P.S. At the end of the blog post, you'll find details about the release of the new Groups module and when we'll share our plans for 2025.

Good news! As of February 19, the new "Posts" module will be available to ChurchTools admins on the Web and in the App.

Posts offer your church the opportunity to discuss congregational topics at any time. This means you know more about each other and is now much easier for people in your church to get informed and involved. And best of all: the "Posts" module is included in your license package.

The feature will go live for all ChurchTools users from March 4.
This means that you have two weeks from February 19 to try out and set up the "Posts" module: You decide which group types use posts and which group type roles are allowed to write posts. In addition, ChurchTools helps you to create suitable groups for sharing posts. You can mark individual groups as "recommended" and these are then prioritized and displayed to users. This allows you to direct where information or discussions should take place on which topics.

It is best to discuss with the other leaders of your church how you want to use posts in your church community. That way, you can make the most of this new opportunity. You are absolutely welcome to share this message.

Posts offer the greatest added value if as many people in your church as possible have installed the ChurchTools app and receive push notifications. We therefore recommend that you invite the people in your congregation to ChurchTools and ask them to install the ChurchTools app.

You can find more information on what posts are and how you can use them to your advantage in this blog post.

We would be delighted if this new opportunity promotes community both within your church and beyond.

There was radio silence on this topic for a long time, but today we have good news: the concept for how to make posts in the app is ready and we have already started to implement it!

Continue reading the blogpost...

The new group module is now available for testing. You can activate it in the system settings and enable it for your users through the "Groups (Beta)" permission. Important: The permissions from "People and Groups" continue to apply.

What is new?

• Design: The group module has been completely redesigned, so that the handling is now more intuitive.
• Home page: An improved group overview allows quick access to all types of groups.
• Group table: The new table view allows to show, hide and pin columns and to adjust their width.
• Saved views: Views can be saved along with selected filters, so they can be revisited at a later time.
• Group page: Each group now has its own page. You can go deeper into the most important areas of a group on subpages like Infos, Members, or Meetings.

What is still missing?

We are still working on some features:

• Mobile views of the module
• Newsletter integration
• Serial letters
• Address labels
• Map view
• Group chat settings
• Follow-up settings
• Translations (so far German only)

In addition, features such as the group org chart, group history, and automatic membership setting (formerly "Dynamic Groups") are planned.

We need feedback:

Please try out the new module and let us know your suggestions for improvement via the "Beta-Feedback" button. To get started, simply activate the new group module under System settings > Modules and give the "Groups (Beta)" permission to users who should have access.

Thank you for your help!

More infos

• We can deliver e-mails more reliably by ensuring that DMARC headers are set correctly. Without these headers, e-mails are often rejected.
• The change should make ChurchTools e-mails less likely to end up in spam folders, as correct e-mail settings increase trustworthiness with e-mail providers.
• There should no longer be problems caused by incorrectly set SPF headers.

Notes:

• The change only affects you if you have changed the sender e-mail address and use ChurchTools' e-mail server.
• Affected or not, you do not need to take any action.
• Sent e-mails will still show the sender's name after the change (e.g. Max Mustermann).
• E-mail replies will go to the sender's e-mail address (and not to "noreply@churchtools.de").

We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding. Thank you very much.

This year we are planning to release the new group module. In preparation for this, we will be making some modifications that will affect the structural design of your ChurchTools installation. In doing so, we hope to simplify organization through groups, allow for more accurate filtering, and in general provide a more user-friendly experience.
 

1. Persons in groups - introduction of a new status

• Going forward all people in a group will be called "group members" (previously "group participants") to avoid confusion with the role "participant".
• Group members, such as leaders, participants or collaborators, will in future be given a status in addition to a role, which describes a person's relationship to a group. The status of a person can be "active", "requested", "on waiting list" or "to delete". In the future, other statuses such as "invited" or “left group” are also conceivable.
• Group permissions will only take effect if the group member has the status "active".

