Posted by As 2024 draws to a close, it’s time to reflect on the past few months! It’s been an exciting year full of new features and improvements to help you fulfill your mission.
A quick note in advance: Make sure you read to the end of this post, because there’s news about the launch of the new group module and the next YouTube livestream!
A big milestone: 100,000 users 🎉
Right at the beginning of the year, we reached the incredible mark of 100,000 active users. A huge thank you to all of you who use ChurchTools in your everyday church life. You motivate us every day to develop the platform further and grow alongside you.
New: Posts
The Posts module went live in March and we have continued to add new features over the course of the year. Posts allow you to discuss church topics at any time and from anywhere. This means you know more about each other and it is now much easier for people in your church to get informed and involved.
These are the most important features:
- Create and edit posts: Whether in the app or on the web – you can write posts, add pictures and publish them. If you make a typo, you can also edit posts afterwards. Read more
- Notifications: You can be notified automatically via push message or email summary when there are new posts. Group leaders and admins can activate notifications for a group by default. Read more
- Hide and report posts: You decide which content should appear in your feed. You can also report inappropriate content, which can then be blocked by your moderation team.
- Schedule posts: You can specify from when to when a post should be visible. Perfect for time-sensitive announcements! Read more
- Subscribe to public posts: You can subscribe to public posts from other churches or Christian ministries and stay up to date with what’s happening around you. Read more
- Manage the Posts module: As admins, you can activate or deactivate posts per group or group type. You can assign different write permissions for roles and recommend groups to the community, which will highlight them in the post overview. Read more
Simple registration
With the last version of the year, we have made it much easier to get started with ChurchTools. Now you can create your own user account (if registration is activated). Read more
- Simple set-up: As an admin, you have many options to configure the registration of new people according to your needs. For example, you can decide which person status, department or campus new people receive or which groups new people are automatically added to. The registration form can also be customized.
- Play it safe: You can hide the “Register” button on the login page. This means that only people who have received a sign-up link or QR code can register. You can also specify which email addresses are not allowed to create new accounts.
Website: More design options
ChurchTools Website has also made a big leap forward in 2024. The latest updates allow you to make your digital presence even more individual and user-friendly. Here are the highlights:
- Contact forms: You now have the option to display contact forms on your website. The incoming messages can either be forwarded by e-mail or downloaded as an Excel file. To prevent spam, the forms are equipped with honeypot protection.
- Fonts for themes: You can now choose individual font pairs in all website themes. This allows you to customize the design of your website even more without breaking the coherent style of the theme.
- Synchronize public posts: Posts that you puslish in ChurchTools can be easily displayed on your website. This saves time and automatically keeps your website up to date!
- Accessibility with Eye-Able: This new integration makes your website accessible – including simple language and AI translation. It allows you to comply with the BITV and WCAG guidelines for accessible websites. You can try out Eye-Able free of charge during the test phase of your website.
- New theme “Hanna”: Our latest theme is called Hanna and brings a breath of fresh air to the design possibilities of your website. Hanna – based on the mother of the prophet Samuel – combines a classic style with modern elements and shines especially when it comes to displaying appointments. This theme offers you new options to present your content in an optimal and appealing way and comes with four new font pairs.
Further improvements
In addition to the topics mentioned, there were a number of other improvements:
- Email templates: With the new template editor, you can customize the design of your emails and take it to the next level. Read more
- Calendar views: The new “List” and “Year” views improve clarity and make scheduling easier. Read more
- Split transactions: In ChurchTools Finance you can now split transactions. This is helpful, for example, for mixed invoices that you have to to different accounts. Read more
- Facts in the app: Facts, such as the number of visitors or collections, can now be counted and entered in the app. Read more
- Support and bug fixes: We resolved more than 11,000 support requests in 2024 and continuously improved the quality of the platform.
The new Groups module
Last but not least, we also made progress with the new Groups module (Beta) last year. Here are two highlights:
- Automatic memberships: Sounds unimposing – but it’s very powerful. This feature allows admins to filter people and add or remove them from a group. The amazing part is that you can set rules to be executed automatically so that you can fully automate many processes in your church community. Read more
- Map view: You can now display the meeting places of your groups and the addresses of group members on a map. Read more
We are still working on finalizing the new Groups module and plan to release it for everyone in spring 2025. There will be a YouTube livestream to mark the occasion, in which we will also announce more about further plans for 2025 and beyond.
Thank you!
We thank you for a fantastic year 2024 – and especially for the trust you have placed in us. Together with you, we look forward to the coming year and look forward to improve ChurchTools for HIS CHURCH.