Posted by We are in the middle of Advent and preparing for Christmas. Jesus Christ comes into the world to have a relationship with us. Wow, this is the greatest gift of all! That is why we give gifts to each other—because HE gave us a gift first.
With this in mind, we want to give you a gift with the new version. An incredible amount of dedication and brainpower has gone into this release – with the aim of making your tasks in your church community easier. 💝
New: Routines
How often have you answered group membership requests? How often have you sent the default email to someone?
Processes in church communities are repetitive, that’s obvious. You invest a lot of time in doing the same tasks over and over again. Wouldn’t it be nice if ChurchTools could take some of that work off your hands? That’s exactly what routines are for. 🎉
With routines, you can easily automate recurring tasks in your church — such as preparing for the next coaching session, reminding people about expiring certificates of good conduct, or the checklist for joining and leaving the church. Routines help you automatically guide group members through all the necessary steps depending on their role or status, inform them in a timely manner, and manage their memberships with ease.
Within routines, you have a variety of actions at your disposal that you can set up to be executed with individual waiting times. For example: editing group memberships, accepting requests, sending emails, planning follow-ups, or removing people from groups. Also note that sending automatic emails and planning follow-ups (more on this below) are now part of the routine actions.
With the appropriate permissions, you can create your own routines or customize existing ones in the group settings. You can only use actions that you would also be allowed to perform manually. A number of sample templates are available to help you get started quickly (e.g., registration group, follow-up meeting, start/end of service). We are excited to see what you will implement with routines. 😊
Redesign of follow-ups
Follow-ups have been around for a long time in ChurchTools. However, we have repeatedly received feedback that they are somewhat inflexible in their current form. That’s why we sat down at the drawing board a few months ago and reinvented follow-ups. Some of you may now be wondering… oh, really? What are follow-ups actually? 😅
Follow-ups help your church keep track of people and document important conversation topics. Whether it’s preparing for baptism talks, welcoming new people, or planning a pastoral care update, follow-ups help you organize and carry out these steps.
For each person, you will now find the “Follow-ups” section. There, you can easily create a follow-up for the selected person to be reminded of a task later and to record the results. Follow-ups are no longer controlled via the master data of the People module, but can now be created ad hoc for individuals.
In addition, follow-ups can still be used in the context of groups. All you need is the “Plan follow-ups” permission. People with the “Carry out follow-ups” permission can then complete the tasks that have been created. If you were already using follow-ups in groups, don’t worry: we have transferred all follow-ups from the master data so that your processes can continue as usual.
How do you know when follow-ups need to be completed? We will, of course, notify you by email when follow-ups are due, and on the ChurchTools web homepage you will find the “Tasks” widget, where all due follow-ups and other tasks are available for you.
Moreover you have the option of automatically creating new follow-ups via a group’s routines. This is ideal for recurring tasks such as invitations to small groups or help with starting a new job. That way, everything stays organized and nothing gets lost.
Login via third-party system
There is now a new menu called “Login” in the system settings, which bundles all settings related to login. This includes not only the familiar “Stay logged in” option, but also logging in with ChurchTools to other systems (e.g., Nextcloud).
In addition, you can now log in to your own ChurchTools with other systems that support OAuth. This makes the login process much more flexible and opens up exciting possibilities. For example, you can log in to your own ChurchTools with a user account from another ChurchTools system — ideal for churches or organizations that manage multiple systems or want to establish cross-system user management.
These improvements not only make the entire login process more modern and secure, but also significantly more user-friendly. They lay the foundation for future enhancements and make it easier for administrators to centralize access management.
Donation refunds
If the donation goal for an earmarked donation is exceeded, excess amounts must be refunded in accordance with German donation law. What does that mean in concrete terms?
A quick example: A church congregation has a goal of raising €2,000 for a missionary in Uganda. A total of €2,500 is collected for this purpose. The surplus €500 from the last donors must be refunded. Sad but true. 😢
In this case, donation refunds can now be recorded in ChurchTools Finances. They are then automatically taken into account in the balance sheet and when creating donation receipts. This simplifies a process that in the past often involved manual corrections or external notes. Your treasurers can thus keep track of refunded donations and your church remains legally compliant even in the event of subsequent adjustments.