For the past decade the term "smart" has been used to identify devices and physical environments that have incorporated technology to produce integration, inter-connectivity and system processing that does not rely solely on human interaction.

Calendars are a timely topic for the start of a new year.  Here are a couple of blog posts I did on 3 Problems Calendars Help Solve and Using Google For Church Calendars.  Though Google is helpful for many churches, we recognize that there are additional challenges and software possibilities for managing church facilities.  

This is my last blog post for the year and may be a little geeky, but I'm going to share it with you anyway. I've always loved this poem and have customized it before for Christmases past. But, this one is for Christmas present. Receive it not just from me, but from our team as well. This is why we do what we do.  

Most churches measure worship attendance.  They also have some sort of metric for small group attendance.  Comparing one to the other demonstrates how effective they are at moving people from being anonymous to being known - from rows to circles. 

We are looking forward to being a part of Exponential 2019.  I asked their team to give us a post to share with you guys some of the Exponential team's thinking about mobilization - a huge value for Churchteams as well.  Here it is. Enjoy.

Great news, Churchteams friends and fans.  WFX magazine recognized Text-to-ME with a New Product of The Year Award for 2018!  Some of you may recall that we won the same recognition last year for Text-to-Check-in.  It was announced at the WFX Conference and Expo in Orlando recently.  Here is their announcement of the winners.

Happy Thanksgiving!  In our prayer time this morning, we remembered things about Churchteams for which we thank God.  Mark summarized it best: relationships. Not only incredible relationships with each other as a team, but incredible relationships with our clients and so many others.  In other words, you.  Here are a couple of fairly major upgrades that came from your ideas.  Hopefully you will find these very helpful.

We do dedicated blog posts and emails for major changes like the Workflow feature we've talked about a lot the past couple of months.  But in addition, there have been a lot of other less major but still significant upgrades the past three months or so.  Here is a quick overview of the rest of this post:

1. Changed Email Providers
2. Errors Using Email Personalization
3. Unsubscribe Notices If Emails Are Scheduled
4. Text To Give To A Designated Fund
5. Tracking Assimilation Progress Through Groups Report
6. Check-in: Re-print Name Tags And Security Labels
7. Registration Links Improved
8. Limit Coach Level Access To Search
9. Browse Groups Page Style Options
10. Add Leader Count to Attendance By Group Report
11. Track Recurring vs. Non-recurring Donations
12. Merge Groups Options

1. Changed Email Providers.  We made a major change in our email system the past couple of months moving from one provider to another one because of changes in the business model of the original provider.  Two big advantages of the new provider relate to email history.

1. Email history populates much faster making it more usable.
2. Email history shows not only that people opened their email, but also if they clicked something to respond to it.

2. Errors Using Email Personalization.  The "Email request for updated information" report and email / text templates for the Workflow feature allow you to add and as radicals to personalize emails / texts. However, our primary Email options do not currently support this personalization (that's coming). Until then, there's now a feature that catches misapplications of these commands and gives you a pop-up warning. That way you won't send out any goofy looking emails.

Have you ever wished there was a way to make sure everyone who asked for something from you or your church got what they needed?