish data from the server saves the datafile presently in use to a dated backup first, so nothing is replaced without a copy being kept. UP TO TEN MEMBERS, EACH WITH AN ACCOUNT ----------------------------------------- A workspace holds up to ten member accounts as standard - the exact limit is set per workspace by the site administrator - and each person has their own email address and password rather than a shared one. The same account works in both places: on the website and in the Server Actions and Server Sync windows inside the program. Each account is either an ADMINISTRATOR of the workspace or a MEMBER: members work with the files, administrators also decide what happens to them and who may take part. The administrator adds and removes members, and each person can change their own password. Action by action, the split is tabulated under "WHO CAN DO WHAT" in Documentation\ServerActions.txt. THE RECORDS IN A BROWSER -------------------------- Once the online search database has been uploaded, the parish records can be looked at on parishrecordkeeper.com: church records, the baptism book, contributions, the account ledger, the area sheet and the balance sheet, in tabs, on a telephone screen as well as on a computer. Only people signed in as members of that workspace can open them. The pages are not public and are not indexed: without a login there is nothing to see. What appears there is what was last uploaded, not a live view of the office computer. It changes when an administrator uploads it again. The online search is the same search as the PRK Admin app below, but it downloads the data afresh each time and leaves nothing on the device - the one to use on a computer that is not your own. "The online search or the app?" in Documentation\OfflineApp.txt compares the two. THE APPS ON THE PHONE ---------------------- Members can also keep a copy on the telephone that works with no signal at all - the app is called PRK ADMIN - useful on an outstation visit, or anywhere the network is not to be relied on. The phone takes its copy from the online search database, never from a desktop computer directly, and refreshes it with one tap when there is a connection again. It is protected by a PIN on the phone, and notes made while offline come back as change notes that the office computer takes in one by one. With a workspace the phone sends them straight to it - "Send to the parish computer" on the phone, "Change notes waiting for review" in the Server Sync window on the computer - so nobody has to carry a file by WhatsApp, e-mail or cable any more; that older way still works where there is no network, or no workspace. There is a second app, PRK FINANCE, for the treasurers, church council members, section leaders, outstation committees and catechists who have no account here: it carries the money and the transport booking page, never the register. The two are separate apps and can sit on one phone without disturbing each other. These are described in "The PRK Admin app" (Documentation\OfflineApp.txt) and "Sharing parish figures" (Documentation\SharedReports.txt). THE PARISH BUS, BOOKED FROM THE OUTSTATIONS --------------------------------------------- A parish that hires a bus or a lorry for a pilgrimage or a funeral has one register of journeys, pick-up areas, passengers, the waiting list and every instalment of the fare. The catechists take the bookings on their phones - in the PRK FINANCE app, which each phone switches booking on for itself at setup, or at parishrecordkeeper.com/transport.php in a browser - with ONE shared username and password the parish makes for them, no e-mail address and no account of their own. The office works in the TRANSPORT window inside the program, on the same register. Free seats are counted on the server under a lock, so the last place cannot be sold twice. This is described in "Parish transport booking" (Documentation\Transport.txt). FIGURES FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO ACCOUNT ---------------------------------------- A treasurer, a section leader or a stewardship committee can be given a shared username and password that opens the contributions search, the account ledger and the area sheet - in the PRK FINANCE app on the phone, which can keep them signed in for 90 days, or at parishrecordkeeper.com/report.php in a browser - and nothing else. The parish register is not in that app at all: no church records, no baptism book, and those details are never sent to such a phone. Such a login can be tied to ONE area, so a section leader sees only the people of their own station and nobody else is ever sent to the phone at all. It can be left read-only, or allowed to send corrections, which arrive at the office as notes to be accepted one by one, exactly like a note from the phone app. Everything done with it is written to an access log, and it can be switched off at once. This is described in "Sharing parish figures" (Documentation\SharedReports.txt). A COPY THAT IS NOT IN THE PARISH OFFICE ----------------------------------------- The parish data, the latest security copy and the two before it sit on the server. If the office computer is stolen, struck by lightning or simply refuses to start, the parish is not left with nothing: the parish data is downloaded onto another computer and work continues. This is worth stating plainly: it is not an automatic backup service. Only what has actually been published is there, so it is as recent as the last upload, and DELETE WORKSPACE DATA ON SERVER removes it deliberately and for good. It is a copy in another place - which is exactly what an office fire or a failed hard disk takes away - and not a substitute for the parish's own backups. MADE FOR A SLOW CONNECTION ---------------------------- The transfers were built for the connections the program is actually used on. Files go up and down in genuine chunks with a visible progress bar; a chunk that fails is retried instead of losing the whole transfer; and a large datafile can be sent in the background so the computer stays usable while it goes. Nothing needs a permanent connection - only a connection at