What’s new in Church, Member and Connect

Discover what’s new with Sunergo Church Tools and Connect.

February 2024 #

• 🔧 For clients with the Donation Import Tool, there are now clearer instructions and a link to download the sample CSV.

2023 #

December #

• 🔧 We’ve made it easier to understand when mass mailing emails are sent, specifically in regards to scheduled emails.

November #

• 🔧 Attendance entry and reports now consistently order the names of kids.
• 🔧 When downloading resources in Ministry Groups, the downloaded file name will now match the resource’s title.
• 🔧 On the Review New Online Donors page, we’ve added links to the batch (for One-time donations), or the recurring gift details (for Recurring donations).
• 🔧 Edits to Contacts are now tracked. We’ll be adding a way for admins to view the list of changes in the future, but for now, if you need to recover past changes, please contact Sunergo Support.

October #

Connect #

• 🎨 Overall design changes have been made for better ultra widescreen support.
• 🔧 The navigation has been updated to allow for easier navigation when you are in multiple ministries.
• 🔧 When accessing the Calendar for the first time, only events that happen today or in the future will appear. A link to view previous dates has been added.

July #

• 🎉 We’ve enhanced the Gift Entry UI to make it easier to add your gifts.
  • When adding a gift, it is now more clear how to switch between anonymous and contact mode.
  • We’ve added more rows for designation gifts on the anonymous gift entry side.
  • Gift Batch totals and description are now shown on the main gift entry page.
• 🔧 When creating a new family from an existing contact, we’ve made the process easier to understand.
• 🔧 We’ve improved focus styling to make it easier to see where your cursor/Tab key is selecting.

June #

• 🔧 When generating a Contact Report, you can now filter your contacts by whether they are on or off the “Do Not Call” list.

May #

• 🎉 You can now update your receipt signatures using by signing your name in the integrated form.
• 🎉 When managing multiple in a Ministry Group, in addition to deleting, you can now move or copy multiple people in Ministry Groups to another Ministry Group at the same time.
• 🔧 In the Ministry Group details, you’ll now see a count of the members in each subgroup.
• 🔧 The Activity (Attendance) Log is now permanently accessible as a separate page (previously it would only show up if there were more than 20 log entries).
• 🔧 We’ve disabled the browser’s spell check feature when using Sunergo Church.
• 🔧 For Donation Receipts, amounts are now comma-grouped in most templates (e.g., $12,345). If you don’t see this happening in your receipt or if you have a custom receipt template, please contact Sunergo Support to apply this update to your receipts.
• 🔧 In the Receipts menu, we’ve added additional menu links to edit information (opens Admin > Church Information) and change signature (opens email).
• 🎨 We’ve updated the menus in Giving and Receipts to provide a better user experience.

April #

• 🎉 In the Designation Report, you’re now able to get a report on how many times a donor has given, and the number of designation gifts completed.
• 🎉 We’ve made it easier to see when a family has address changes that are pending review.
  • Admins who have access to the Address Change admin will now see an alert on the family detail page when an address change is pending review.
  • A user who does not have the necessary permission to change addresses will see a clearer alert about what is happening.
  • On the Address Change admin, there’s now a clear distinction between changes made by online donors and those made by admin users who don’t have the necessary permissions.
• 🎉 When editing a newsletter, unsaved changes can now be recovered if you navigate to another page or get logged out due to session expiry.
• 🎉 Contact Relationships are now easier to view and edit. Use the new “Contact Relationships” list from the Contacts menu to see the relationships of each contact. You can also filter by type and other contact attributes, as well as exporting reports.
• 🔧 Calendar tools have been cleaned up to make it easier to get the link to subscribe to the calendar, etc.
• 🔧 You can now open the full information for a contact through the sideover panel.
• 🔧 Deceased head of households will no longer appear in the Address Change admin.

March #

• 🎉 We’ve added a “Today” button in the calendar navigation to make it easier to jump to today.
• 🔧 We’ve made the Calendar navigation link go to today as well so that you’ll always see the relevant events for the month.
• 🎉 When generating the First-Time Givers Report, we’ve added the ability to list the total amount given by a donor in a given period of time.
• 🎉 When viewing a contact, we’ve added the years and months for age and how long someone is married.
• 🔧 When generating a Designation Report, we’ve added an option to exclude receiptable funds.

