We're constantly updating and enhancing ChurchSuite, often building directly upon customer feedback to guide our development. The following lists some changes that were made to ChurchSuite between 12th September 2020 and 24th February 2021.
ChurchSuite
February 19th, 2021 Children module updates
We've made a host of changes within the Children module, ironing out some little niggles and improving performance behind the scenes. When deleting data, we now explain the consequences more clearly, helping to fill in the user on precisely what will happen and the impact should they choose to proceed.
February 11th, 2021 New Smart Tags for Town/City and County/State
We've added two new Smart Tag conditions for "Town/City" and "County/State/Province" for the Address Book, Children and Giving modules.
February 3rd, 2021 New Small Groups custom field functionality
Just like the Address Book and Children modules, we've introduced the same new functionality for custom fields in the Small Groups module. You can now add unlimited custom fields (removing the previous 10 field maximum) and you can change the order of fields and the response options. We've added two new field types to support Email and Telephone formats, and you can archive (and reactivate) unwanted response options while preserving existing data for your groups. Finally, we've overhauled the Advanced Search for custom fields so that searches are more intuitive for your various field types.
February 3rd, 2021 New Address Book and Children custom field functionality
We've introduced a bunch of new functionality for custom fields in the Address Book and Children module that we think you'll love! You can now add unlimited custom fields (removing the previous 10 field maximum) and you can change the order of fields and response options. We've added two new field types to support Email and Telephone formats, and you can archive (and reactivate) unwanted response options while preserving existing people responses. Finally, we've overhauled the Advanced Search for custom fields in both modules so that searches are more intuitive for your various field types.
February 3rd, 2021 Module settings get a makeover
Module settings have had a complete visual makeover, bringing a modernised user experience, clearer sections and settings, and pop-up "editing". We also maintain change logs to help you keep track of the changes made by Users.
January 26th, 2021 Self-resolving spam complaints and hard bounces
We've updated the Communication page used in the Manage/Unsubscribe link in emails. We've given it a fresh look and added the ability for people to self-resolve an inadvertently-added spam complaint or resolved hard bounce, as well as manage their communication options. The Communication page link can also be accessed from the Email Errors reports for contacts, children and parents, givers and customers for any suppressed errors listed in the report. For those who have experienced an email error resulting in a suppression, you can now send the affected person a personal URL link (not via ChurchSuite!) so that they can self-resolve the suppression and update their communication options.
January 15th, 2021 Reporting multi-group members for future groups
The Small Groups module's Multi-Group Member report includes a new filter for "future" groups, making it possible to see those in multiple groups in just your active groups, or just those in your future groups, or both.
January 14th, 2021 Booking pages get a makeover
We've refreshed the look of booking pages to make it easier to pay for booking charges and see booking details. Customers can now submit their contact details or update existing details during the payment process.
January 13th, 2021 Custom Stripe account for booking types
Like funds for donations, you can now choose a dedicated Stripe account for booking charges paid for particular 'types' (or 'all types'). Now card payments for charges for your community 'type' bookings or wedding 'type' bookings can be paid into different bank accounts to the one used for your other bookings charges.
January 13th, 2021 Clearer delete messages in Small Groups
We've improved the information displayed when deleting data within the Small Groups module. When you choose to delete, you'll see a list of consequences, helping you to understand the implications of your action.
January 13th, 2021 Add/edit child updates
We've made some significant updates to the way that children are added and edited, modernising the interface, making it cleaner and more robust. No matter where you're editing a child within ChurchSuite, you'll enjoy the new experience!
January 13th, 2021 School year offset visibility
For children who have a school year offset (offset up/down a year), we're now including this information on both the search pages as well as when viewing the child's profile.
January 6th, 2021 Improving add/edit experience on small screens
When working on a mobile/tablet either through the ChurchSuite app or your web browser, you'll find that the add/edit experience has been improved. Scrolling the form has been improved, particularly when the on-screen keyboard is displayed.
December 22nd, 2020 Suggested donation amounts in Donate
Donate and Fund Pages now support suggested donation amounts. Simply adding ?amount=X to the end of the Donate or Fund Page URL (where X is the suggested amount) will pre-populate the form with that suggested amount. The giver can still optionally change the donation amount.
