Church Director Product Blog

One of the biggest requests we’ve had for Church Director is to support reoccurring assignments. Rather than create a very complicated setup, we’ve opted to keep it simple (like the rest of the application) through a new feature called “Rapid Scheduling”. Here is how it works:

As a planner admin, click the “Rapid Scheduling” link on your planner:

Next, Church Director will ask you a single question: how do you want to start Rapid Scheduling?

You will then be able to view the groups that were created, and if you click the “Members” link, you can add your team members to the group:

Finally, your Rapid Scheduling groups list will show you the coverage percentage for each group:

After setting up groups and group members, Church Director will check every night for new assignments and schedule them up to one month in the future. Assignees will receive the same notification email they usually would, but without any more work from you! This should be a great timesaver for larger teams, such as children’s ministries, and teams that have set schedules, such as small groups.

If you try out the new feature, drop us a note using the Feedback link at the top of any page and let us know how you like it!

Technorati Tags: volunteer scheduling, rapid scheduling, children’s ministry, small groups, church director

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No, this isn’t an April Fools joke. In fact, this feature has been in the works for some time but hasn’t made it into production until now. Every planner now has a custom RSS feed that allows leaders and team members to track planner activity through their favorite feed reader. It is simple to get started:

Just click on the “Subscribe to Team Alerts” link from the menu on your planner. You will be given information about how to subscribe, in case you are new to RSS or feed readers. I’ve been trying out Blerts and they seem to be a nice Windows-based desktop feed reader. Here is a screenshot of what Blerts looks like when new Team Alerts are available for your planner:

Blerts also provides an option for viewing a summary of recent alerts:

Click on the image above to view an example of what kind of alerts you can receive. Of course, you can use any feed reader you like to keep track of your Team Alerts. I use Bloglines (click to see what it looks like).
Also, we are taking signups for our next round of beta testers. If you want to see if Church Director may be a fit for your church, fill out the (very short) beta test application form today!

Technorati Tags: volunteer management, church management, volunteer scheduling, church software

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Church Director now has support for adding new team members directly from the assignments screen! This means that you don’t have to stop in the middle of assigning team members for a church service or event to add someone who recently joined your team.

Just click the ‘Add Team Member’ link, then enter their first or last name to see if they already exist in the system. If you find them, one button will add them to your team. If they aren’t in the system yet, simply provide their name/email, save, and then immediately assign them to a role for your event. It is that simple!

We are also experimenting with some new features, including integration with other systems. Stay tuned!

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I’ve been notified by my hosting service that there will be a planned outage starting on Saturday night, February 24th, at 11:15PM PST. It will be restored sometime around 4AM PST Sunday morning. Those that need to access Church Director during this time will need to make plans to obtain order-of-service reports and other needs prior to or after this outage timeframe. My apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

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Our hosting provider found a problem with our database server and restored it. Total downtime was about 45 minutes. No data was lost and all services are now restored.

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The new year is a time for reflecting and for making changes. So, I’ve been hard at work rolling out a few minor improvements to the site since the last release at Christmas. The changes are focused mostly on small bug fixes and some behind-the-scenes work to prepare Church Director for some upcoming features. Expect to see another post outlining these features.

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As a Christmas gift to our Church Director users, we have rolled out the next private beta, version 4.0. This release includes some major screen updates, including cleanup and various improvements. These updates will provide a more pleasant experience when using the application, and also includes some code cleanup that will prepare us for the next release that is coming soon.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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I noticed that Microsoft is starting to push down IE7 to desktops as a Windows update. Just to let you know, I have tested Church Director on IE7 and all features are working as expected. While there are a few small visual issues, they are quite minimal and will not impact usage. I’ll update the site soon to fix these minor issues when using this new browser. In the meantime, know that we are fully tested on IE7 and it is safe to upgrade with respect to Church Director.

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I’m not 100% sure about that statistic, but you can now create job roles “on the fly” from the assignments page. If you’ve ever found yourself needing to add a new job role before you assign a team member, this feature is for you! Just click the “Create a new role” box and provide a role name - we’ll do the rest. And, with the magic of modern browsers, we can do this without losing your in-progress assignment plan since it all happens without a page refresh. I also hope to use this feature to make it even easier to create team planners in the future, so stay tuned!

Let us know what you think using our feedback form, available at the top of any page.

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After some long nights getting this highly requested feature written and tested, you can now save current assignments as a named group and apply them with one click. Once a group is created, just click the group name link to apply the group team members to their appropriate roles.

Uses include worship teams that have alternating teams, such as Sun/Wed or Sun 1/Sun 2, small groups that rotate locations, as well as other ministries.
An screenshot is shown to the right:

If you aren’t using Church Director yet, visit our beta signup and register for the next closed beta.

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