June 2016: Small Wins

Summer is starting and we here at Church Community Builder are getting ready for our All Staff Week, where we take some time out of the office to build community and tap into our bigger vision of how we're going to serve churches better in the next year. Our office will be closed from June 13–17, but before we go, we're rolling out some small wins for the start of summer. The small features, usability improvements, and bug fixes in this blog are all live as of today, June 1!

Updated Mobile Carrier List

When editing a profile, changing your communication settings, or working with mobile carriers within Check-In, you'll now see an expansive list of mobile carriers as selection options.

It's a long list, so it's alphabetized and segmented to show major carriers at the top and smaller carriers underneath.

Small Group Leader App Promo Banner

You or your church's small group leaders may notice a banner highlighting our Small Group Leader app. If you're taking attendance from an attendance reminder email and your group has the correct settings to show in the app, you'll see this banner. Since it targets the people who could be taking advantage of the app, there's no need to worry about leaders of groups that can't be accessed in the app seeing the message.

Bug Fixes & Usability Improvements

Attendance

Doubled attendance counts: In certain very specific situations when on the More > Attendance Entry screen, previously recorded attendance would appear to be doubled. For instance, if 36 had been recorded as the attendance number in the event summary, it would show here as 72. This inaccuracy has been corrected and accurate attendance is being shown on the More > Attendance Entry screen.
More info tooltip: When taking attendance for an event, you were able to click on a person's name to get a tooltip showing more info about that person. That tooltip was broken, so we patched it up so it help you determine which John Smith is the one who attended.

Admin Privileges

Assigning admin privileges: When assigning admin privileges to a user via the link on the individual's profile, if you clicked Cancel, the software would toss you back to the home page instead of to the profile. We fixed this so the privilege assigner is redirected back to the individual's profile.

Campus

Accented characters as campus names: Entering characters with accent marks was breaking the campus name field. This was fixed with the update in the PHP version. The campus name field is no longer acting racist against characters with accents.

Check-In

Birthday messages: The birthday message was not working for birthdays 6 days in the past. Check-In had made an executive decision that past birthdays expire at 5 days, not 6. It has been overruled, and now all birthdays 6 days from the date of check-in — upcoming or prior — will show properly.
Station security code settings: In certain scenarios, when a child was checked in on Station 2 after their parent was checked in on Station 1, the child would receive a security code different from station settings. We resolved this so security codes properly follow station settings.

Events

Copy-pasting notes: If you were using an iPad to record attendance and used the copy and paste function to enter multiple paragraphs of notes, the notes were not saving at all. We've corrected this to account for copying and pasting from an iPad.
Recurring event end dates requiring room/resource reservation: If you had an event with no end date and a reserved room or resource, and you added an end date to that event ... you had to get the room and/or resource approved again. This doesn't make sense and is not a happy experience. So, we fixed that. Re-approval is no longer required.

Files

Files attached to Weekly Summaries: When clicking on attached files from a Weekly Summary email, we were incorrectly opening up the list of files. We now open up the file that was clicked on from the email.
File searching: When searching for files on a group's page, we would not return the correct results; instead, the first search bar summoned a second one for another professional opinion. The second search bar didn't work any better than the first. The one search bar has been retrained and works properly again, by itself as it should.
Backslashes in file uploads: When uploading a file with quotes or a backslash, we were adding an additional backslash. We fixed it so it only puts the characters you'd expect.

Financial

Merchant names: Whether an online gift came from merchant X or merchant Y, the Merchant Transaction Detail displayed the name of the current integrated merchant for all online gifts. Those tasked with managing multiple merchants did not have a fun time reconciling. We have heard the plea of the financial admin and have made it so the Merchant Name correctly displays the originating merchant or displays '-' if no merchant name was provided.
Matching gifts: When matching online gifts to profiles, the default 'Matched to' section was overenthusiastically returning as many names as it could. We refined this to return the best matches instead of all matches.
Phone numbers with 0s: When a giver entered a phone number that contained a 0, we were showing a red validation box around the phone number field. To make 0 feel included, we have added it to the list of valid numbers that can be entered for a phone number.
Saved batch names: When creating a brand new batch from either a form transaction or a deposit, the name the user provided was having commitment issues and not sticking to the batch. We had a talk with the name and strongly suggested it stick with the batch, because we really do feel they are a good match together. The name decided it didn't want to give up on their relationship and now is now back together with the batch!
Pledge statement labels: We heard pledge statement labels aren't working. They are! Who, us? No, we didn't do anything, and I'm not holding a wrench.

