PowerChurch Software Newsletter - Fall 2019

Welcome to the Fall 2019 issue of the PowerChurch Software newsletter. It's almost year-end, so there will be another coming shortly. We've been busy and have a lot to cover! In this issue, we formally announce the Version 12.2 update, some massive hardware upgrades for PowerChurch Online, and a new version of the PowerChurch Online/IDS Client for macOS Catalina compatibility.

Version 12.2 Update Released

The 10/16/2019 Maintenance Release for Version 12 of PowerChurch Plus (and also PowerChurch Online) installed some new features and a free update. Among other things, we added a new Maintain Donors screen in Contributions, which is highlighted in an article later in this issue, redesigned the Reverse (and Correct) process in Contributions, and added some new reports.

You can view the full list of new and improved features at https://www.powerchurch.com/products/pcplus/update_version122.php.

If you are using Version 11.55 or prior, visit https://www.powerchurch.com/changes to see what was new and improved in each of the new versions you missed.

Year-End Sale - Two Free Months of PowerChurch Online

Every year, PowerChurch Software has a year-end sale from November 1, 2019 to January 31, 2020. For first time subscribers, be it new users or existing PowerChurch Plus desktop users signing up for PowerChurch Online for the first time, we are adding two free months to your monthly or yearly subscription period.

During this sale period, new churches or organizations can instead purchase the desktop PowerChurch Plus for only $295 instead of the usual $395 price. If you've got an organization in mind that is shopping for new software or know someone in a new organization, don't forget to pass our information along!

Maintain Donors Screen

The new Maintain Donors screen combines the functionality from various Contribution menu options into one place, as well as adding some new functionality not available elsewhere. It combines functionality from View Posted Contributions, Maintain Pledges, Maintain Repeating Contributions, and graphs. It also includes access to the profiles/family members that are assigned the same envelope, allowing you to link new family members, or unlink existing people. The functionality on this one menu option continues the work of streamlining processes in PowerChurch.

PowerChurch Online Updates

Over the last few weeks, we have been migrating the existing PowerChurch Online service over to new servers. This was part of a complete system upgrade, replacing all of the network and storage hardware.

There was a new version of the PowerChurch Online/IDS Client software released, Version 6, which came along with the update to macOS 10.15, Catalina. We did some testing with this while Catalina was still in beta and everything was OK. Apparently, changes were made when Catalina was released that the new client did end up having some problems. We are still waiting for an update to the new client software to fix some minor issues in the Mac client, which we will publish as soon as we receive and test it out. Until that time comes, here are some easy workarounds:

1. When you first download the installer and try to run it, you get a message that "PowerChurch Online...V6...pkg can't be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software". To get past this, Control-click (hold down the control key and click) on the PowerChurch Online V6 pkg installer and you will see an Open button. Click that to run the installer.
2. If you can't click on items in the PowerChurch Online window or things aren't aligned properly under the mouse, resizing the window will fix this. Either drag a window border to change the size (smaller or larger) or click the Maximize button to go full screen. This just forces the window to redraw itself and should get everything lined up properly.