January #

• 🔧 You can now include the Country of the Family Address in the Contacts Report.
• 🔧 Mass Mailing letter contents will now autosave when navigating away or when session expires.
• 🔧 When editing a recurring event, it will now correctly show which fields can be updated.
• 🔧 Your newsletter’s template colours and border styles are now shown in the editor.
• 🔧 When reviewing Mass Mailing that are sent, the contents now matches the design and content of the emails sent (i.e., includes template colours and unsubscribe information).

Connect #

• 🔧 Resources can now be ordered by descending or ascending Name or Date.

2022 #

December 2022 #

• ⭐ The Add Family and Contact forms have been simplified! Instead of just adding names, you can now add new families easily by using the option to add all the information for one person at a time.
• ⭐ Missing Address Filter has been added to Contacts Report.
• ⭐ Child Protection Report now includes more fields in Web Display format.
  • When exporting to different formats, you can now select what fields to include.
  • Fields now include:
    • Health Information (Healthcare Number, Allergies)
    • Emergency Contact
    • Birthday
    • Family and Guardian Names
    • Address
    • Family Contact (Phone and Email)
• 🔧 Annual Receipt minimum donation amount is now set to $1 by default.
• 🔧 When adding a contact relationship, if there are no relationship types available, you’ll be prompted to add a relationship type.

October 2022 #

• ⭐ Sunergo Accounts is here! A new and more secure way to access all your Sunergo tools from one place. Read our upgrade article for more information about what changed.
• ⭐ Search field has been added to Mass Mailing. You can search by newsletter name, subject line, and email contents.

August 2022 #

• Various bug fixes and usability improvements

May 2022 #

• 🔧 Spotify icon/link has been cleaned up; link to Spotify is now /spotify.
• ⭐ TikTok social media link has been added. If you would like this added, contact Sunergo Support to enable it.
• ⭐ In Secure Notes, you’ll now also see the number of notes that are not visible to you.
• ⭐ When using custom Quick Link labels, the page’s alias URL will now be used. For example, if you’re using “Donate” as a quick link, that will now link to /donate. Contact Sunergo Support to set custom labels for Quick Links.
• ⭐ Custom Footer content can now be added to all frameworks. Contact Sunergo Support to set this custom content.
• ⭐ For frameworks that have custom heros and/or custom sidebar behaviour, those parts of the editor can now be hidden in the Home Page Editor.
• 🔧 Quick Links are now easier to set as you can now search for a page.
• 🔧 For security purposes, you should now be logged out after 30 mins of inactivity.

April 2022 #

• 🔧 When viewing the Birthday and Anniversary Calendars, the default view will only show birthdays/anniversaries for contacts that are “Regular Attenders”.

Connect #

• 🔧 Ministry Group/Subgroup lists are now ordered alphabetically, matching the ordering in Church Tools.
• 🔧 Family members are now listed alphabetically.

March 2022 #

• ⭐ A new Newsletter Template is now available to all clients on request. This new template is responsively-sized across different email clients and contains visual elements to make it easier to read. Contact Sunergo Support to upgrade your newsletter template.
• ⭐ When using Quick Check-in, you can now filter the list by Subgroup.

February 2022 #

Connect #

• ⭐ Volunteer Schedules can now be sorted by name or role.
• 🔧 When registering for an event as a guest, the phone number is no longer required.

January 2022 #

⭐ E-Statements have arrived! #

Just like sending tax receipts, you can now send statements by email with E-Statements. Learn how to use this feature by reading this help article.

Church Tools #

• ⭐ Generated Statements are now saved so you can review past statements.

Connect #

• ⭐ Head of Household family members can now edit Child family member’s Allergies and Emergency Contact information fields in Sunergo Connect.
• ⭐ When Scheduling, you’ll now see a summary list of all the members who you are waiting a response from.
• 🔧 Scheduling Summary Page has been reorganized for better usability.
• 🔧 Panels that are opened by pressing a button can now be closed by pressing that same button.

2021 #

November 2021 #

• 🎉 Calendar: The option to print the calendar with the category as a background colour has returned.
• 🔧 Ministry Group Attendance: Quick Check-in will now properly reset the search results after a contact has been checked-in.

Connect #

• 🔧 On the Home Page, pending assignments are now removed for inactive groups.
• 🎉 Subgroup Resource can now be ordered by newest date or name (default).
• 🎉 When adding a new date to an existing schedule, we’ve added an option to enable/disable notifying the assigned members by email.

