Updated 9.15.15: Attention iOS users! Wednesday, September 16, iOS 9 is coming out. We have not yet had a chance to fully test for the new iOS, so we are recommending that you wait on downloading this update until further notice. Thank you!
You've probably noticed over the years that we've liked to save up a whole slew of features from our beta testing and release them all at once in one big package. Sometimes this was great, sometimes this was overwhelming, and sometimes this meant we were holding onto things that could be helping make your lives easier longer than we needed to. September 16's release is an ode to small victories, brought to you as soon as they're ready ... a priority we're adopting not just this month, but in future releases as well.
Updated 9.9.15: Saved Report Search added!
Updated 9.17.15: More bug fixes added to API (1), Check-In (1), Files (1), Reports (2), and Schedules (2).
New Features
Unified Calendar
You told us that the calendar moves we made with 4.1 were confusing for you, and we listened. To simplify your experience, we're consolidating all of your calendars in one place ... a new icon in your top menu bar, accessible from any page in the software. Whether or not you're an admin, you'll see the new calendar icon, with options to view Admin or Personal Calendars depending on your access. To top it off, your calendar selection on that page is sticky, so if you navigate away, you'll always be able to return to the last calendar you were working on with a single click.
If you'd like to learn about the calendar changes in more detail, there's a Help Desk article prepared to help you through the transition.
Family Calendar
There’s a new calendar in town — one that rolls up the My Calendar from each of your family members into one convenient view. It’ll show the designated Primary Contact and Spouse all the events, needs, and volunteer schedules across your entire family.
The same Help Desk article for the unified calendar also explains details of how the new Family Calendar works, so be sure to check it out!
Attention Needed Bell
To go along with our calendar improvements, we took another look at the Attention Needed bell in the top menu bar. You may recall that the bell and its little red indicator always came together — if something needed your attention, they were both there, and if not, neither showed. They've been separated now. The bell will always stay in the menu bar, and the red dot will come and go as needed.
Group Participant Report
There's a new report in the software! With this Group Participant report, you can see all current and/or previous participants in a group, all groups in a department, or all groups in a group type. You're even able to include a saved search filter to narrow down the results. If you've ever wanted to see 'who used to be in this group' or 'has John ever been in a small group', now you can! And with the saved search option, the possibilities are endless.
New Process Queue Links
Ever been in that awkward situation where you see something on a web page that looks like a button, so you click it, but then nothing happens? Nobody likes that. Well, you can turn that frown upside down. Those little tags or statuses in a Process Queue are now links! Want to see everyone in the Queue who is In Process? Just click the green box. How about those who are unassigned? Click it. Waiting? Click it!
You can do this on both the process overview page as shown above and on the queue detail page.
A Better Message Search Tool
Perhaps when you've used the message search tool in the past, you've discovered you still couldn't find what you're looking for. The search tool was great at searching the subject of messages, but it didn't search the message body or the comments. Well, we're happy to introduce an improved message search tool.
Now when you search for a word or phrase in messages, it'll look in the subject, the message body, and all the comments. When it finds an exact match, it'll highlight the results for you, making them easy to find. If the results are below where the message body is cut off, it will highlight the 'read more' link, so you know to click there, and if the match is found in one of the comments, that will be highlighted.
Saved Report Search
While we're making searching easier, we've added a search field for saved reports also! When you navigate to your Custom/Saved Reports, you'll see a new search bar. Your reports will filter dynamically as you type!
Bug Fixes & Usability Improvements
API
- Create_event: Using the create_event service to create an event requiring Rooms & Resources was not actually setting it to required. Now it is creating the event correctly.
- Individual_profile: Individual_profile service was not sorting on individual ID. Now it is again.
- Attendance_profiles: Attendance_profiles was returning incorrect data. It's working properly again.
Check-In
- New family creation crashes: In some larger churches, Check-In was crashing while trying to create a new family. This is fixed.
- New birthday reminders: We've added a new birthday reminder for those being checked in if their birthday is 6 days before or after the current date.
- Code exclusion updates: Added some potentially offensive three-letter codes to the Check-In code exclusion list.
- Add new family freezes: In some situations, Check-In was locking up when attempting to add a new family. It works again.
- Creating new profiles with no allergies confirmation: When creating a new profile during check-in, you were unable to toggle the 'Confirmed no allergies' switch without saving and editing the profile again. We restored proper functionality when creating.
Calendar
- All Events calendar in IE 11: The All Events Admin calendar was not showing the 'more events' indicator in IE 11. Now it does.
- Scrolling date selectors: When scrolling some length down the page, the date selectors were no longer working. Now they are.
