Setting up email/google calendar

[steamtown church]

I have been using the basic part of powerchurch for mainly check in for our children's ministry. Our church would like to start using it for other things like sending emails and having a calendar. We have the plus version and due to our staff not really having a home base is looking at switching to online. Can someone help me understand how to set up the email so I can send emails to members on upcoming events or announcements and how the events calendar works with a google calendar.

[NeilZ]

I have been using the basic part of powerchurch for mainly check in for our children's ministry. Our church would like to start using it for other things like sending emails and having a calendar. We have the plus version and due to our staff not really having a home base is looking at switching to online.

First off which version are you using? Saying the 'plus' version doesn't really mean a thing, because the program is called Powerchurch Plus. Since the online version is V11.55, I'm going to give you a quick overview on that version

Can someone help me understand how to set up the email so I can send emails to members on upcoming events or announcements

First off, you have to have your membership database setup properly. Make sure that you have email addresses entered for all your members.

Second, your system administrator needs to setup the email settings at: File -> Preferences -> System Setup Options. Look for the Email tab.

They then need to enter the information here, exactly as used for the church email in Outlook or Thunderbird. If you're using a port other than port 25, you'll need to specify it as such: mail.server.com:1234 (where 1234 is the port number). If you need further help on this, press the F1 function key, and context help will appear.

and how the events calendar works with a google calendar.

This one is simple:

1. First have a Google Calendar
2. Have your system administrator go to File -> Preferences -> Events Setup, select the Google Calendar tab. Enter the required data there.
3. Go to Events -> Add a New Event start adding events.
4. When finished go to Events -> Sync with Google Calendar
5. You're done. All your events are now synced.

However, this is ONLY one way TO Google, you cannot download from Google into the PCPlus events calendar.

Again, context sensitive help is available by pressing the F1 function key anywhere in the program. I'm pretty sure it works that way with PCPlus ONLINE too ..

[steamtown church]

Thank you...we have the 11.5 version. What is everyone's opinion on the online version? We have had problems in our church with internet so I am afraid for our children's ministry check in. Any thoughts???

[NeilZ]

Thank you...we have the 11.5 version. What is everyone's opinion on the online version? We have had problems in our church with internet so I am afraid for our children's ministry check in. Any thoughts???

FWIW .. if you kept up with the Maintenance Releases, you should be running v11.55 as it was an MR release upgrade I believe.

The online version works fine. What problems were you experiencing? Network issues, or actual access to the internet? If you're having actual Internet access, then the online version may not be a good option.

Even if you're only having network connectivity issues, then going to the online version would not fix that type of problem.

[steamtown church]

We have an old building but when I brought in my laptop it seemed to hook up fine to internet. I know we will need to get a new computer if we go online with Powerchurch as our church computer that we do the check in with is old and does not hook up to internet very easily. I was not looking at going online to fix out internet problem but to allow the pastors access as they do most of their work on the road visiting and ministering outside the church building.

[NeilZ]

We have an old building but when I brought in my laptop it seemed to hook up fine to internet. I know we will need to get a new computer if we go online with Powerchurch as our church computer that we do the check in with is old and does not hook up to internet very easily. I was not looking at going online to fix out internet problem but to allow the pastors access as they do most of their work on the road visiting and ministering outside the church building.

.

I wouldn't look at PCPlus Online unless the pastor's have a need to enter their visitations and stuff on the fly. I'm not sure you would gain anything by going with PC Online that would wouldn't gain using PCPlus on a regular network.

I would definitely do some planning and consultations before you make a decision.

[steamtown church]

Thank you so much! We did decide to stay with the PC Plus for now. The church is going to buy a laptop so I can work from home as well. Do you have any suggestions on a good laptop that would be for PC Plus?

[NeilZ]

Thank you so much! We did decide to stay with the PC Plus for now. The church is going to buy a laptop so I can work from home as well. Do you have any suggestions on a good laptop that would be for PC Plus?

OK .. on the laptop any laptop that is being sold with Windows 8.1 will be fine for Powerchurch Plus 11.55.

However, on the working from home bit there are other issues you will now need to consider:

• What module will you be working with? Accounting ?? Membership ??
  How will you be accessing the database? Backup from church and restore? Using a Virtual Private Network?
  Will there be people updating the database at church? Will you be updating too? This could cause data loss.

Now, if you're going to be working in an area that people who at at the church update also, now this is a scenario that PCPlus ONLINE was setup for, as the same database resides on the Powerchurch servers, so there wouldn't be a data integrity issue.

[steamtown church]

The laptop is the only computer the church will have at this point...we are a new church of 6 years with just now owning our own building. So I am the only one at this point accessing/updating the info. Now you can see why I am so lost as I am the only one learning/setting this up. We will only be using the membership/events etc as accounting/contributions is already being done by someone else on a program they set up so maybe one day we will switch that to powerchurch but at this point I just want to be able to do membership, directory, visitaions, check in, email and calendar.

We bought the program as I work with the children's director and we wanted a safe check in for the kids and love PC. We have been slowly trying to get staff to use the church part of the software (I usually would go in to add more to personal profile and have started working on a church directory). Everything is on the computer in the children's ministry (software and check in) and the computer was given to us by my husbands work which is an old XP. It had no internet but a kid from our church ordered something and got it hooked up but now that the church changed the internet they had it is not working on that computer and when I brought the computer to my house it is not working.

Now they want to hire me as a 'secretary' very part time. They want to get a laptop that I can bring home to work from and then bring into church on Sundays and meetings. The children's director would love to see the old XP still being used and having the laptop as an extra for check in or vise versa (ex. last Sunday we had 6 new families registaring and the line got long so it would be nice to have 2 computers when something like that happens.)

This question that you asked (How will you be accessing the database? Backup from church and restore? Using a Virtual Private Network?) is like foreign language to me at this point. I am slowing learning all of this.

Thanks so much for all of your help.

[NeilZ]

Now they want to hire me as a 'secretary' very part time. They want to get a laptop that I can bring home to work from and then bring into church on Sundays and meetings. The children's director would love to see the old XP still being used and having the laptop as an extra for check in or vise versa (ex. last Sunday we had 6 new families registaring and the line got long so it would be nice to have 2 computers when something like that happens.)

This question that you asked (How will you be accessing the database? Backup from church and restore? Using a Virtual Private Network?) is like foreign language to me at this point. I am slowing learning all of this.

Thanks so much for all of your help.

Basically what you're trying to do with two "stand alone" computers would cause you problems as you would probably get the databases out of sync. My suggestion is this:

1. Get the church setup with a proper wireless router and internet connection.
2. Switch to Powerchurch Online.

Here's the reasoning:

You really can't use two computers running separate copies of the database easily. One way or another you have to copy all the changes that you did the laptop, and any that was done on the old XP computer and merge them. That just isn't possible with Powerchurch currently (or maybe anytime in the next few years.).

However, if both computers are accessing the database on the Powerchurch servers on the Internet, you're both accessing ONE database and any changes that are done on one computer, will be reflected whenever the other computer accesses the data. You won't have any issues with overwriting data, and it will be much easier to bring that 'third' computer that is doing accounting in to the system.

At the very minimum, the church should bring Contributions into Powerchurch as that membership and address database would probably be the most up to date. The person doing accounting could then get a printout of what came in and enter their deposits that way.

If the church board or staff needs more data on this, they are surely welcome to create an account here and ask questions, or call Powerchurch sales directly who can assist with more information.