1.1 What does this mean for your group roles?

• Currently, you can mark a role as "To delete", "Request", "Leader", "Default" or "Hidden" in the master data of the "Persons & Groups" module under "Group type role". In the future, the "Request" and "To delete" options will be removed because of the role status “requested” and “to delete”. Moreover, there can only be exactly one default role per group type.
• So group members with "Request" roles receive the status “requested" and with "To delete" roles receive the status “to delete" and they are transferred to those roles that have been marked as "Default" of the group type. Two examples follow to illustrate the point; in both examples, the "Participant" role has been marked as the “Default" role:
  • Group members with the previous role "participation requested" are given the role "participant" and additionally the status "requested".
  • Group members with the previous role "to delete" get the role "participant" and additionally the status “to delete".
     

1.2 What to consider as an admin?

Did you create additional “Request” or "To delete" roles in your master data under "Group type role"? Or were the role names "Participation requested" or "To delete" changed?

• If no, then you don't have to do anything:
  • then group members with “Request" or “To delete" roles are automatically assigned to the respective “Default" role and
  • these group members get the status "requested" or "to delete" respectively.
• If yes, then we cannot automatically merge your roles. In this case:
  • group members keep their previous role with the prefix "(Deprecated)".
  • group members receive the respective status corresponding to the current flag ("Requested" or "To delete").
  • Example 1: A role called "Access requested" was created and marked as "Request". After the change, group members will have the role "(Deprecated) Access requested" and receive the status “requested".
  • Example 2: A role called “Please delete immediately" was created and marked as "To delete". After the change group members will have the role "(Deprecated) Please delete immediately" and additionally receive the status "to delete".
  • Action required: If you want us to automatically merge your “Request” and “To delete” roles, then please make sure by end of day Tuesday 21/02 at the latest, that for each group type there is only exactly one role …
    • with the name "participation requested" and only this role is marked as “Request" and
    • with the description "to delete" and only this role is marked as “To delete”.
  • Of course, these adjustments can also be made manually at any later date and time.
     

1.3 "Request" roles with permissions

If the participation in a group requires manual approval by a leader, and the "participation requested" role has been assigned group-internal permissions, we will leave the role title unchanged and set the status to”active", so that given permissions still apply.
In this case we uncheck the box that “it is necessary to have a manual release” to enter the group, so that new group participants still receive immediately permissions as before.
 

1.4 Synchronizing group members

Do you use the Sync module to keep your data up to date?
If yes, it is important for you to know that in the future only group members whose status is set to "active" will be synchronized.
 

2. Group status

The group status “Pending” will soon be called "Draft”, “Active" will remain the same and "Inactive" will become "Archived". Furthermore, we introduce a new group status called "Finished", which is a precursor to archiving a group. If you set up a “Date of completion” and this date is reached, this group will be automatically set to the status "Finished" in the future. This will close the sign-up to this group and change its visibility level to "Restricted": this means that the group is no longer "Public" and will also no longer be featured in the app under group suggestions.

Until a year ago, it was possible to create other group statuses (e.g. "Paused"), but these were treated functionally like active groups. Therefore, groups with custom statuses will be set to "active".

Have you created new group status (visible under Groups > Group Filter > Group status)?

• If no, then there is no need for action.
• If yes, then please check if you want to keep this group information. In this case we recommend to do so by creating a new DB field from the category "Group”.
   

3. Visibility levels

There will be an addition to the group visibility levels "Restricted", "Public" and "Hidden”: The new level "Internal". People who have a ChurchTools user account can see groups with the visibility level "Internal" without any further permissions.
 

4. DB fields and group internal permissions

To simplify DB fields and permission to set the groups, we remove all DB fields in the master data of the “Persons & Groups" module, which are only needed to configure group functionalities.
=> Important: DB fields that are needed to view and edit group info (e.g. group type, location, category) as well as custom DB fields remain unchanged. This means that the security levels for these fields are still valid.

Instead, there will be new group-internal permissions that allow you to edit basic settings, group infos, group meeting settings, and follow-up settings. Any group member who has the "Edit group properties" permission will automatically receive the new, above-mentioned, group-internal permissions after the transition.

 
We at ChurchTools, hope that these changes will add a lot of value to your church. What other questions do you have? Feel free to comment below or write to our support team.