Website Help
The Faith Baptist Ministries website is used to manage membership, missions, outreach, calendars, school gradebook, groups and attendance, resources, and other information. Users of this information include church members, staff, and the general public (e.g. missions information). Many capabilities are restricted by secure login and by the rights assigned to each user.
Secure pages will automatically redirect the web browser to the login page. Without a correct username and password, the user cannot proceed to the secure page. On the login page, enter your username (e.g. “jsmith”) and password (e.g. “PKT5B”) in the appropriate boxes, then click the “Login” button.
Each user entered into the system is automatically assigned a random 5 character password. The password may be changed to a password that is easier to remember. On the login page, click the “Change Password” button, enter the old password in the “Password” box, and enter the new password in the “New Password” and “Confirm New Password” boxes. Then click the Login button to change the password and login.
A forgotten password may be recovered by clicking the “Forgot Your Password?” link on the login page. Enter your username when prompted, and click the “Submit” button. The password will automatically be sent to the email address associated with the username. If no email address is associated with the username, send an email to webservant@faithbaptistministries.com to recover or reset the password.
Email accounts are set up for all staff members of the church and school. The email address format is first initial of first name, last name, and domain name (e.g. jdoe@faithbaptistministries.com).
To set up an email account in Microsoft Outlook Express:
Select the Tools->Accounts menu item.
Click the Mail tab.
Click the Add button and select Mail as the account type.
Type in a display name (e.g. John Doe) then click the Next button.
Type the email address (e.g. jdoe@faithbaptistministries.com)
then click the Next button.
Type “mail.faithbaptistministries.com” for the incoming mail server and
“smtp.faithbaptistministries.com” for the outgoing mail server.
Type the email address (e.g. jdoe@faithbaptistministries.com)
for the account name, and type the provided password, then click the Next
button and then the Finish button.
Click on the new email account and click the Properties button.
Click the Servers tab.
Click the check box next to “My server requires authentication” and click the
“Settings” button and make sure that the selection is “Use same settings as my
incoming mail server”, then click the OK button.
Click the Advanced tab.
Type “587” for the Outgoing mail server port number and “110” for the Incoming
mail server port number, then click the OK button.
Click the Close button.
Send a test email to verify that the account is working properly.
The calendar for the school and the calendar for the church are maintained separately, but the format of both calendars is exactly the same. On the church or school home page, the events scheduled for the current month are listed. Click the “Full Calendar” to view and edit the full calendar.
The calendar operates in view mode or edit mode. In view mode, users can see but not change the events scheduled on the calendar. In edit mode, users can see and change events scheduled on the calendar. Edit mode is only available to users with the appropriate user level.
The default mode is view mode, unless the user is already logged in. In order to change to edit mode, click the "Edit Calendar" link, which will require login before switching to edit mode. In edit mode, click a day number on the calendar to add an event on that day. Click an existing event on the calendar to edit the event. More than one event may be scheduled on the same day. To delete an event, click the event to edit, click the “Delete Event” checkbox on the pop-up window, then click the “Submit Changes” button.
If a description is provided for the event, then a pop-up window is presented to users who click the event on the calendar in view mode. If a hyperlink (link to a web page) is provided within the text of a description, the user will be able to click the hyperlink in the pop-up window and the linked page will be loaded into the pop-up window.
If a web page address (URL) is provided for an event in the “Hyperlink” text box, then the pop-up window will load the addressed web page directly, bypassing any description that is stored for the event. This feature can be used to create an advertisement on the site, and point to the advertisement directly. However this feature requires that the user FTP the advertisement to the website, which requires special rights. See the website coordinator for further details.
The website provides a collection of pre-defined reports that can be run for viewing or downloading. For example, a report of attendance for each Sunday School or a report of salvation decisions can be displayed, or a report of names and addresses can be downloaded to create a mail-merge letter and envelopes. Reports are only available to users with the appropriate user level. To access the reports page, click the “Reports” link on the website home page.
To display reports, select a report from the list, click the “Web Page Display” option, and click the “Submit Report” button. The report will be displayed on the web page.
To download reports, select a report from the list, click the “File Download” option, and click the “Submit Report” button. The report stored in a Microsoft Excel file on the website server, and a link to download the file will be created on the report page. Click the “Download Report (.xls)” link and when prompted to open or save the file, select save. Choose a location on your local computer to save the file, and rename the file if desired.
All pages on the website that present or receive sensitive personal information are protected with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption. All access to pages with sensitive information are restricted by secure login.
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Term |
Definition |
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URL (Universal Resource Locator) |
Address of a web page, unique across the entire world wide web (e.g. http://www.faithbaptistministries.com/main/directory.asp) |
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ASP (Active Server Page) |
Code that runs on the web server before the web page is sent to the client browser. Pages using ASP typically end in .asp instead of .htm or .html. |
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HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) |
The common programming language of the world wide web. |
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FTP (File Transfer Protocol) |
Method to transfer files from a local computer to a web server (upload) or from a web server to a local computer (download). |
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SSL (Secure Socket Layer) |
Encryption standard used on websites to protect information exchanged between a webserver and a client browser. The web browser shows a lock icon to indicate that the page is secure. |
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Hyperlink |
Text that has been linked to a URL, usually underlined. When a user clicks the hyperlink, the linked page is loaded. |