Where we’re at

We have been talking about implementing Microsoft Office Communications Server at New Covenant for the past few years – but it has always been on the back burner.

A few weeks ago one of our volunteers decided to take the lead on the project and begin the process of implementing it. It did not take him long to set it up- really just a few hours after building a new virtual machine for it.

Currently we are only using it as an internal instant messaging application – but plan to integrate it into our phone system, federate it with other instant messaging providers such as AIM, MSN and Yahoo, as well as use it as a "free/busy" board to know which staff are available in the office, etc.

Overall being a 501c3 the implementation price of this application (the CALs, software, and maintenance agreements) was rather low- and the potential benefits far outweigh the costs.

If you are running Active Directory, with any version of Exchange and are looking for a Communications platform – I would encourage you to look into OCS.

We have been able to send SMS / Text messages in Arena for a while now- but we thought it was missing one critical component. The ability to receive replies to SMS messages was a critical component for our team. We could not stand the thought of some one replying back to one of our messages and not receiving it.

We worked with Voracity Solutions to have them develop a Two-Way SMS provider that would integrate into our Arena system- and they did a great job!

The user interface is well designed and takes advantage of components already integrated into Arena. The agent also sends email notifications when a new SMS is received.

If your church might be interested in this module contact Voracity Solutions for more information.

Here at New Covenant we had the privilege of beta testing Voracity Solutions new Mobile Membership software for the ArenaChMS product.

Mobile Membership is an enhancement to the current Arena Mobile Modules and is a great add-on to Arena for any church that would like to take there database with them on there cell phone.

We worked with Voracity to make sure the modules would all work properly on Windows Mobile devices, as well as iPhone and Palm devices.

Voracity has made the system very easy to update – by using their Control Panel to perform the initial install, as well as all future updates. The Control Panel detects what version of Arena you are using and makes sure Mobile Membership is updated to work it.

You can learn more about Voracity Solutions as well as there Mobile Membership product by visiting there website- www.voracitysolutions.com

One of the tools I rely on often is Xmarks. Xmarks allows me to sync my favorites between Internet Explorer and Firefox as well as my Firefox passwords between computers.

It is great to be able to have a page open in the office at work when I leave the office for the day, and when I return home open the browser on my home computer and have it open in the same spot.

I never have to worry about not having a saved password to favorite as well.

If you currently do not have a tool to sync favorites between browsers and computers as well as passwords you might give Xmarks a shot.

Last week I saw some action on Twitter about ClearContext… our team has been using ClearContext for over a year now and it many ways it has transformed the way we manage our inbox box.

Many of our staff do a much better job keeping their inboxes at or around 0 and staying in control of their incoming items.

All of us manage our inbox a bit differently – and even have adopted ClearContext to work the way we want it to.

The software has many customizable settings to automate certain actions – and it even allows you to click on a folder in Outlook and it shows you all of the attachments for the folder.

If you are use Getting Things Done and have implemented a “tickler” file within Outlook – ClearContext automates this with an option to defer a message to a later date. The message them automatically pops up in to your inbox at the date you choose.

The new version has some project management features built in to it as well.

They also have a beta program you can participate in as well as a  community forum to post ideas. They are very actively making changes to the product and listen to the ideas on their forum.

If you have not yet given ClearContext a try – I would encourage it. (and they have special pricing for non-profits)

One thing I have been thinking a lot about lately is how we are tracking people by member status is our database.

We use the following member statuses:

Member: Active Voting – anyone who has taken our membership class and actively attends a worship service and / or is actively giving.

Member: Inactive Voting – anyone who has gone to membership class and is no longer meats the criteria above. (to the best of our knowledge)

Attender: – any one who actively attends a worship service.

Guest: Any one who has visited with us for a worship service on a Sunday and has filled out a communication card to let us know they came.

Non-Attender / Misc: Any one who is involved in a small group, Adult Bible Fellowship, attends an event, or is a parent of a child in our youth ministries and children’s ministries.

Minor: Any one under 18.

