Fresh Vine Status Updates

This is a minor update to the 2.1 release that came out in December. Many of these upgrades have been implemented as they were developed so you will not notice much difference in the system itself. This release consists primarily of bug fixes.

Features

Minor Features

• Check-In Guest page to ease addition of guests into Fresh Vine on Sunday morning.
• Email Subscription and Status is now a part of the member list filters (church and groups)
• Check-In Application page now has tutorials, FAQ, and hardware recommendations
• Removing members now requires additional access (Church:Roster:Manage – see below)
• Update and consolidate the User Access Content types
• All of the media types are now consolidated into ‘Content:Podcast‘
• ‘Church:SoftData‘ has become ‘Church:Roster:CustomFields‘
• ‘Church:Roster:Merge‘ has become ‘Church:Roster:Manage‘

Bug Fixes

• Email and Note text editors now work correctly on iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, and iTouch)
• Check-In App no longer wipes the setting code spontaneously.
• Custom Member Fields now remove values correctly.
• School Year now correctly saves as empty when no value is set.
• Member Relationships are now more explicit in their setting, and address syncing is more clear.
• Group campus setting now saves correctly
• Group email addresses are now correctly saved and displayed
• Multi-Select filters are now correctly filtering items.
• Creating new members from the event attendance page works as expected
• Email Subscription Management page had broken links corrected

We have fixed a few bugs that came up since our release a few weeks ago. These bugs were all minor and the fixes have gone live over the past 3 days.

• The member lists (Church wide and group) were not correctly filtering by the date they were created.
• New members without birthdays were showing up as 2000 years old. This has been corrected, and the bug the caused it has been fixed.
• Service Templates now correctly respect the end-date that is set
• From the primary dashboard, the links for the roster member types now correctly link to a filtered roster.
• Business names were not always correctly displaying on the Giving date overview/reconciliation pages.
• Page load time further optimized along with several of the giving pages to shorten load times.

The Check-In App has also received a few updates to make the user experience more intuitive and to allow you to re-print labels incase you experience printer issues. The app should prompt you to update, or you can re-download the App from within Fresh Vine (when you go to install the app you will be prompted to update the current installed version).

This is our second major release of 2011 and focuses on improving your ability to understand and track your weekly services. You can now create Groups that are specified by type (basic, or class) to clarify their purpose. Class groups will also automatically create events to coincide with the services they are related to for attendance tracking and follow-up. Our much anticipated Check-In system is here, and utilizes our brand new API for seamless integration with Fresh Vine.

The API is currently in a private Beta but we are open to reviewing requests for free app accounts before we make the API open with version 2.2. At that point anyone who desires to build upon Fresh Vine through our API will be able to. Please note that you will still need to explicitly connect these applications to your account with your username and password for them to be able to access your Fresh Vine data.

In response to the rapidly growing interest in Fresh Vine we have also unified and upgraded our address system to handle addresses from everywhere on earth. We also are able to supply the same mapping and address correction for 71 of the 249 countries/districts.

Update Gallery:

Features

Major Features:

• Child Check-in System
• Further integration of the Multi-site system
• Set for Members and Groups
• Member Address Syncing will now also sync campuses.
• International Address support added with members, groups, events, and campuses.
• Address support for 71 countries (listed below) means that our address correction and mapping features should work as expected.
• Partial Address support for remaining 178 countries allows you to indicate the country but with out mapping or address correction.
• New layouts for item pages (Members, Groups, Events, Etc) to further unify the user experience
• Addition of Classroom Module [for groups meeting during services]

Minor Features:

• Introduction of the API for use with the Check-In system. Full public rollout with version 2.2
• Addition of a ‘Special Instructions’ member field for use with the check-in system. Set through the member profile
• Filtering of Member and Group Member rosters improved with inclusion of custom fields
• Profile Photos now also available for Groups and Events in addition to Members
• Updated Removal process for many of the element within Fresh Vine (including the ability to remove related events).
• Default State and Country now set for new addresses
• You can now use Fresh Vine through a secure connection and are able to force all users over a secure connection
• Added social networking to Members, Groups and Events
• Added Google Plus and Table Project to our supported social networks for linking out.
• Media Embedding added (for audio and video) and links to media items now apparent

Other Fixes:

• Up to a 6 time speed improvement on page response times
• Caching and Compression of CSS and Javascript components to speed load times
• New Configuration Setting for your organizations URL
• Remapped all public content (emails, media, notes, etc) to link through your leader site

Other Changes:

• Updated the redirect system for when you are linked to a page without being logged in, or get logged out in mid session.
• Addition of ‘Committed’ and ‘Partner’ as an available relationship status to reflect broader cultural shifts
• Campuses receive the new, more descriptive, icon
• Content Management System formally removed from Fresh Vine (functionally removed in v2.0)

Countries with Address Support in Alphabetical Order (Address Correction and Mapping):

This is the second minor update to the 2.0 release that came out in late July. This update addresses two improvements to the email system. The first update to the way emails are generated to make sure they continue to be show up in your members in-boxes and not their spam folders. We implemented two features to further improve our system.

The second makes it more clear when you are not able to preview emails (because your member profile does not have an email address).

Features

Minor Features

• Two improve email headers added.
• First: helps to correctly identify our email server as a valid sending agent for generating the email
  (like ensuring the return address on a letter is valid)
• Second: helps to more confidently make sure we are the sender through an encrypted code. Also checks the message contents to ensure it has not been altered en route.
  (like placing a wax seal over the opening of the envelope to ensure its contents are not altered)
• Added visual cues and blocked preview button from functioning if member profile not correctly set.
• Simply add an email address to your member profile and you will be able to send messages.