Dashboards
- Settings limitations: When trying to edit the settings of the XP dashboard, the lists of possible COAs and Attendance Groupings were limited to 25. If a church has more than 25 of either, they can now see them all.
- Attachments to entire database: When emailing the entire database and adding an attachment, the attachment wouldn't stick. You can now attach attachments, as is the nature of attachments.
Events & Attendance
- Paragraph breaks in event summaries: Event summaries were not including paragraph breaks, making some a bit hard to read. Now the breaks have returned to once more lay siege to the Great Wall of Text.
- Event summaries for Standard software: Event Summaries were not showing at all for churches with Standard version of the software. Now they are.
- Double-booking with all-day events: All-day events were allowing Rooms & Resources to be double-booked. The ensuing pandemonium has been subdued with a bug fix.
Files
- File search: When the files page for a group moved into a tab, the search tool could no longer search for files. We added a new file search tool.
Financial
- Searching form payments by name: Searching form payments by name wasn't returning the correct results. Now it is.
- Transaction memo: With longer transaction memo lines on Giving Statements, we were using a very small font. Now it's much more readable.
- Public gifts under $1: Public gifts of less than $1.00 should not be allowed to help prevent fraud. These were being allowed for a short time, but no more.
Forms
- Payment on iPad: When entering the credit card expiration date for a form payment using Safari on an iPad, the form would lock up. Now, as Fry would ask, the form will quietly take your money.
- Editing on Galaxy S3: The edit form interface did not load on Galaxy S3. Now it does.
General
- Pledge Statement mailing labels: For some churches (maybe only one), when trying to create mailing labels in the Pledge Statement report, we were showing an unhelpful error. Now it works without the error message.
Groups
- Group Leader reports: Group Leader contextual reports were messed up in a number of ways. Some weren't showing, one showed twice, and some didn't work as intended. It's all cleaned up now.
Messages
- Right-click copy-paste: A previous release removed the ability to copy and paste text into a group message with a right click of your mouse. We brought it back.
- Unpinned group messages: Unpinned group messages were not returning to sorting as they should. Now they are.
- Message direct replies: When sending a message and choosing 'Allow replies directly to me' the 'from address' was incorrectly shown as the church. Now it correctly shows as the sender.
- Message attachments: We were not using a secure URL with message attachments; now we are.
- Message and email readability: After more feedback about the readability of our messages and emails, we adjusted contrast, weight, etc. to make them more readable.
Needs
- Accepting Needs logged out: Taking a Need while logged out was showing a potentially confusing group name. Now the group name is displaying correctly.
Profiles
- Deceased Primary Contacts: Adding a deceased date to the Primary Contact when there is at least one other family member should have changed the deceased person's status to 'Other', but was not changing their status at all. Now it is properly making them 'Other'.
Reports
- Attendance Overview and Attendance Summary: Attendance Overview and Attendance Summary were showing conflicting data, when they should have shown the same. We talked them through their differences and they're on the same page again.
- Apostrophes in custom reports: In a custom report, using an apostrophe in the search criteria broke the report. Now it works correctly, even if it returns no results.
- Positions List: The Position List report, when accessed from group_detail, did not work. It's fixed.
- Scheduled reports: Automation Man was not sending out saved and scheduled reports correctly in all cases. We found the cause and it should be working again for all reports.
- Export All Groups: We added a 'Campus' column to the Export All Groups report.
- Merchant Settlement Summary: The Merchant Settlement Summary report results did not include the dates used in the criteria. Now those bookend dates are being properly included.
- Event List: Event List report was not respecting Group Department filter. It is now.
- Merchant Transaction Detail: The Merchant Transaction Detail report was experiencing some errors with the Date Created column. We've fixed it.
Schedules & Positions
- Consolidated volunteer request emails: Sending a volunteer request that contained more than one time slot caused a larger number of emails than was needed. We fixed it by consolidating the requests into one email.
- Inactive groups showing in Serving Availability: Inactive groups were showing under Serving Availability in a person's profile, causing confusion. They have been removed.
- Volunteer request emails while logged in: A logged-in user clicking the respond button in a volunteer request email was having confusing experience. We fixed it by adjusting the redirect to the page that shows the request.
- Custom messages in position emails: The Position Inform email did not actually contain the custom / personalized message written by the sender. We found the memo pad where it left the message, and it is now being relayed properly.
- Scheduling people without email addresses: When someone without an email address was on a schedule, you were not able to remove them from the schedule. Now you can.
- Declined request emails: Declining a schedule request sent more emails than necessary to the schedule organizer. The number of emails is appropriate again.
All these changes are coming the evening of Wednesday, September 16. Interested in trying out the newest features as we test them? Consider signing up for Beta.