We're constantly updating and enhancing ChurchApp, often building directly upon customer feedback to guide our development. The following lists some changes that were made to ChurchApp between
3rd December 2016 - 6th January 2017.
ChurchApp
23-Dec-2016 - Custom fields on Small Group pages
There are now Small Groups module options to show any of the small group custom fields on the group page viewable within My ChurchApp and within the group embed list for your church website. You can also set whether leaders can edit those custom fields as part of managing their small group details within My ChurchApp.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/207-managing-small-group-visibility23-Dec-2016 - Add parent to Address Book action
You can now add a parent not in the Address Book into the Address Book with the click of a button from the child view page. Ideal if you've added a visitor child to the Children module - now you can add the parent contact too.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/29-adding-a-new-contact-to-your-address-book22-Dec-2016 - Event embed code generator
When viewing events with embed enabled on ChurchApp you can now click the "Embed" visibility indicator to bring up a modal that will allow you to generate embed code for the event. It also lets you specify what parts of the page you want to be visible.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/370-embeding-events-in-your-website21-Dec-2016 - Small Group Members report
You can now filter the Group Members report in the small groups module by "Meets On" and small group "Tag". So if you need to find out which "newcomer-friendly" groups meet on a certain day, along with the members attending those matching groups, the Group Members report is perfect for you.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/381-tracking-small-group-membership21-Dec-2016 - Leave Summary report
We've created a Leave Summary report; which you can filter by leave setup period and user group. If you are an administrator user you can see all leave summaries for all users, and filter by any user group. If you are a normal user the report is locked down to just the user groups you have access to; meaning you won't see leave summaries of users outside of your user groups. The leave summaries give details on the hours of holiday used and remaining for each user, as well as a table of their leave bookings.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/101-leave-out-of-office-and-sickness20-Dec-2016 - Print event sign-ups
We've improved the event "sign-ups" report so that it can now be accessed even when there are no sign-ups yet (as long as sign-up is enabled). This report is ideal if you want a printed 'sign up' sheet to record sign-ups at your Information Desk. There are some new options too; to show/hide the event description and current sign-ups information.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/386-running-event-sign-up-at-your-information-desk19-Dec-2016 - Spouse/partner address update
When you update the address for a contact who has a spouse/partner, you're now prompted as to whether you'd like the spouse/partner address to be updated to reflect your changes.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/29-adding-a-new-contact-to-your-address-book18-Dec-2016 - "Search event tags" in Event Check-in
For 'on the door' events where you have attendees who haven't previously signed up, you can search your Address Book and Children contacts. Now you can also search even more intuitively, by event tags. So if you're running a leader's event and that event is only be visible to those in your Leader tag, you can now restrict the event check-in contact search to the event's tags, and so you'll only see a list of those contacts in your Leader tag.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/379-event-check-in17-Dec-2016 - Multi-site functionality
ChurchApp's multi-site functionality is now included as a standard feature on all accounts. Multi-site is ideal for churches that need to distinguish their various geographically distinct worshipping communities, but share centralised administration. It's also suitable for churches with related charities or activities, such as Foodbanks, where you need to maintain a separate Address Book.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/216-multi-site-functionality17-Dec-2016 - "Ignore duplicate" option
When a contact, child or giver shares the same first and last name as another, ChurchApp will suggest that it's a duplicate and help you to merge the two together. You can now also choose to "Ignore" duplicates - helpful when two different people share the same name and you don't want ChurchApp to continue suggesting that they're different records that should be merged together.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/359-merging-duplicate-contacts15-Dec-2016 - Multi-fund Gift Aid Claim
When adding in a new Gift Aid Claim, you're now able to select more than one fund to be included as part of the claim, i.e. you could create a claim for just the "Regular Giving" and "Building Project" funds, excluding the "Overseas Mission" fund that you wish to process at a later date.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/119-reclaiming-gift-aid-through-churchapp13-Dec-2016 - Improved editing flow
When working in reports or with multiple ChurchApp tabs open, you'll find that the overall flow through the app has improved. Each tab now operates more independently, remembering which screen you were previously working on and returning you there after you finish editing something - see the example link, where editing a contact from a report returns you back to the report after the contact is saved.
http://g.recordit.co/mnSKEojjwO.gif12-Dec-2016 - Enhanced "Add to Tag" and "Add to Key Date" options
When selecting "Add to Tag" or "Add to Key Date" anywhere in ChurchApp, the "add" pop-up modal now displays the list of contacts it will be added for. From here you can edit that list of contacts before processing - to assign to tags/key dates to some, but not others; or even to search and add other contacts - ideal if you want to be more selective before processing.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/31-stay-on-top-of-your-church-member-key-dates12-Dec-2016 - Address Book and Children Statistics
We've updated our Statistics report in both the Address Book and Children modules to make the data much easier to read. We've also made changes to our automated statistic taking process so that statistics are added on a site by site basis (for multi-site churches). Due to the different structure of current data, it is not possible to make this data multi-site backwards-compatible, but all new statistics added moving forwards from this update will now be site specific.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/157-using-the-statistics-report-to-monitor-changes-in-your-address-book-over-time09-Dec-2016 - Promote your small groups with emailable flyers
From a group page in the Small Groups module, you can choose Communicate > "Send flyer”, which allows you to email out the group details of one or more groups to someone - perfect if you’re trying to connect a new person with some potential groups they could join.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/343-produce-elegant-small-group-flyers07-Dec-2016 - Booking event link module option
We've added in a new module option for the Bookings module that lets you choose the default value for whether a new booking will be linked to an event or standalone. If most of your bookings are not linked to, using this module option will save you one click per new booking!
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/121-adding-and-viewing-bookings05-Dec-2016 - Better 'Add to Flow' success and error messages
We've made a change so that the 'Add to Flow' window will now process the whole group of people in one go and show you a break down of the actions which did and didn't process successfully.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/154-flows
Connect
08-Dec-2016 - Manage the default "Process" setting for Child Check-in
Within the Connect options in the Children module settings, you can now set the default "Process" for your Child Check-in sessions - so if you normally run one-stage "register & check-in", or two-stage "register first, check-in later" - you can set your preferred default. And of course you can still override that default when starting a new check-in session if you need to.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/392-child-check-in07-Dec-2016 - Connect platform gets a makeover
We've given all ChurchApp's Sunday-facing "Connect" applications a visual makeover. Child Check-in, My Details, Event List and Donate, are now much cleaner, more intuitive to navigate and easier to switch between when running multiple applications running on a computer or tablet at your Information Desk.
/blog/2016/12/06/new-visual-changes-to-churchapps-connect-platform07-Dec-2016 - Edit group capacity and ratios in Child Check-in
When viewing a group page within the Child Check-in 'admin area', you can now edit the capacity and the adult-to-child ratio for that group, saving you having to log into the Children module in ChurchApp on a Sunday morning in order to make these changes.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/392-child-check-in07-Dec-2016 - Child Check-in "Search all groups"
When using "Group search" in Child Check-in, there's a new "Search all groups" option to look for your search term within all groups - perfect to check whether a visitor or child has already been registered with another group before you add them as a visitor for your group.
http://support.churchsuite.com/article/392-child-check-in
If you have any thoughts or suggestions for us, please let us know - we'd love to hear from you.
