September in our software update world features a handful of small improvements that we think will make a big difference in your workflow, plus a backpack full of bug fixes. Featured this month: AirPrint capabilities for the iPad Check-In app, usability improvements in Scheduling, events search in Mobile Preview, and more. These changes will be live in your sites the morning of Thursday, September 21.
Featured Updates
AirPrint for iPad Check-In App
We have enabled printing using AirPrint Printers in the iPad Check-In app. This new printer option will allow you to choose to print to any AirPrint printer connected to your wifi network, and just like the Bluetooth LE printers, you can pair multiple iPads to a single printer.
For this release, we are officially supporting the Brother QL-820, which provides a more affordable printer alternative to the expensive Bluetooth printers. Our team is continuing to test other models of AirPrint printers, so we hope to add other compatible printers to our supported hardware list in the future.
You can get more details about all of the supported printers for the iPad Check-In app and how to set them up at this help article.
Ready to download the app? Get it at the US iTunes Store or Canadian App Store today.
"0 Needed" Positions in Schedules
When setting up a schedule, you can indicate how many people you need for a specific position. If you have a position in your group that you only use some of the time for some schedules, you would put that you needed 0 people for that position. However, that "0 Needed" position was still showing up in the grid when you went assign volunteers, which could be confusing or frustrating.
With this release, we've made a change to how this displays: When viewing the grid, if none of the weeks you're viewing needs that position, then the position will not show.
Event Search in Mobile Preview
In the Mobile Preview, you can now filter the list of people based on their status in an event. You can search on two different criteria: Attendance Status and RSVP Status.
- Attendance Status: You can search based on whether or not they were marked as Attended for a specific event. After you pick the event, you can search based on a specific event occurrence, or, if it's a repeating event, you can search to see if they've attended any occurrence of that event.
- RSVP Status: You can filter the list based on how someone RSVP'd for a specific event (e.g., Yes, No, Maybe, Not Responded...). Note: because you can only RSVP for an entire event series, if it is a repeating event, there is not an option to search for RSVP status based on a specific event occurrence.
Change your Master Administrator
For the rare occasion that you need to change your church's Master Administrator, you can now do that from within the Church Community Builder software. If you are your church's current MA, when you navigate to your account page, beside the Master Administrator name, you'll see a link to "Change". This will open up a modal where you can search the database for your new MA.
Your new MA must have an email address, Username and Password, and cannot be a Limited Access User. When you pick a new MA, the old Master Administrator, Billing Contact, and any Support Contacts will get an email informing them of the change. The new MA will get an email giving them a brief introduction to their new role.
This change can only be made in the software once every 30 days. If you need to change your MA sooner than that, or if you need our team to change your MA for you, you can find instructions to do that in this Help Article.
Discontinuing Support of IE 11
Effective November 8, 2017, we will be discontinuing support for the Internet Explorer 11 browser. As an older browser, we are unable to ensure the security and usability of our software on that platform. While there are not any known major issues with IE 11, once we discontinue support, any issues that do arise will not be fixed by our team.
If you currently use Internet Explorer 11, we encourage you to download a different browser to access the Church Community Builder software. You can find a complete list of supported browsers and how to download them on this Help Article.
Maintenance
Check-In
- We have confirmed that the latest version of Firefox ESR, version 52.3, is reliably printing Check-In labels. We recommend you use this browser for your Check-In stations.
- We fixed an issue that was occasionally showing duplicate events in the Suggested Events area. Now each event only shows up in that list once.
- Check-In Stations using Firefox ESR 52.2 or older can now reliably use barcode scanners again.
- When using a Self Check-In station with the touchscreen option, the number pad will no longer disappear after entering a number then clicking cancel.
Departments
- If you left a Department note but did not enter a date, we were saving the date as Dec 2, 2000. We changed that to default to today's date if the date field was left blank. You can still party like it's 1999, but your notes are going to live in the present.
Events & Attendance
- We fixed a rare problem where some churches were receiving multiple attendance reminder emails a day for the same event.
- Limited Events can once again edit "Additional Guest" information for event invitees. Before, their edits were not being saved.