The problem we have is that we cannot tell the difference between some one who never attends our church and some one who is actively involved in a Small Group / ABF but just does not attend a worship service.

After talking with our “Database Queen” this last week- we are looking at making yet another membership status for this group of people as we find it is important to know the difference.

Does any one else have thoughts on this? Or a membership status name we can borrow?

UPDATE (6/3/2008)

A couple of people have asked how we gather the information we have talked about above. For worship service attendance- the only real way we know who is attending vs. who is not is if they fill out a “communication card” that is provided for them in their bulletin- or if they are giving. We have created a report that tells us who has given by particular services. When we process contributions into Arena we do a batch per service. The only loop hole currently in this process is any one who has given with ACH or Electronic Fund Transfer- as they are likely to get marked present for one of our five services.

We are also tracking many other activities which would allow you to be included in our Attendee Member Status- such as Youth Group Attendance, Adult Bible Fellowship Attendance, where and how often members are serving, as well as what events they have been going to and which ones they have registered for – but have not attended.

We have been trying to get online giving going for about six months now. We were recommended by one of our venders to use PDS / Money Gram as our provide since they had a partnership with them.

We tried this.

I am disappointed in the quality of service they have offered.

We have frequently called PDS / Money Gram and left voice mails- none of which have been returned.

We have received emails from the company- in which we have responded to them and then have also asked for some one to call us and follow up. This has not happened.

I would not the use of these two companies to any church or other organization. It looks good on paper- but you most likely will be disappointed.

This post is not meant to come down and accuse money gram or PDS of any wrong doing or anything- maybe we were just not a great fit for their company.

We will now begin to look at using another company to handle processing our online giving.

I have been thinking a lot about the projects on the list for this next year and what we are currently testing. Currently the plans are to:

1. Switch the remaining staff over to Office 2007 in late May / early June

2. Move to Exchange 2007 in late June. ( we are currently testing this)

3. Possibly switch to Forefront security (currently we are testing it on our test domain)

4. Deploy terminal services web function from Server 2008 for staff wanting access to the network remotely.

5. Upgrade from ISA 2004 to ISA 2006 ( well more of a clean install- you cannot upgrade from ISA Standard to ISA 2006 Enterprise for some reason)

6. Implement a VLAN structure and deploy a campus wide public wireless network solution

7. Expand our current touch screen / deploy a finger print check-in solution.

8. Work with our communications team to design a new website in Shelby’s ArenaChMS product.

9. Enhance on monitoring of servers / critical network resources.

10. Investigate VOIP phone systems and come up with a solution for VOIP.

11. Deploy Live Communications Server for our instant messaging / presence solution.

12. Convert web / applications / and backup domain controllers over to VMware or Windows Virtual Server 2005 (any one have any strong opinions here?- I would like to discuss)

Well thats all the big plans for this next year- I am sure others will come up.

Comment if you would like to talk about what we have chosen to use for any of these projects or if you have any ideas on what to use.

It happened officially on Monday. We cut over from Shelby v5 contributions to the Shelby Arena Contributions system.

So far we are very pleased with what it has to offer – the main plus being that contribution data is now once again located within our membership system.

We also like the fact that is displays the check image in the web application allowing us to easily find contribution application.

With much anticipation we will launch check-in for our Nursery this comming Sunday. Our team as well as the team at Shelby Arena has put a bunch of work in getting this ready.

We will be able to check-in children by the last four digits of there home or cell phone number. The system will then print out three tags.

1. Parent tag- has a security code and child’s name on it so the parent can pick up the child.

2. Child tag- this tag will be placed on the child and will list allergy alerts, custody issues, medical alerts, as well as any notes we have on the child in the database. It will also list the parents pager number, child’s age, and parents names.

3. Diaper bag tag- This tag will be placed on the diaper bag and will not have the security code, but will have the parents and child’s name.

In the back of my head I cannot believe we are launching this the same day as our Wash campus officially begins.

I am confident all will go well with the first Sunday of computerized check-in.