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 6th April 2023 and 14th June 2023.
ChurchSuite
April 11th, 2023 Plan Songs
We've taken the beta wraps off our Songs functionality and tweaked the workflow based on customer feedback. You can now start to build up a catalogue of songs for your church in varying arrangements and use them directly within plans in the Planning module. If you're currently still using Library items for your song items then do get in touch and we'll help you migrate over to Songs.
April 12th, 2023 Event check-in with those not signed up
We've changed what happens when you check in people who haven't signed up for an event - we now automatically create a sign-up for the person as you check them in. Previously, a sign-up wasn't automatically created and you could have someone checked in who hadn't signed up. Going forwards, everyone who is checked in to an event will have a sign-up listed against the event.
April 19th, 2023 'Include plans' in rota reminder emails
We've added a handy 'Include plans' checkbox to the email edit pop up for rotas to automatically send out service-linked plan page links with a rota reminder each week. We've also added the checkbox to ministries if you want to set this at a default level for newly created rotas.
April 25th, 2023 Planning report updates
We've given the reports in the Planning module a facelift. All of the same functionality remains, but the filters and overall layout of the reports have been tidied and modernised, bringing them inline with other parts of the system.
May 2nd, 2023 Link Multiple Form Responses to a Person
We've made improvements to Forms, removing some of the previous constraints that users experienced. You can now link multiple responses for a form to the same person - previously it was one response per form per person. You can also now send multiple form invitations to people - those who have previously responded will receive a new invitation, and those who had yet to respond will receive a reminder for their current invitation.
May 2nd, 2023 Form Response Status
Form responses now have a status, enabling you to archive responses that you've actioned and no longer need to see in the active response list. You can still view archived responses using the new status filter on the Responses list. We've also added "Archive response" to the list of available form Actions, which is seen when "Run Actions" is selected.
May 2nd, 2023 Form Response Downloads
We've made improvements to Form response downloads. Downloading a Response CSV or PDF will now respect the filters you've applied in the list, meaning you can download active, archived or all responses. You can even further filter those who have answered a particular way, using the Advanced Search and see filtered results in the download.
May 3rd, 2023 New improved parent/carer functionality for children
Addressing previous constraints, you can now maintain details for multiple parents/carers for a child, with granular control over each parent/carer's relationship with the child - ideal for even the most complex of families. The functionality introduces a new "Primary parent/carer" designation, which gives you greater control over who receives your parent/carer communications, and which parent/carers can self-manage their children's details from within My ChurchSuite. The Child Check-In admin area has also been updated to show all the parents/carers for each child, and you can now add addresses for children who live at a different address to their parents/carers. Finally, we've migrated all the "Additional Emails" and "Additional Mobiles" parent/guardian details over to the new parent/carer functionality, which means you can now add relationships and parent/carer names, which wasn't previously possible. The "Additional Email/Mobile" fields have now been retired.
May 16th, 2023 Table Generator support for Children School Year Offset
We've introduced support for the School Year Offset field in the Table Generator report for Children.
May 16th, 2023 School year support for Canada (BC)
We've added support for the British Columbia school year structure, selectable through the Children module settings.
May 17th, 2023 Assigning fixed tags on contact/child/giver profiles
We've modernised and improved the user experience for assigning fixed tags on a contact/child/giver profile. Clicking the "Add to tag" pill allows users to search inline from existing fixed tags, rather than opening a pop-up.
May 19th, 2023 Removing fixed tags from contact/child/giver profiles
We've added the ability to remove fixed tags directly from a contact/child/giver profile. Hovering over a fixed tag pill on a contact's Details tab reveals a new 'Remove' action. After a quick confirmation, the tag is removed.
May 19th, 2023 Deleting form invitations
It's now possible to delete a previously-sent form invitation. Deleting an invitation will prevent further use of the invitation by the invitee, but any previous invitation response remains.
June 1st, 2023 New Reference field for Network Organisations
We've added a new Reference field for Organisations in the Network module, which can be used to store an internal reference number you might use to identify the organisation. If enabled, the Reference field will be searched against when searching Organisations.
June 1st, 2023 Module option for Reference field in Small Groups
We've added a module option that allows you to enable/disable the Reference field for Groups in the Small Groups module. By default, if you have no active/future groups with a reference, the field has been disabled, but should you want it enabled, you can enable change the setting through the module options.
June 8th, 2023 Account default brand has moved to Brands
We've moved the default account brand details - the logo, emblem, default branded email footer and font, and style colour - out of the Administrator Profile page, and incorporated them into the Administrator Brands section. The default account brand has a "View" page, consistent with your custom brands, through which the default brand is now managed and further customised. Essentially, brands are now all managed in one place. And just for good measure, we've upgraded the custom brand "Footer" field to support HTML, meaning you can use styled text and embedded links and images/icons.
My ChurchSuite
April 19th, 2023 Plans in 'All Rotas' in My ChurchSuite
We now surface plan links on the 'All Rotas' page within My ChurchSuite for customers who have enabled this page in their module options. Simply publish your plan linked to a service and it'll surface in My ChurchSuite.
April 19th, 2023 'View plan' link on rotas in My ChurchSuite
If there is a published service-linked plan happening on a date we now surface a 'View plan' link to allow easy access to a plan direct from My ChurchSuite.