1st Annual ParishSOFT Users' Conference
Monday, October 27 - Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Four Points Sheraton • Ann Arbor, MI
We encourage you to attend as many workshops, sessions and events as possible!
Click here for Individual Workshop Selection
Customized Queries & Reports - Beginning
Learn how to modify an existing report including hiding fields and changing content. You will see how to work in the design view of Access.
Customized Queries & Reports - Intermediate
Expand your reporting capabilities by learning to create new queries and reports to better manage your parish's reporting needs.
Web Solutions
See how to administer your free parish website on ParishesOnline.com. Walk through creating pages, posting pictures, uploading bulletins and more. Discuss how to setup your online web calendar and facility scheduler.
Maintaining Your ParishSOFT Database
Maintaining your database is key to communicating effectively with your parishioners, successful stewardship campaigns and growing ministry participation. This course will walk you through the Compact & Repair, Backup, and Database Repair.
Use ParishSOFT with Microsoft Office
See how easily you can use the addresses and names in your database to create letters or email for one selected family or all families in your family list or group.
Advanced Data Analysis with your ParishSOFT applications
Use Excel to extract and analyze information from your database and discuss ways this can help the parish.
Religious Education - Milestones, Prep years, Reports
Review assigning and completing the milestones for the students as well as the use of prep years. There will also be a comprehensive overview of the key reports in the Religious Education module.
Tuition for Religious Education
Manage tuition billing and statements for your Religious Education program. Denver Mossing of Holy Trinity Catholic Parish in Swanton, Ohio will lead this discussion.
Online Giving
New! Watch a demonstration of the new Online Giving program. See how your parishioners will be able to pledge or give contributions on the web.
Contributions: Pledges and Capital Campaigns
Create, post, and manage pledges and capital campaigns in ParishSOFT Offering and Pledges Module. Generate standard projections and reports.
Offering: What's New
Review the new product features, including member envelopes, multiple pledges, fund management capabilities, screen fields, and updated security.
Electronic Giving
Completely automate your process for collecting funds for your parish or school. See how you can eliminate the time-intensive task of manually posting to your parishioner records.
Accounting Reports
The Ledgers & Payable product is a true Fund Accounting system with FASB-standard reports. Review these key accounting reports as well as how to select and sort the information. Reports shown will include the Statement of Financial Position, Statement of Activities, Cash Flow, Dedicated Reports and many more.
ConnectNow! Church Accounting: Ledger & Payables
See the new browser-based Church Accounting product that brings the Ledger & Payables to you in a true web application. ConnectNow! Church Accounting gives you secure anywhere, anytime access.
Internal Financial Controls for Your Church
Discuss the controls needed for the Parish financial information. Mary Miller from the Diocese of Bridgeport will lead this workshop.
Effective Parish Communications
Tired of putting in a lot of work into a parish program or event only to have a few parishioners respond? Ministry marketing may be the answer. Learn from Patrick O'Brien of the Diocese of Lansing how to identify your target audience, draft a communication plan, choose the right medium for the message and improve your creative process.
The Four Pillars of Stewardship
This presentation will discuss the various uses of technology to assist parishes for the future. Primary emphasis will be development and fundraising. Monsignor Hendricks from St. Brigid of Kildare in Dublin, OH will be the presenter.
Stewardship and the Offertory
Julie Kenny of Our Sunday Visitor will present practical tips on maximizing the parish collection while using the offertory program as a method of education and a vehicle for parishioner communication.
Census Management Best Practices
Examine the best practices of maintaining your census information including auditing data, sending registration forms, and consistent data entry.
PS NotifyNow - Immediate Messaging and Emergency Response System
Details change. Emergencies happen. News must be shared. See how to get the word out right away using ParishSOFT NotifyNow without spending hours on your phone or computer. NotifyNow provides swift, single-source messaging to staff, parishioners, parents, and others during any communication opportunity such as meetings, announcements, surveys, stewardship campaigns, emergencies, and more.