October 2021 #

Connect #

• 🎉 Availability Request re-send and Published Schedule Reminders emails will now be sent in real-time in addition to the existing Daily Summary Email.
• 🎉 Published Schedule Reminders now include the role for the date assigned.
• 🎉 Availability Request re-send emails now include the suggested role for the volunteer if it is selected.
• 🎉 When managing a date in Schedules, we’ve added previous/next buttons to quickly switch between dates.
• 🎉 When adding a new date or new member to a schedule, the email will now show the date (and suggested role, if applicable).
• 🎉 When publishing a schedule, the email sent will include the date and role assigned to the member.
• 🔧 When requesting role assignment and availability from volunteers, they will now see the number of assigned volunteers instead of the number of respondents.

September 2021 #

• 🔧 Calendar Printing will now use less ink! Event category colour design has been changed to a border, and the event category’s name has been added to the event as well.
• 🔧 In Connect, Subgroup Members, Attendance, and Schedule Assignments pages will order members by first name.

June 2021 #

• 🎉 In Feedback/Attendance, a print option has been added when viewing a specific record.
• 🎉 In Mass Mailing, you can now see who has been sent a mass email. This list can be found when selecting a sent email.
• 🎉 Using Connect registration tools and want to be notified when someone registers? You can now do so by checking “Email All Subgroup Leaders” in the in Ministry Subgroup settings. Once enabled, all ministry subgroup leaders wil receive a copy of registrant’s confirmation email.
• 🔧 A new “O” gender option has been added to Contacts. Please contact us if you’d like this enabled.

Donations #

• 🔧 To encourage donors to create accounts for easier management of their donations, we’ve updated the wording in the “Login” and “Create an Account” section to make clear the advantages of creating an account.
• 🔧 We’ve refreshed wording for logging in to be more consistent.
• 🔧 For Text to Give, “Save this Card” is now checked by default to decrease the issues with Text to Give setup.

Connect #

• 🎉 When emailing your subgroup, you don’t have to manually check off everyone anymore. We’ve added a “Select All” button to make it easier to send to everyone!

May 2021 #

• 🔧 When scheduling Mass Mailing, you can now schedule emails to start at least 1 hour in advance. Scheduled mass mailing emails can be cancelled up to one hour before the email is scheduled to send.

Connect #

• 🔧 We’ve reduced the number of items in the navigation. When you are a member of more than 15 Ministry Groups and Subgroups, Subgroups will be hidden from the menu. Subgroups can still be accessed by selecting the Ministry Group.
• 🔧 Connect can now be disabled for a specific Ministry Group by going to the Ministry Group’s settings.

April 2021 #

• ⭐ You can filter whether a contact has an active account in the system. In the Contacts Reports, use the new “Accounts Filter” and “Account + Account Last Logon” Fields.
• ⭐ We’ve added a new “Schedule to Send” feature for the Mass Mailing tool. You can now set the mass mailing to send either as soon as possible or on a future date and time. Add the date and the time (in 24-hour format) with our selectors and click “Send Email.” The mass email will start to send around the specified future date and time. Note: Delivery of emails may be delayed and are contingent on the recipient’s email service (e.g., Outlook, Gmail, etc.).

March 2021 #

• ⭐ For Giving only clients, bring people back to your website easily now that a link to your website is shown at the top of the Donation page. To enable, enter your website on the Admin > Church Information form.
• ⭐ Clear your “Ministry Group Added” logs easily now that there is a “Clear All” button.
• ⭐ We’ve added “Include Receiptable Funds” to our Giving By Designation report.
• ⭐ You’re now able to filter by receipted giving in the Giving By Designation report.
• 🔧 You can now report on funds and advantages separately in the Giving By Designation report.

February 2021 #

Connect #

• 🔧 Fixed issue with profile picture changing the orientation when uploading.

January 2021 #

Calendar #

• ⭐ Calendar events now show up in the new Connect Calendar.
  • Event categories have a new setting indicating whether they should be shown in Connect or not (by default, this is set to “Yes”).
  • Individual events can now be linked to Ministry Subgroups, offering additional options for categorization. In addition, if a Ministry Subgroup is open for self-registration in Connect, linked events in the Connect Calendar will contain a link to the self-registration page.

Connect #

• ⭐ See church events with the new Calendar feature!
  • Find your event by filtering by event category and ministry subgroup.
  • See event details in one location.
  • Register for events directly from the calendar event details (the event needs to be linked to a Ministry Subgroup and be open for self-registration).
• 🔧 “Events” has been renamed to “Registration,” and “Schedule” can now be found as a tab within “Calendar.”
• 🔧 Deceased contacts will no longer appear in Connect.
• 🔧 Unsupported browsers (such as IE and Opera Mini) will now show an error message and be directed to use a modern browser.