December 22nd, 2020 Gift Aid 'not claimable' funds
For UK customers, Funds now include a Donate setting to designate it "Not claimable" for Gift Aid purposes - ideal where a fund is for something that is not eligible for a Gift Aid reclaim. When a giver selects a "Not claimable" fund they won't have the option to Gift Aid their donation and the donation is added with an 'Override' Gift Aid status.
December 16th, 2020 Add/edit contact updates
We've made some significant updates to the way that contacts are added and edited, modernising the interface, making it cleaner and more robust. No matter where you're editing a contact within ChurchSuite, you'll enjoy the new experience!
November 26th, 2020 Enhanced ticket refund functionality
Alongside the new sign-up cancellation functionality, we've also enhanced the ticket refund functionality. You can now optionally choose to keep a sign-up active when processing their refund, rather than their sign-up being cancelled - ideal where you want to refund a sign-up who's going to serve at the event and therefore needs their sign-up to remain active. We've also made it possible for multiple sign-ups within the same booking to be optionally refunded in one process.
November 26th, 2020 Sign-up Cancellation
We've added the ability for sign-ups to be cancelled. This can be done either by admins or by the sign-ups themselves; and for those who signed up in a group, they're able to self-cancel and optionally cancel for others in their group. Importantly, everyone is kept in the loop with cancellation confirmations and overseer notifications. Finally, Cancellation can be enabled or disabled on an event-by-event basis. We really hope this will help with managing 'in-person' events and services, enabling you to maximise capacity by freeing up spaces if someone is no longer able to attend.
October 6th, 2020 Event Sign-up Communication Report
We've added a Communication Report for Event Sign-Ups that aren't in ChurchSuite. From here you can view all emails sent within a defined date range, filter by user. Communications can be hidden and scheduled emails can be cancelled just as you can from the Contact Communication Report.
October 1st, 2020 Child batch 'Edit' actions
We've added batch "Edit" actions to the Children section of the Children module, enabling you to easily make bulk changes to certain fields of data for selected children in one process. For example, you can easily "batch edit" to move multiple children to a different Site, or "batch edit" the school or sex of multiple children.
September 23rd, 2020 Calendar Event Import
We've updated the Calendar module's Event Importer to make it consistent with the other importers in ChurchSuite. The importer now supports CSV files and can be used to quickly add events and sequences of recurring events. The importer takes you through the simple process of importing and validating your data, with invalid rows surfacing errors that can be edited and fixed (or removed) prior to processing. And you can also pause and resume the import process at any time.
September 21st, 2020 Small Groups Group Import
We've added the ability to import Small Groups from a CSV file, making it ideal for those who run termly groups where you're collating all your new group data outside of ChurchSuite initially. The importer takes you through the simple process of importing the details of all of your new groups, with invalid rows surfacing errors that can be edited and fixed (or removed) within the importer. You can also pause and resume the import process at any time.
September 15th, 2020 Sign-up times and batches
In order to help churches with their efforts to "Track & Trace" those who are signing up and attending services, we've exposed the time each person signs up within the list of sign-ups. This information is also made available when downloading the data as a CSV or exporting to PDF. Additionally, the CSV export of sign-ups now includes the batch_id, helping you to identify which sign-ups signed up together. Armed with this information, you could have seating pre-set up in blocks for each of these bubbles, perhaps increasing the capacity of your event.
September 14th, 2020 Sending rotas
When sending a rota from within the Rotas module, you can now filter the range of dates of the embedded rota and optionally exclude the table of rota member contact details.
My ChurchSuite
September 18th, 2020 Family Next Serving
We've added the ability to view your linked family members' next serving dates within My Rotas.
Support
September 23rd, 2020 Lectionary import
Following the recent update to the Calendar module's event import functionality, we've updated the support article guidance for customer who import and use the Common Worship Lectionary.
Donate
December 22nd, 2020 Donate gets a makeover
Donate has had a complete visual makeover to make it clearer and easier for people to give online. We've been working with our payment providers, following their most up-to-date security recommendations to ensure that Donate is as secure as possible (and SCA compliant). Every giver is now validated using their email address, with the option for validated givers to be remembered on their devices. Validated givers can even update contact details, ensuring you have the most up to date information for Gift Aid and your finance records.