This beta cycle is bringing more than just dashboards.
A Simple Experience for Volunteers
At Church Community Builder, we are passionate about supporting church leaders. Ephesians 4:12 tells church leaders to "equip God's people to do His work and build up the church". We want your Church Community Builder software to be a powerful part of that equipping, so we've prepared several changes to make the software more accessible and useful for your congregation — especially your volunteers. Let's take a look.
Navigation Shouldn't Require a Degree
Your average member doesn't need a long list of navigation options in their menu ... so we've collapsed them. Groups, People, a new Serve option, and Give (if you have online giving set up) are now all that appear to your Basic Users. Messages, Calendar, and the list of Forms are all now views on the home page.
But what about all those other options that were in the 'More' menu? And what is this new 'Serve' item? We're glad you're asking. We've made serving clean and intuitive.
Just Serve
The new Serve navigation item is a one-stop shop where you can...
- See your upcoming volunteer commitments (confirmed schedule assignments and needs you've taken) and easily email your leaders or find someone to replace you
- Accept or decline requests for you to serve in a schedule
- Volunteer for positions that are best matches for you or choose from a list of positions in your groups
- Browse through and sign up for need items in the groups you are in
Every user sees the 'Serve' option in the left navigation. Active volunteers will be able to attend to all their commitments in one place, and potential volunteers will naturally go there to find opportunities.
More Is for Admins
So what about all those options that were in the More menu? Before, even basic users had a More menu with Files, Forms, Needs, Positions, and Schedules. Now, most users won't even see the More menu — everything they used to access there will be either on the home page or in their Serve interface. However, users with responsibility to administer events, files, forms, messages, needs, positions, or schedules will still have access to those items in the More menu. And all the other admin tools that have lived in the More menu are still there for users who should have them.
Stay in the Group Page
A group is a hub for a lot of different features, and that meant navigating away to a lot of disparate pages, creating a disconnected-feeling experience. No longer. Now all of a group's messages are right there in the 'Messages' tab on the group's page ... and that's true for events, files, needs, positions, and schedules too. It's one of those changes that might feel small but can end up making the difference for a new user who's a little unsure about this online church software thing.
Split Giving
Have your online givers been clamoring for the ability to give to multiple accounts in one gift? Have you tried providing workarounds - a custom-built 'split' giving form or another online giving service - and found them to be more trouble than they are worth? We are pleased to announce that split giving is coming to the Standard and Deluxe versions of your Church Community Builder software.
Split giving is available for both one-time and repeating gifts. And if your church is using Public Giving, you can give a one time debit/credit card split gift without even logging in.
Send Mail Merges on Someone Else's Behalf
Wouldn't it be grand to be able to give your trusted assistant or colleague the ability to send an email in your name? Now, if you're the MA or have the Mail Merge privilege, you can set other users to be able to send a mail merge on your behalf. From the name on the email to where replies are sent, recipients will never know you didn't click 'send' personally.
Archive Forms
We created forms to be made and used for your ministries. And you are using them. A lot of them. And sometimes it's hard to find the form you need to finish creating in a long list of inactive forms — unless, of course, you're one of the people who have mastered the art of strict form naming conventions. We heard your cry for help, and now, help has arrived with the introduction of Archived Forms.
If you have administrative access to a form (being the MA, a Form Admin, or a Form Manager), you can now archive that form from 2014 and move it off your Inactive list. You will find the archive option under the Actions menu. Archived forms can still be edited and managed as normal, and can easily be restored for reuse at any time.
With the addition of Archived Forms, you can now use your Inactive list as a sort of work table. It will hold forms that are complete and set to be published at a future date, those that are still being created, and those that are closed but still need some work managing the responses, while the archive will hold those forms no longer in use. Because, let's face it, who still needs to see VBS Registration from 2012?