In the same way spring cleaning dusts off treasured furniture, last week's UI refresh brings to life again two of the most important and valuable parts of Churchteams--reports and email.

The UI upgrade did not add any functionality to reports and email, but it just spruced up the look and feel for a cleaner, more modern look.  There are many upgraded pages in this area of the software, but here are a few examples of the new look and some reasons people love these features.

The look and feel of Churchteams registration forms was significantly upgraded with the User-Interface (UI) released a few nights ago. This update provides a fresh new look for your registration forms. 

The registration (or form) creation process remains the same: create a group, then go to Registration > Settings. The Registration Settings page looks the same (for now), but the link and code that you copy and paste on your website (or elsewhere) result in the new look and feel.

We released a number of upgrades to the look and feel of Churchteams last night.  One of the main ones was Multi Media Messaging (MMS) - a big upgrade for texting.  

Almost all apps on smartphones today rely on mobile data plans.  Whereas SMS texting only requires cellular access, MMS uses mobile data technology to expand what text messaging apps can do.  Churchteams has taken advantage of this functionality to give you the ability to do these three new things.

1. Send images.  Make your text instantly relatable with a picture of the sender, a flyer, or an image that conveys the emotions or ideas you want people to receive.  
   
   
2. Record and send audio messages.  Use the microphone to speak or even sing your message. However, you are limited to 2 minutes. 
    
3. Create longer text messages.  SMS only allows you to send 159 characters in a text.  MMS allows for 1600 characters.  This means the content of your text messages can be longer.

Next week we are releasing a sizable number of pages with the new look that you've seen us rollout incrementally in the past. 

Those of you who have joined Churchteams since the new look became the default, and those who opted in to it will see all of these changes.  Some will not be available in the Classic Version.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  We pray that you and your family have a blessed next couple of weeks.

As 2025 closes our team thought it would be fun to thank you for allowing us to partner with you this year by sharing some fun facts about how you used Churchteams this past year and some of the upgrades you liked the most!

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post on managing the list of Events on your Website, App, and Text-to-Church keyword all in one place.  Click here to read more about how this three-in-one functionality works saving time for staff responsible for communication.

Since then we added the keyword RESOURCES to separate these links from EVENTS.  This also matches the functionality in the Member App.

The Member App was created to make it simple for members to manage their giving, serving, groups, events, and resources—all from their phones. At the same time, we know that some people may find it more convenient to access these features on a computer, laptop, or tablet. 

Managing events on multiple communication platforms is easier than ever with Churchteams. 

With our latest upgrade, you can create or update an event in the database, and it automatically shows up and drops off, according to the dates you set: (1) the link Events Calendar on your Website or FB page, (2) your Member App, and (3) your Text-to-Church EVENTS keyword list!  

This is game-changer functionality for staff responsible for church communication.  Instead of a task list reminding them to add or remove event promotions in multiple places, they simply create the event in the Churchteams database and let our automation do that work for them.