2020 #

December 2020 #

Connect #

• ⭐ You can now see who is in your community with the Directory! Currently enabled on demand, you can let everyone or select members of your congregation (such as only active members or those included in the directory) to find others.
• ⭐ New privacy controls for your contact information now lets you fine tune the information you want to share.
• 🔧 Profile and family information editing can now be disabled for all Connect users. Please contact us if you would like to disable this feature.

Giving #

• ⭐ When generating an annual receipt, we now show you a preview of the receipt and email to confirm that the information is correct.
• 🔧 The preview receipt now shows the year being YYYY instead of the current year to make it less confusing.

Ministry Groups #

• ⭐ When adding members to a Ministry Subgroup, you can now filter by “In Directory.” We’ve also added “Select All” to speed up the process of adding contacts.

November 2020 #

Connect #

• ⭐ Recurring Gifts are now viewable under Giving.
• ⭐ Family members who are head of household can now edit their family member details.
  • Please contact the Sunergo Support Team if you would like this feature added to Connect.
• ⭐ The Ministry Group Added Member Log now contains entries for Ministry Group registrations that were completed through Return to Service. This includes both logged in and non-logged in Return to Service registration. Access this log by clicking ‘X items for review’ on the Church Tools homepage and then the ‘X new ministry group members’ button.

October 2020 #

• ⭐ Some dropdown menus have been updated to make it easier to find the right item.

Connect #

• ⭐ Twemoji has been added to Posts! You can now reply as you please with your favourite emojis 😄
• ⭐ Congregant Logon password creation and reset emails have had their look updated.
• ⭐ To ensure your congregants have secure passwords, on their first log in, congregants will be asked to change their password.
• ⭐ When looking at the profiles of family members, you will now see their birthday. Note that only family members will be able to see the birthday.
• 🐛 During event registration, if other family members don’t have email addresses, the Head of Household member will receive one registration confirmation email on behalf of the entire family.
• 🔧 When not logged in, registration flow has been updated to make clear the difference between logged-in and guest registration.
• 🔧 To help ensure only the people who want to attend are registered, event registration and check-in will now only check the person registering by default. A “Select Everyone” button has been added to quickly check off everyone.
• 🔧 We’ve cleaned up event registration, making it more visible when you’ve registered and when Self Check-In is open.
• 🔧 Event Registration flow have been cleaned up to make it work more smoothly.

Giving #

• ⭐ Donation emails have had their styles updated and now include your church logo and name.
• 🔧 Donation email previews have been synced with their real email counterpart.
• 🔧 We’ve made some changes to the form fields to help make it easier to donate if the donor lives outside of North America.

Ministry Groups #

• ⭐ Contact email and phone number are now included in the Feedback/Attendance report.

Newsletters #

• ⭐ We’ve adjusted the list of letters to make it more manageable.

Reports #

• ⭐ Dropdown search has been added to the Ministry Group Attendance Report and Ministry Group Points Report to help you find the right ministry subgroup quicker.

September 2020 #

Ministry Groups #

• ⭐ When deleting multiple people, you can now use Select All to delete them all at once.
• ⭐ A counter has been added to Ministry Group Attendance.

Mass Mailing #

• 🔧 The Unsubscribe Form is now styled like the donation form and includes the church logo.
• 🔧 Newsletter previews and the actual email sent will now have the footer centered aligned and placed outside of the content.

Reports #

• ⭐ In Ministry Group Attendance Report, there’s a quick link that allows you to print each date of the attendance as a separate page.

Congregant Logons #

• ⭐Styling was added to the Congregant Logon (aka Sunergo Account) password creation and reset emails.
• 🔧 During Bulk and Single Congregant Logon creation, password fields are now hidden when auto generating is selected.
• 🐛 When bulk creating logons, using “Select Unique” will now match emails with different cases (e.g. SunergO@ncol.com will match sunergo@ncol.com ).

Connect #

• ⭐ Church Contact information is now listed in the footer to help your congregation contact you easier.
• 🔧 Forms are now a little more helpful thanks to some inline validation.
• 🔧 Schedule creation, updates, and deletion should now run faster thanks to some cleaning up of the backend code.

Return to Service #

• 🔧 When a contact is merged after registration, during Check-In, it will now look for the contact that it was merged into.
• 🔧 Error messages are now more meaningful and helpful, and are caught and shown earlier as well.
• 🔧 When an event is full, the number of remaining spaces is now shown.
• 🔧 Cleaning up some bugs to ensure that Return to Service continues to work smoothly.