the moment an action is run. BEING TOLD WITHOUT HAVING TO ASK ---------------------------------- When Parish Record Keeper starts, it quietly exchanges the changes with the server, asks whether this datafile needs the parish data from the server whole, and, for an administrator, whether any versions are waiting to be merged. If there is nothing to say it says nothing. It never delays starting the program, never asks for a password, and is skipped entirely when there is no internet. WHAT IT COSTS --------------- A workspace asks a contribution, not a one-time charge. It covers what the workspace uses on the server: the space taken by the parish data, the security copies, the versions and the online search database, and the traffic of sending them up and down. The parish chooses how long to contribute for, and a longer term costs less for each year it covers: one year, two years or three years at the time of writing. The terms and their amounts are listed in the CONTRIBUTION box on the registration window itself, read from the server, so what is offered is always what is in force. Each is quoted in kwacha and in dollars, and the two are set separately rather than converted from one another - the kwacha price is the real price for a parish in Zambia, the dollar price the real price for someone contributing from abroad. A registration runs for the term chosen and is renewed by contributing again, counted from the date the current term ends rather than from the day the money arrives, so renewing early loses nothing and renewing late costs nothing. The next renewal may be on a different term. Nothing stops on the day it runs out: there is a further month, and after that the site administrator may close the workspace - which is always a deliberate act, and deletes nothing. A longer term also survives a change of parish priest, which is when a yearly renewal is most often forgotten. Asking for a workspace costs nothing and commits the parish to nothing. No workspace exists, and nothing is asked for, until the parish has actually contributed - or started a free trial, which costs nothing either. The full terms are in the Cloud Service Agreement, Section 12. One thing said plainly, because a parish contributing for several years at once deserves to hear it: Parish Record Keeper is not the product of a company, and it carries no guarantee that the servers that carry the workspace will still be running in many years to come. We are working towards a more permanent footing, carried by a respected and lasting institution rather than by one person, but that is an intention still in progress, not an arrangement anyone can yet rely on. The parish's records, though, are never held hostage by any of it - they live on the parish's own computer, in a free program that needs no server and nobody's permission to open, and while the workspace is running, everything it holds can be downloaded at any time, without asking anyone. The present desktop version goes on working for as long as Microsoft Access is installed on that computer. It is the online part that depends on the servers continuing. If a workspace were discontinued before its term was out, the unused portion is refunded on request so far as funds and circumstances permit. Both sides give what they can, in good faith; neither gains a claim on the other beyond that. Documentation\LicensingAndDonations.txt, section 4, explains this at greater length, and Section 19 of the Cloud Service Agreement puts it in legal words. WHAT A WORKSPACE DOES NOT DO ------------------------------ - It does not send anything by itself. Nothing leaves this computer until somebody presses a button that says so. - It does not make the parish records public. Everything on the server is behind a login belonging to that workspace. - It does not change how the program is used from day to day. The screens, the data entry and the printing are exactly as before. - It does not require the office to be online. Every action is one deliberate transfer, at a moment of the parish's choosing. HOW TO ASK FOR ONE -------------------- Opening Server Actions with a datafile that is not yet registered explains the situation and offers to register it there and then; NOT YET REGISTERED, in the sign-in box, opens the same form at any time. This works with no website account at all - it is meant for precisely that situation. The window takes one step at a time. It starts with a name and an email address, confirmed with a code sent to that address; then it asks which term the parish is contributing for, the parish name, a password to sign in with, and the country and diocese the parish is in - twice over: a HANDLE chosen from a list, which settles which database on the server the records are kept in, and the FULL NAME typed in, which is what tells the developer a country or diocese has enough parishes to deserve a database of its own. The Backend ID is filled in automatically. From there it goes one of two ways. If the developer has already been paid and has given out an ACTIVATION CODE, typing it in creates the workspace immediately, with nothing to wait for and nobody to approve it. A FREE-TRIAL TOKEN, which the developer gives out freely, goes into the same box and sets up a workspace FREE FOR SIX MONTHS - once per email address - so that a parish can try everything before it contributes; a contribution before the six months are over keeps the workspace with everything in it. Without a code or a token, REGISTER sets the workspace up at once, FREE FOR ONE MONTH, and the window shows how to pay within that month; I HAVE PAID, pressed once the payment has actually gone, tells the developer, who records it. Unpaid at the end of the month, the workspace is closed - not deleted - until the contribution arrives. Both routes are set out step by step, with what to expect of each, under "REGISTERING A NEW WORKSPACE" in Documentation\ServerActions.txt. Asking for a workspace costs nothing and commits the parish to nothing. No workspace exists, and nothing is asked for, until the parish has actually contributed - or started a free trial, which costs nothing either.