Financial
- We fixed a problem with matching repeating gifts for PushPay users. Before, you could not successfully match gifts on page 2 of your gift matching interface.
- If you gave an online gift and did multiple splits to the same COA category, we are now correctly displaying each split.
Forms
- If you are a form admin editing a form response, you can once again edit the 'Donation Amount' field, as long as the form is unpaid. If the form has payment attached to it, then you cannot edit this field.
- If a form response has selected something from the 'Product/Ticket' question, and the form has been paid for, an admin can no longer edit the number of items in that field.
Groups
- If you duplicate a group and then change the group photo for the new group, we are no longer incorrectly displaying the thumbnail image from the old group.
- When you are a group leader and you change someone's status in a group you lead, we are no longer sending you an email telling you what you just did... because we believe in your short-term memory.
Mail Merge
- We fixed a problem where you could not download a CSV file attached to a Mail Merge if you were using the Safari browser.
- The "|" symbol is displaying correctly in the subject line of Mail Merges again.
Metrics
- For churches with a lot of data, we've added a 'Load More' button to the bottom of any metrics with more than 100 records. This should prevent the whole Metrics dashboard page from loading too slowly or timing out. Patience is a virtue, but not when it comes to your software.
Mobile Preview
- If you sent a message through groups in the Mobile Preview, we were not correctly displaying any line breaks from that message. We've fixed that problem.
- If your church only has one campus, we are no longer showing a 'Campus' pulldown when editing someone's profile in the Mobile Preview.
- When editing a profile in Mobile Preview, you can now change the person's country to 'Not Specified' if you no longer want country information in their profile. Our country list is now also displaying alphabetically.
- When composing a group message in the Mobile Preview, if you cancel out of the message composer, then change your mind and "undo" that cancel, we are now correctly bringing you back to the message you started writing.
Needs
- When viewing past needs, we were only displaying the first 20 needs in the past. We changed this to show all past needs.
- If you create a Need in a listed group, you can now inform people of the need even if they do not belong to that group. If you create a Need in an unlisted group, you can only inform group members of the need. If you create a Need in an administrative group, you can only inform leaders of that group.
Process Queues
- We are no longer adding the same person to a process queue multiple times if you accidentally double clicked on the 'add to queue' button.
- Process Managers can once again correctly add and delete automations in any hidden processes they manage.
Profiles
- Group Leaders with no other privileges can no longer incorrectly search for unlisted people using the People Search.
- Modifier ID is correctly being updated on a person's profile when the Primary Contact is inactivated and someone else in the family is moved into that family position.
- If you are Child Work Approved, you now correctly see the same birthday information for a child's profile whether you're viewing it in the Mobile Preview or in Desktop software.
Reports
- In the Individual Export report, we are only showing one column for Giving Number (rather than showing it multiple times).
- The Individual Export report was missing the 'Country' and 'Area of Town' profile fields. We've restored those fields.
- The Annual Summary by Category report now correctly aligns all the data in the right place.
- When running the Birthday List or Contact List report by department, we are now correctly including people even if they are only members of inactive groups in that department.
- The memo column on the Transaction by Amount report is now sorting correctly even when your church only has one campus.
- We fixed the alignment of the headers on the Significant Events report.
Schedules
- When assigning volunteers on the grid, you can filter the list of volunteers based on a name search. If you do this, then select the 'select all' checkbox, it now only selects the people filtered from the name search, rather than ignoring that name search and selecting everybody.
- When you receive a scheduling reminder via text message, clicking on the link in that text message now correctly takes you to your Schedule view, rather than to the 'Requests' tab.
Hot Fixes
Sometimes we become aware of issues in the software that are so important, they can’t wait for the next scheduled software release to be fixed. We call those ‘Hot Fixes’. Here is a list of all of those Hot Fixes that have already been resolved since the last release.
Check-In
- (Aug 21) We fixed a problem with suggested events that was incorrectly suggesting events for a future service time rather than the current service time.
- (Aug 21) We fixed a very rare instance that could result in a duplicate security code.
- (Aug 21) We fixed a very rare instance that could result in a text message page going to the wrong family.
Process Queues
- (August 31) Process Queue notes can now correctly be read across multiple queues, if they have been appropriately shared.