Subject: BVCMS Newsletter #27
Newsletter #27 Having trouble viewing this newsletter? View it online |
This newsletter contains tips, information about new features, and announcements of upcoming events. See past newsletters.
User News & Announcements
We have a lot of catching up to do in this newsletter! There are exciting things happening at BVCMS.
New CEO
Earlier this year, we hired Bryan Lyle as our new CEO. After working part-time for the first part of the year to wind down some previous commitments, he has now transitioned to full-time. Bryan will oversee and direct all aspects of our business and growth plans. He has years of experience in software support and services in the manufacturing and medical industries. He serves as a deacon and volunteers in the welcome center, check-in, and valet parking ministries here at Bellevue using BVCMS. We are very pleased to have Bryan’s leadership at BVCMS.
New Support Staff
As our clients know, Bethany and Karen have been our “Rock Stars” in support, documentation, webinars and training. Recently, we have hired two new Support Analysts! Andrew Triplett has been with us for several months now and has quickly become a top contributor. Will Whitworth is our newest Support Analyst and will add his experience and professionalism to the team. We know our customers will continue to be delighted with our outstanding support team.
New Developers
David and Steven have been holding down the fort on the development front. But now we are thrilled to have David Mohundro and Brian Lankford on our development team. These men have extensive experience in church software development on the same development platforms we use. You will see lots of improvements over the next year with these guys on the team.
New Branding Coming
On the marketing front, we have been working on a rebranding initiative and are excited to be rolling that out before the end of the year. This involves a new name and a new marketing web site. You will be seeing some announcements about that in the near future.
New App Coming
We will be releasing a new iPhone and Android App for BVCMS in early 2015. This App will be geared towards both the regular church member or guest as well as staff and lay leaders. Functionality will be added throughout the year in phases including features like online giving, videos, podcasts, maps, custom pages, prayer forums, staff-only functionality, dashboard metrics and more. Stay tuned for updates.
Projects Recap
Below is a recap of a number of projects we have blogged about since our last newsletter.
New Documentation Project
We are in the process of rewriting all of our help articles. There are over 600 articles in case you haven’t noticed! Some of the articles that you will link to below or from the blog posts are still not rewritten. This blog post explains more about that. Thank you for bearing with us in this monumental task. We are doing this for you, our users. Be sure to thank Karen for all of her hard and excellent work!
Registrations and Email
In the last year, we have added some really big new features as well as some smaller ones relating to online registrations and sending email.
- Mission Trip Online Registration - huge new registration option with tons of features for staff, those going on trips, and those supporting those going on trips
- Improved Registration on Mobile Devices - our new Bootstrap feature
- Waive or Lower Deposits for Online Registrations - this explains how to manage deposits for individuals
- Manual Payments and Fee Adjustments - how to manage and track fees when someone does not register online
- Registration Title - a feature that allows you to present a different title for your online registration, instead of the organization name
- Regrets Link - goes hand-in-hand with the RSVP Link
- Re-sending an Email to a New Group of Recipients - how to copy the source and paste into a new email
- Convert to Search Email Recipients - quick way to send a new email to the same recipients
- New Email Replacement Codes - these relate to paylinks, etc.
- More New Email Replacement Codes - these relate to communicating organization assignments, teacher’s name, room number
- Email Child and CC Parents - nice way to make sure parents are notified
Reports and Attendance
Over the past few months, we have posted about several new features relating to taking attendance and reports.
- Worship Reports - 2 reports for churches that track worship attendance as well as small group attendance
- Create Meetings for Multiple Organizations - easy way to create multiple meetings for orgs without weekly schedules, such as VBS orgs
- Search Builder Condition - Needs Attendance - to help you find the leaders of classes who have not recorded their attendance
- Monthly Attendance Report - a great report for monthly averages
- Ticketing Attendance - Family Attendance and Status Labels - 2 features added to Ticketing Attendance to help when recording attendance for large groups
- Member Info Export - a great export with columns for all the fields on a person’s Member Profile
- Meetings Attendance Export for Excel or Numbers - 2 versions of this attendance export
Videos
We have published several new videos in recent months that relate to the new user interface we published in January this year. These are on our BVCMS YouTube channel :
- People Record Video - an in-depth look at everything you will find on a person’s record
- Search Builder - how to use Search Builder in light of the new user interface
- Toolbar - a walk through of the blue toolbar showing where to find everything
- Extra Values Video - Check out our blog post about Extra Values, and also the video demonstrating how to add each type of Extra Value on a person’s record
- Edit Address - very short video about editing primary and secondary addresses
- SearchAdd - how to use the SearchAdd dialog
- Involvement Tab - discovering all the information available on the Involvement tab of a person’s record
- Two Videos Relating to Tasks - short videos showing how to Create Tasks and how to Accept and Complete Tasks
- How to Record a Contact Video - practical how-to video for recording the results of a Contact
- Mini Video on Recording Contacts - a 2-minute video showing a shortcut for recording Contacts that you made yourself
- Managing Deacon Organizations - or any Org with Inactive members - how to easily manage orgs whose members rotate on and off
Finance and Contribution Features
We have made several enhancements for our finance users that relate not only to their tasks, but also to contribution statements. Some of these features are enhancements for your donors.
- New Feature for Stock Gifts - another way to record this type of Gift-In-Kind
- A Few Items for Finance Users - set the default bundle type, easier editing of statement and envelope option, and new giver tab
- Non-Tax-Deductible Gifts on Contribution Statements - you have the option to display these if your church wants to do so
- New Finance-Related Role - a new role for FinanceAdmin to re-open bundles
- New Electronic Only Statement Option - new option available to donors
Miscellaneous New Features
Here are some other posts about new features that do not fit the above-mentioned categories.
- Blue Toolbar Replaces Other Management and Exports/Reports - everything is now on the toolbar
- Closing Classes for Checkin - a tip on handling classes that are full
- Member Status Badge - a special type of status flag that displays automatically on a person’s record
- Just Added Records - a one-click way to update Member Status from Just Added to Not Member
- Tasks and Contacts-Did You Know...? - where these appear on a person’s record and little tidbits about how to use these features
- Status Flags-Protected by Role - how you can lock down a Status Flag so only users in a certain role can view them
- Denoting Deceased in Family List - shows how we now display a family member who is deceased
- New Login Page and Links - how to request a password or reset your password if you’ve forgotten yours
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Blessings,
Your BVCMS Team
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