Forms

Recurrence: When creating an automation to an event, there were certain situations where the 'Recurs' label would be applied when it wasn't recurring, or wouldn't be when it was. We've corrected it so the 'Recurs' label appears as it should.
Forms requiring COAs: When a form has a discount code without a COA assigned to it, the software now puts an alert in the Notification Bell, directing the user to forms that need COAs assigned.
Runaway confirmation modal: When completing a form with a payment on an iOS device (iPhone or iPad), the payment confirmation modal was loading off the screen, causing confusion for some users. We've corrected this so the confirmation modal is centered and easily seen.
Images in the Description field: A form with a picture in the Description field was not properly displaying the image in the Description field of the Form Settings tab during editing. This prevented the image from being deleted or modified. We've fixed this so images work appropriately within the form's Description field.

Groups

Searching for groups with child care: When searching for groups that offered child care, our group search was getting skittish thinking of the responsibility of watching children for extended periods of time. We put the search through some child care training and it is now ready to go!
Edit contact information setting: When creating a group and clicking to allow group leaders to edit the group member's contact information, we were previously not saving that setting. We now save that setting.
MA viewing phone numbers from Participants tab: Previously, the MA was not able to see participants' phone numbers when on the Participants tab for a group they did not lead. Now, the MA or someone with appropriate People privileges is able to see phone numbers on the Participants tab for any group.
Unlisted group search: Users without any privileges were incorrectly able to find unlisted groups via the group search by name. This is no longer the case; we've closed that loophole.
Line breaks: When entering HTML in the Group Description box, we were adding additional line breaks when we shouldn't have. Now, if you enter HTML, we don't add any break
tags, but if you enter no HTML, we will enter break
tags when hitting enter.
Inviting 100+ individuals: When inviting more than 100 people to a group, going to View the Participant List, and clicking the Next button to see results 100–200, we were incorrectly changing to the All Participants tab instead of showing the results. We now show the next results and keep it on the same tab.
Attachments larger than 10mb: When a user sending a message tries to attach a file that is larger than 10mb, we were giving an error but leaving the attachment. We now automatically remove the attachment since the message can't be sent with this attachment attached.
Pasting images into group messages: Previously, if you pasted more than one picture to a group message, then, when sent, all of the images would display as the last image pasted, leaving some to assume madness had set in. We made sure that each image now remains the one you pasted.
Moving campuses: When moving an individual to another campus (from Campus A to Campus B, for example), the software would appropriately remove the individual from the 'All Members of Campus A' system group ... without adding them to the 'All Members of Campus B' system group. This has been resolved so a user is placed in the appropriate group when moved to another campus.
Membership request emails: From the email group leaders receive when someone requests to join their group, we adjusted the page they land on when they click on 'Manage Requests' to ensure that they land on the correct tab to manage requests, rather than just their most recent tab.
Unlisted groups in group search: When using a group search that returned many groups and clicking 'Click here for all results', unlisted groups that you are a leader or member of were not being displayed. They are now appropriately being shown for those that should see them.

iPad Check-In App

Checking in with inactive profiles: When checking in a family that contained inactive profiles, the inactive profiles were incorrectly being displayed. They are now being excluded from the family. Er, in the software. We hope the actual family members are still on good terms.

Mail Merges

Recipients from other groups: When working on Step 2 of preparing a Mail Merge and using the 'From a group,' 'From a position,' 'Registered for an event,' or 'Helping with a need' options, a group leader was incorrectly able to select mail merge recipients from other groups, not just the groups they led. We've resolved this so a group leader can only select recipients on Step 2 from groups they leading or from positions, events, or needs related to those groups.
Label sorting: Mail merges were not honoring the sort order selected for labels when creating a print version of the mail merge. This sort functionality has been restored.
Recipients without email addresses: If none of the recipients within a mail merge have email addresses, we now disable the 'Email version' toggle on Step 3 to show that emailing the mail merge is not a valid option.

Mass Data Change

'Modified by' profile field: When profiles were changed via the 'Mass change data for these people' link on a people search, the system was not properly updating the 'modified by' section of the individual profiles. We've fixed this so 'modified by' reflects who performed the mass data change.
Friends & My Groups' Members privacy setting: When making a change to the Privacy Levels tab within the mass data change modal, a user was incorrectly seeing a 'Friends' option that should be 'Friends & My Groups' Members' instead. We've updated the dropdown list to show the appropriate privacy level options.