Additional Note

Last month we experience an unexpected event as our friend and business partner, Mike Prins, passed away from a terminal illness on July 30th. Mike was a business mentor, an angel investor, family and friend to all of us here at Fresh Vine. From our beginning Mike has believed in the mission and purpose of Fresh Vine – to empower the church through technology. He was so excited to see the company gaining traction since we relaunched this spring.

Because of these events, we lost just over three weeks of production time, pushing back our release date by about 3 weeks. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you or your church/organization – we realize this next release (including the check-in system and API) is something that many of you have been looking forward to, ourselves included.

Loss of a family member is always difficult and in this case Mike was also closely involved in the weekly activity of Fresh Vine. He already is, and will continue to be missed. Thank you for your understanding and patience as we restarted our development, training & marketing in the last week and a half.

Thank you for your support, prayers, and understanding through this time. We look forward to continuing to innovate on behalf of the church.

Paul Prins (President of Fresh Vine)

This is a minor update to the 2.0 release that came out in late July. There are only a handful of changes that are focused mainly on streamlining our client setup process and improving the integration with our client management system. Some of the latter improvements were needed to move closer towards our API and version 2.1 release.

Update Gallery

Features

Minor Features

• Improved the account setup process on the log in page (not noticeable for those currently using the system).
• Added more Contextual links to improved the connect between the giving and service modules
• These links will only appear if there is correct access
• Only will show up on the giving input page when it is entered by service
• Fixed the client stat tracking for our internal tracking
• Used to understand how clients have implemented the system
• Also used to help us understand how heavily the various modules are used
• Stats are global and generalized (ex: there are 185 events in your system)
• Removal of the Video Tutorials link from the home menu. This will be replaced with our new community site in version 2.1

This release is major step for us. Not only does it signify the first release on our new 4-6 week release cycle, but it also is includes the last major building block modules we need to really start having a lot of fun in the coming year. These last two pieces are the Campus system (for multi-site support), and the Services module. They allow you to understand the trends and attendance for your weekly worship services. After setting up the services you will be able to attach giving to a particular service, and will automatically update the attendance as you log the giving information. These elements will continue to integrate more deeply into the system with future releases.

These pieces, along with the rest of the system, will allow us to have more fun pushing the limits of what a web based church management system can do. So read on, and enjoy all the details below.

Update Video:

Update Gallery:

Features

Major Features:

• Service Management
  • You are now able to create and manage services
  • Enter Attendance, Giving, Salivations, and up to 8 other customizable data points
  • Track Giving by Services/Campuses
• New Lists for Member Roster, Group Roster, and Service List
  • Improved Filtering
  • Map functionality for the Rosters (not for Services List)
  • New Batch functions for the Group Roster
    You can now create subgroups directly from the batch menu
• Member Roster Updates
  • Addition of new date fields for Baptism, Confirmation, Membership and Background check dates.
• User Experience Improvements
  • New page titles help clearly communicate where you are in the system
  • Sections are branded by color for more quick recognition of where you are in the system
  • Contextual menus beneath the page titles (links that are pertinent to what you are doing right now)
  • New custom Icons to more clearly communicate purpose and function of the modules

Minor Features:

• Giving Input Page has been upgraded
  • Giving can now be tracked by services
  • Live Countdown has been replaced by the service giving total
• Email management system now resides at http://YourSite.freshvine.co/email/
  • Also tracking when messages are opened
• New Access Type ['Church:Services'] and Group [Services]
  • This access is required to view and edit the services module
  • This access type has been automatically added to the administrator group
• Settings Page Updated
  • Added the Multi-Site campus setup. Include all the campuses you have.
  • Settings for the Service Record Keeping added.
  • Added the toggles for the new Member Date fields on the roster tab
  • Website and Media is now Content and Media in preparation for future updates
• Migration System Developed for importing data from external systems (for use during account creation)

Other Fixes:

• Dynamic totals on the giving input and editing pages now work as expected
• Logo in the email footer now represents fresh vine
• Corrected some iOS (iPad and iPhone) display issues with the navigation system (icons overlapping)
• Modified the persistent header to function in IE8 and newer (though we recommend other browsers: firefox, chrome)
• Other minor Bug Fixes and Interface tweaks

Other Changes:

• The Content Management System has now been officially depreciated except for two clients who are in the process of developing their new websites. This module will be completely removed in September, 2011.

There are more details coming with the full release, but the major changes with this release are the new services and multi-site modules. In addition there have been some fairly sizable usability improvements to the system.

If you are a beta client you’re system has now been upgraded to version 2.0.

For the rest of you? You’ll have to hold tight for another week and a half before version 2.0 leaves beta into full release. Trust us, it will be worth the wait while we iron out any last minute bugs.

We have just finished updated our routing system. Everything is working as expected. This was an update to our core system and was a needed modification for the upcoming 2.0 Beta release.

This is a minor update which addresses some of issues that have come about since the last release. These issues have to do with the notification system and the giving export system. Please see the notes below for more information.

Features

Minor Features:

• Groups can now opt out of the notification system through the group edit page.
• Exporting giving statements can now be done without specifying a template and will return all data from that period.

Other Fixes:

• Bug fixed that disabled creating new giving templates
• Bug fixed that caused the user management system to show a blank page after updating a user