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Building Team, Relationships, Efficiencies through Users' Groups (continued) Togetherness makes good things happen In the Diocese of Trenton, director of information technology Kathy Moore realized the power of users groups during their very first meeting. “Our staff got fired up, challenged and energized just by coming together and sharing ideas,” said Moore. “While everyone is at a different place along the learning curve about their systems, together they become experts in everything and can leverage what others have learned.”Getting comfortable with each other plays a crucial role in building a sense of “team,” and that happens naturally when you bring staff together and they discover that they have much more in common than they thought. Marianne Linka, director of business solutions, witnessed this firsthand in the Diocese of Camden, where they’ve brought together parish staff who have already implemented ParishSOFT and those who are just getting started for a series of training and question and answer sessions. “Get people in the same room together and they start talking, asking questions, sharing solutions. It was very effective and helpful, and we’ll definitely do this again.” Upstate in Trenton, Moore has asked parishes and diocesan departments to come up with lists of issues and questions they have, and she’s using their feedback to plan formal user groups to provide training and special breakout sessions for finance, parish management, religious education, and other topics. Rather than structure her sessions as a “diocesan thing,” Moore’s strategy is to provide the structure, space, and opportunity to let the staff shine. “We’re just giving them the forum—they’re really more expert on their own.” Dawn Wolf would agree. When her parish users began to question why the annual appeal’s payment schedule didn’t coincide with quarterly installments, she didn’t have an immediate explanation. Off to the development office they went, only to discover the answer was “. . . because that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Turns out, the development office happily switched to a quarterly schedule, which made it easier to process both pledges and payments. Without the benefit of users groups, it’s likely the annual appeal would have just chugged along the status quo, while everyone wondered silently: why don’t they do this differently?
Users’ groups can incorporate any topic or activity that’s important to your diocese, like training, standard operating procedures (SOPs), new technology, or human resources issues—in short, the world is your oyster. Dawn Wolf recommends addressing a healthy variety of topics and rotating locations to keep each meeting fresh. Tackle annual reports and accounting one quarter, safe environment and religious education the next; but always leave time for questions and answers. Interactive games—like Diocesan SOP Jeopardy—keep your meetings fun, while lunch and enormous quantities of coffee keep the energy high. The diocesan facilitator must take good notes and follow-up to demonstrate to parish staff that you’re genuinely interested in their issues and you’re truly on their team. To keep participation levels high, set your meeting schedule early in the year and announce your dates and topics often. Be flexible—when a snowstorm blew into Iowa in early January 2010, their user group met on the Web instead, and everyone attended as planned. If you set up a Go to Meeting environment as a standard option, staff who cannot attend in person will be able to participate remotely. Many dioceses, including Sioux Falls, have welcomed demonstrations of ParishSOFT’s new products and features into their user groups. “Our parishes have been anxious for the new Web-based products like My Own Church, Online Giving, and Ledger and Payables; and we have a lot of people waiting for the online Family Directory program,” said Wolf. Because she’s so in-tune with what her parishes want from their ParishSOFT technology, she’s happy to connect them with new tools when they answer a real demand.
Is it worth the time and investment? Without question, user groups offer a great return on investment and provide the perfect environment for ongoing learning and collaboration. And your diocese will need to keep up. Your software tools—not just ParishSOFT’s—constantly change and put new enhancements at your fingertips. Your own diocesan processes and procedures need to be reviewed and updated. And, alas, studies show that the percentage of information learned dissipates over time, so two weeks after training on new materials, staff have forgotten 79% of what they’ve learned. What little they do retain can disappear entirely with staff turnover. The real danger is that you could end up with bad data, an under-utilized system, and a snowballed negative impact on church life. “User groups and training are preventive medicine for all those ailments,” says Christine Dandaraw. “They provide opportunities for learning, develop solidarity for your diocesan goals, and keep everyone working with knowledge and confidence.
Where do I begin? Many dioceses are already holding regular user group meetings, so there’s no need to reinvent the wheel—contact ParishSOFT at 866-930-4774. We’ll be happy to help you get started. |
Technology Corner (continued)
How "Agile" Works Agile development begins with a vision—what do our customers need the product to do, and what components are needed to achieve that vision? Our project teams answer these questions, then move to the planning phase, where they determine which of the product’s most important, vital components can be developed, tested and documented in a four-week “sprint” cycle. During this cycle, our teams work closely together to design and build quality into the product at every phase. This is accomplished through continuous testing and feedback that helps us ensure we’re building the best technology possible for our customers—from the initial vision to the commercial release. Once a sprint cycle is finished, we evaluate how things went, adjust our processes using what we’ve learned, and set priorities and plans into motion for the next sprint. Put the new technology to work in your office Be sure your diocese and parishes are taking full advantage of the latest versions of our software. Get the latest version 3.7.12 on www.parishsoft.com
Version 3.7.12 New Member Duplicate Checker Available from the Utilities menu, the new Member Duplicate Checker lets you merge any duplicate member records in the database, regardless of whether they have a family record. Use this new tool to search for possible duplicate member records in your database, or merge a set of known duplicate records. All assignments, positions, Safe Environment Program (SEP) Manager records, member-level pledges and contributions, sacramental records and any other member details will be merged using this tool. Faster DDM Lockbox Processing Our lockbox processing speed for pledges and contributions increased from 10 gifts/minute to 60 gifts/minute with our previous release of AIM v3.6.34. In this release, we continued rigorous testing to improve exception handling and solidify overall Lockbox processing. Permission Control Enhancements This release includes new permission controls that grant and restrict access to the Subscription Manager module. Users with Subscription Mgr Admin rights can manage fund information within the Subscription Manager program. Users with the Subscription Mgr User rights can perform all functions within the program except the management of funds. In addition, our permission structure no longer assumes that users with Administrator privileges have access to all individually-governed areas of the program. Administrators, therefore, will have access to programs such as DDM, Safe Environment Program (SEP) Manager, Subscription Manager, and My Own Church only if the required individual privilege has also been granted. New MMI Integration ID Field The Family Details screen and the Advanced Search screen in the AIM Family Directory program have a new MMI Integration ID field. This new field facilitates the integration of your ParishSOFT database with data or services provided by an outside vendor. Enter an ID number into this field via the Family Details screen and use the MMI Integration ID field in your advanced search, reports, etc. Version 3.7.12 Enhancements for Parishes (Continued) Parishes Save Time, Communicate More Effectively with 3.7.12 ParishSOFT lists work with NotifyNow and Constant Contact®, so they can send an immediate message or a professionally designed Constant Contact email to any group in their database. Look for Constant Contact in your diocesan products, coming soon. Parish Update Process Now Fast and Simple Our simpler parish update process lets the diocese control which versions their parishes are using and force them to update if needed. The update process is very simple, so users of all levels of expertise can update their software without assistance from their diocese or ParishSOFT support (though we’re here to help if they have questions). Edit Contributions More Efficiently, Track Change History Our new interface lets parish staff edit contributions to fix posting errors individually or in bulk. The system requires and stores the “Reason for Change” for each entry, prohibits changes to postings in closed batches, and limits contribution editing to users with the Edit/Add Contributions permission. Add New Contribution Posting Batches Faster We’ve eliminated many “click-throughs” in the steps required to add a new batch—parish staff now enter all new batch information on one simple screen. Parish IQ Options Alphabetized The drop-down lists in Parish IQ are alphabetized to make it faster to locate fields and build queries.
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