Narratives-General

The Narrative module allows your organization to report individual and organization involvement in community service activities that either do not incur cost to the organization or the costs are difficult or impossible to quantify.  

Narratives can also be used to expand the story relating to a program or part of a program that has been reflected in the Program module.  For example, your Meals on Wheels program would likely be recorded and quantified as a program and a series of occurrences.  However, one significant "success story" involving the delivery person and one of the housebound recipients could be included in the Narratives module.  The Narratives module is a feature that may be displayed or hidden from the CBISA Customization tab in Edit Defaults.  The current default is set to "Show" the module.  To show/hide the Narratives module tab, access Edit Defaults and open the CBISA Customization tab.  Select/deselect (check/uncheck the box) "Narratives".

To Add a Narrative entry:

Open the Narrative information page by clicking on the tab on the main screen

While on the General Tab, click Add.  

Enter a date for the Narrative entry (i.e., when it was created in the system, when the event took place, etc.).  The date automatically defaults to the first day of the current fiscal year.

Create a Narrative Title, which will show in the browse box on the control panel and in the Relationship Manager.

Select a department from the drop down list

Select a Keyword/Person from the drop down list

If applicable, record the number of hours expended

Click Save to save your changes. 

To Edit a Narrative entry:

From the control panel browse box, choose the Narrative entry that needs to be edited.  Narrative records are sorted by date and contain the first few words from the narrative.

Make any necessary changes and click on Save to accept your changes

To Delete a Narrative entry:

From the control panel browse box, choose the Narrative entry that needs to be deleted

Click on Delete.  You will get a warning message asking if you are sure you want to delete the record.  Choose OK to continue with delete, or Cancel.

To Link a Narrative entry:

From the control panel browse box, choose the Narrative that needs to be linked.

Hover over the More function control button and select Manage Relationships to activate the Relationship Manager, or click the Link button next to the More button.

Select the appropriate module from the dropdown list.  

Change an unlinked record (left side) to a linked record (right side) by selecting the record and using the arrow at the bottom of the box (or by double clicking on the record).  You may move more than one record at a time by using the "control" key on your keyboard to select multiple entries.  Administrators and Coordinators may link Narratives to Community Needs (CBISA Plus™ only), Goals (CBISA Plus™ only), Partnerships, Programs, Outcomes, and Indicators (CBISA Plus™ only).  Reporters may link their own pending Outcomes to Programs.

To unlink records, simply move them from the linked box (right side) to the unlinked box (left side).    

Click Save to save your new links.  Saving a change will automatically close the Relationship Manager.  If you have not edited any relationships, use the Close button to close the Relationship Manager.  You may also leave the Relationship Manager open (on the Overview or Detail view) and select additional records from the browse box on the control panel.

See Also:  
Additional Functionality
Save Failed: Ambiguous Fiscal Year