Messages

Message sort order: Previously, messages sent from the group app were showing up above messages sent from a browser. We appreciated the enthusiasm the message list was showing for the new app, but we made sure it went back to sorting by date instead.
Hidden characters showing up in search: When searching messages, we were incorrectly showing unicode characters in search results. We fixed it so it does not expose these ninja hidden characters.

People Search

Campus designation in search: Searching for new givers within a system that has multiple campuses was not respecting the campus designation in a criteria. We've fixed this so it is behaving as expected.

Positions

Broken line breaks: When informing a person of a position by entering text that has multiple paragraphs and returning to the modal to inform people of the position, you would incorrectly see /r or /n instead of line breaks. We made sure that the line breaks are shown as line breaks instead of other text.

Process Queues

Family members not showing on tab: When navigating to an individual within a process queue and clicking the Family Members tab, the software was incorrectly hiding the family members from view, making everyone look unexectedly lonely. We've fixed this so family members are, once again, displayed in this section as you would expect.
Hidden processes showing on Involvement tab: Someone who could see the Processes capsule under the Involvement tab on a profile was able to see hidden processes even when they were neither the MA, nor a process admin, nor a manager of that process or queue. We've properly hidden those processes once again.
Adding to another queue: The 'Other Actions' modal to add a selected individual to another process queue, from within a process queue was not working. We've restored this functionality so you can, once again, select an individual in a process queue, click on the 'Other Actions' button at the bottom of the page, and use the 'Other Queues' tab to add the selected individual to another queue.

Profiles

Removing email from database: If a user clicked the 'Remove my email from the database' checkbox in communication preferences, then went to the family tab of their profile, there was still a 'Send Email' button that would give an error. We made sure that checking that box removes the email from everywhere in the database, as it says.
Ageless Profiles: When a profile had no birthdate, when viewing them in the Family tab, we were showing ' years old' — a state of agelessness, their years old being simultaneously nothing and perhaps everything. The profiles were going through deep crises, so in the interest of their mental health, we changed it so that we only show 'years old' if the profile has a listed birthday and that age is under 22.
You shall not pass (without entering your birth year)!: Previously, when someone with people privileges edited a birthday but did not enter a year, it would look like it saved, but it would not actually save. Now we show them that they must enter a birth year and do not let them save.
Apos'trophe N'ames: When adding an additional family member from someone's profile, we were incorrectly not allowing them to add someone who has an apostrophe in their name. Upon further consideration, we figured people with apostrophes in their names probably do still have families. We fixed it so someone who has an apostrophe in their name can be added as an additional family member.