Duplicate Checker - Merging Duplicate Families within a Parish
Locate and merge the duplicate families in your parish database to eliminate costly redundancies and give your data improved integrity. Experience how the Duplicate Checker will walk you through selecting criteria for identifying the duplicates and then merging the family, address and members information.
E-Documents
One of the most powerful productivity tools to become available recently is Electronic Document Management or EDM. If your diocesan or parish office is dealing with the challenge of coping with an ever increasing volume of paperwork, this introduction to EDM will explain how this tool can provide some dramatic answers to help you eliminate the clutter, go Green!, and overcome this challenge. Tom Minero from Training Resources will lead this discussion, along with Dale Jonasson from the Diocese of San Bernardino.
Online Member Portal
Watch how this exciting new web product lets parish staff and parish members review and update basic family and member details, like name, address, and birth date information—online!
How Good Data Standards Unleash the Power of ParishSOFT.
Understand the reason for data standards and the power these standards provide for the parish. Standards help parish staff work smarter and not harder. Christine Dandaraw from the Diocese of St Petersburg will show the ability to collaborate in extensive areas through data standards.
AIM IQ and Reports
Build queries the simple way using AIM Intelligent Query (IQ). AIM IQ lets you choose from hundreds of fields, directly from your family, members, and contributions data. Run the query with exactly the sort options and conditions you want. AIM IQ returns only the data you need. Print a list of the results, save as a dynamic workgroup, merge to Word, or export data to Excel or XML, and use it any way you wish.
Diocesan Development Manager - Best Practices
Discuss how to set up the Bishop's Appeal and other funds in the DDM and see how this works for a diocese. JoEllen Chochard from the Diocese of Toledo will lead the group in this discussion.
Bishop's Annual Appeal
Organization of the process and the solicitations are important in being successful with your Annual Appeal. Shannon Lee from the Diocese of Salt Lake City will review the process she follows to maintain the Bishop's Annual Appeal and lead and open discussion on the best practices in order to achieve a successful appeal.
Explore the Power of Data Unleashed When Good Standards are in Place.
Understand the reason for data standards and the power these standards provide for the diocese. Christine Dandaraw from the Diocese of St Petersburg will discuss how to establish and effectively apply diocesan-wide data standards and getting parish buy-in.
Financial Consolidation Manager Overview
Look up parish information at a moment's notice to help with parish and diocesan-level accounting. Tammy Mason from the Diocese of Des Moines will focus on the accounting aspect of the ParishSOFT products and review the Financial Consolidation Manager.
Strategic Information and Data Warehousing
Having lists of names and addresses is only the beginning. Have you wondered how your data can provide valuable information to you, your school, parish or diocese? The Archdiocese of Baltimore has been transforming processes previously focused on data collection to processes and systems that provide valuable strategic information. This presentation by Bill Glover of the Archdiocese of Baltimore will also focus on the evolution of this data to provide information to support strategic decision making at local and diocesan levels.
A Pastoral Approach to Standardization for a Diocese
One diocese's approach to visioning, setting goals, and accomplishing the Mission. Deacon Bob Anderson from the Diocese of La Crosse will discuss how to have a great people experience while changing software.
Duplicate Checker - Diocesan ( with synchronizing Parishes)
Clean-up of duplicate records can eliminate costly redundancies, maximize data integrity, and improve ministry. Resolving duplicate families and members across organizations in a diocese with synchronizing parishes is the focus of this class.
Effective Users' Group Meetings
Have you been thinking that a diocesan or regional ParishSOFT users' group meeting would be a good idea but aren't sure where to start? We'll share with you how one diocese started and how their user group meetings have evolved into "Can't Miss" events. Receive sample agenda's and other documents as well as creative and fun ideas to increase attendance and participation. This session will be lead by Dawn Wolf from the Diocese of Sioux Falls.
Safe Environment - Best Practices
Safe Environment is designed to keep track of all the diocesan staff and volunteers using centrally-managed screening requirements and compliance measurables. Vicki Fitts from the Diocese of Toledo has been working with the Safe Environment Program and will describe how they set up this program and maintain updated records to keep in compliance with USCCB guidelines.
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