Subject: BVCMS May 2012 Newsletter

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Newsletter #16
May 23, 2012

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Dear BVCMS Community,

This newsletter contains tips, information about new features, and announcments of upcoming events. See past newsletters.


User News & Announcements

This is where we keep users informed. Here are the latest news items and announcements from BVCMS.

One-Click Directories

If you have not checked out these two new directories (on the Reports menu of the toolbar) don’t wait another minute! We have now provided you with not only a Family Directory which lists the family members and their contact information, but also with a pre-built Picture Directory. Read more...

Android App has Arrived!

All you non-iPhone users (and you know who you are), your time has come! BVCMS now has an Android App. Just search for BVCMS on Google play. This App has all the same features of the iPhone app and a few nice extras, but specially designed for all Android devices. You can search for people, find their family members (and also their related/extended family members), get a map, make a call, record attendance, add visitors...all on your Android device. Email android@bvcms.com if you need support.

Organization Types

This new feature is an added filter that allows you to classify your Organizations. You may have Organizations in different Programs, but they have one thing in common - they are all made up of volunteers. So, you can create an Organization Type called Volunteer. and assign it to all of those Organizations. Or maybe you want to classify all of your Camps and Trips regardless of which Program or Division they are in - create a Type for Trips. Use your imagination - but think before you act. Read more...

More Links

Recently, we took the Vote Link and Register Link concept two steps further when we added the RSVP Link (to register for a specific meeting) and the RegisterLink2 (displays your whole family in a pick list). Read all about these new links. I’m sure you will find a reason to try them out.

Start and End Dates for Registration

You can determine when a registration is available by using the Start and End Dates on the Settings for an Organization. Read more...

Public Emails

If you are creating an email to send to a targeted group, perhaps to publicize an upcoming event, make the most of your effort. Make the email public and post a link to it on Facebook or on Twitter. We recently added the ability to make an email public after you have already sent it, giving you more flexibility. Read more...


Admin Corner

Standard Extra Values

Many of you are familiar with our Extra Value fields. These started out as a way to import data from other systems that did not clearly fit in one of our fields in BVCMS. So we put them in these extra value fields allowing the church to postpone dealing with them without any losing any data.

However, the concept of extra values have turned out to be quite useful. Now we have extended this feature with what we are calling Standard Extra Values. You can customize standard data elements to collect new types of data you need. This includes dropdowns which show up with standard values and checkboxes for things like spiritual gifts. And because you can limit the visibility of these extra values, you can even have private comments that are only visible to a custom role that you create and assign to counselors for example.

We'll be writing some documentation on this soon but if this intrigues you, email support to get some more information about how you can start using these for your church.

 eChecks and Credit Cards

For our Sage customers, Online Giving now can be set up for Virtual Check only to exclude credit cards. Furthermore, Virtual Checks now work for other types of non-giving registrations.


Developer Notes

New Hire!

We are thrilled to announce that Steven Yarbrough has come on board with us full time. Steven is a very accomplished programmer and has already demonstrated his capabilities by developing our Android App!

This is huge relief for me (David) but I'm not slowing down at all. In fact we are doubling our efforts to bring you great ministry tools and make your jobs easier. You will be hearing more from Steven as we expect to increase the pace of our development this year and beyond. Expect great things!


Blessings,
David Carroll and Karen Worrell
Your BVCMS Team


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BVCMS is a an open source, web-based, ministry-focused, complete and affordable, church management system. Usage Defined Software, doing business as bvcms.com, provides hosting, services, support, conversions and and customizations for a fee.