Reports

Anniversary List: On the Anniversary List report, dates were left justified instead of right justified. We fixed this so it matches all of our other reports.
Individual Profiles: Saving an Individual Profiles report was causing all sorts of problems. Since it is a very large report that has different formatting, we no longer allow saving this report.
Attendance Summary: The Attendance Summary report has 3 columns, one of which was titled Specific People. This was not only unclear, but incorrect. We've changed the column title to Unique People to reflect what is actually being calculated. The number in the column represents the number of people who have been marked as attended, but does not count anyone more than once even if they have attended more than one event as defined by the report criteria.
Export Form Responses: The 'Export Form Responses' report for a form with a prioritization question was showing the items that the form respondent selected ... but out of order. We've fixed this so the 'Export Form Responses' report now shows the proper ordering of the respondent's answers to the prioritization question(s).
Custom Report birthday and anniversary columns: The Custom Report columns with birthday and anniversary information had some issues with sorting On Screen and with displaying dates properly in Excel or CSV output. We've fixed these issues so these columns sort appropriately and so the On Screen output display is consistent with the Excel and CSV outputs.
Anniversary List: The Anniversary List report was not properly sorting on the Anniversary column when viewing the On Screen output, and the Excel and CSV outputs were not properly handling the Anniversary column data. We fixed these issues and now consistently show the month and day of each anniversary across all report outputs.
Sorting reports with multiple columns: When reports with multiple columns involved in the sort are run, they would have multiple columns bolded. We removed the bolding since it wasn't clear what it was meant to indicate. When you click to sort a report by a column, the arrow will show which rows are sorting.
Custom reports with giving numbers: Custom reports with giving numbers were not sorting correctly. We've made the sorting more natural and hopefully more intuitive. Please be mindful that this field is for numbers; letters, while accepted, can cause the sorting to be less intuitive.
Printing reports with 500+ records: When printing reports that had over 500 records, there were instances where the helpful text indicating which records were included in the 'Print current view' were being printed over the data, instead of below as one would expect. We've fixed this so the record indicator text now prints below the data where it should.
Attendance Summary by group: When running the Attendance Summary report by group, the wrong totals were being returned. We got it a calculator.
Member Privileges. When running the Member Privileges report for multiple campuses split out by campus, the fourth column header was right justified while the data was left justified. We made sure the header was on the right side by putting it on the le ... we put it correctly on the left side.
Custom Reports run On Screen and exported to CSV: When running a Custom Report On Screen and exporting it to a CSV, we were incorrectly changing the report to run as a CSV. The report should stay an On Screen report, so we made sure that is still the case.
Individual Profiles: When printing a contextual Individual Profiles report, we were incorrectly printing a blank cover page. This is fixed so it only prints the correct pages.
Birthday List Group: On the Birthday List Group contextual report, the 'Age to be' column was not justifying correctly. We made sure it was showing correctly so that it didn't bleed into the phone numbers column.
Individual Profiles: The Individual Profiles report was incorrectly not putting a space between labels and their text. We added the spacing to make the report legible again.
Schedule Detail: The Schedule Detail report had an incorrectly named column. We changed the column 'Name' to 'Service Times'.
Printable Directory saving: Since the Printable Directory cannot easily be saved, we have removed the save option for this report.
Reports with 501+ results: When running a report containing more than 500 results in certain browsers, we would incorrectly flash the 'Next page' button and other information over the top of other information near the top of the report. We fixed it so they only appear in their normal spot at the bottom of the first 500 results.
Multi-campus reports: When running a multi-campus report with results split out by campus on a small browser window, certain icons were overlapping the report title. We changed this so they can all fit on the page nicely.
Simultaneously a leader and not a leader: When someone would check in to an event as a leader and then in to another event as a non-leader, the Check-In Summary report thought it was being presented with Schrödinger's Parishioner, threw up its hands, and pretended there were two separate people. We've corrected the report so that no one is double-counted.
Pledge Statements: When running a Pledge Statement, the campus information and return address was given for the campus context the statement was run from. We fixed it so that the campus name and return address is based on the campus the pledger's profile is listed in.
Editing settings on a system report: When using the edit settings button on a system report, the 'Run Report' button incorrectly said 'Save and Run' and would save an additional untitled custom report. We fixed this so that it says Run Report and just runs the report.
Event List, Events with Resources, Event Setup: The Event List, Events with Resources, and Event Setup reports have had a quick date option of 'This Week', but were lacking one for 'Next Week'. Whoops. We've corrected this and now you can easily choose the dates for 'Next Week'.
Printable Directory settings: When the MA would run the Printable Directory report the Edit Settings button would flash briefly and disappear. We've corrected it so the MA no longer needs to start the report over to make a simple adjustment to the settings.
Report formatting: When running a report, we are now showing the column that the report is primarily sorted by as bold, with an arrow corresponding to the direction it is sorting
Group Participants with only one campus: For churches with only a single campus, we were previously showing the Campus column in the CSV output of the Group Participants report. We made sure that there is no longer a Campus column for this report for single-site churches.
Roster with Barcodes: When attempting to run a saved Roster with Barcodes report, rather than seeing the results, you were presented with a blank CSV file. We've fixed this so saved Roster with Barcode reports run correctly again.
Running shared reports: When running a report that had been shared with you, but was returning no results, you were incorrectly able to edit the report settings and landing on a blank page. To fix this, we created a blank slate to let the user know there are no records for that report and have hidden the edit settings button.

Rooms & Resources

Approval groups without anything to approve: The leader of an approval group that has not been assigned any rooms or resources was able to see both Event Approvals and Rooms & Resources under the More menu. However, they would get an error message if they followed those links. So, we've removed them until the group actually has a room or resource assigned to it.

Schedules

Decline notifications: When the schedule organizer received a decline notification for a volunteer request, they were seeing all of the possible meeting times for that schedule rather than just the ones that position was scheduled for. The decline notification now shows only the times that the position was scheduled for.

Small Group Leader App

All-day events crashing: All-day events were crashing the app when being accessed on Android. This is now resolved, and the app does not crash with all-day events.

API

Event_profile & event_profiles: The event_profile and event_profiles API services will now only return the image link for an event if the church has uploaded an image for an event; we will no longer return a reference to the default event image. The parameter to return the link for an event image is called include_image_link.