by Rachel Natik | Mar 24, 2015 | Blog
We could not be more excited about to talk about the Spring 2015 release of Congregation Connect. When we start planning a release we give our releases an internal code name and the name this release was “Listening.” This highlights our focus for this release, which was to take the feedback we have been hearing from you, our clients, and really listen to what you were telling us. We then used that information to determine what improvements we should prioritize. You may not have known it, but you helped define what made it into this release. Thank you for being fantastic customers! We have heard that some areas of the product are not as easy to use or as robust in functionality as you want. We have also heard some areas are not easy to maintain without assistance from us. We focused on those 3 areas for this release and are thrilled to highlight now just a few of the over 75 changes made to Congregation Connect. You can look forward to our release announcement in just a few weeks. The announcement will include information on how to install the Spring 2015 release and where to find the full release notes. Ease of Use Virtual Terminal: Refund Processing Having to leave Congregation Connect to go over to Authorize.net to process a refund was not the user experience we wanted our clients to have. That is why we have added in the functionality to process a refund directly from within the Virtual Terminal in Congregation Connect. Tax Calculation Having only one way to calculate the split between tax deductible...
by Cloud for Good Blog | Mar 17, 2015 | Blog
This is a cross post from the Cloud for Good blog. As part of our ongoing series on strategic planning for technology, this post focuses on the different costs that should be assessed as part of any project planning exercise. Understanding the true cost of an initiative can help you determine when (or whether) you should take on a new system initiative, usually in combination with some sense of the potential benefits to be realized from the implementation. We’ll discuss different ways to evaluate the Return from a project in a future post. Cost constraints are often one of the first things that people think of when talking about technology, in large part because technology investments generally involve purchasing or building something tangible, such as servers, laptops, or software to install. While the outright cost to purchase technology is usually pretty apparent, it’s not the whole story, as it doesn’t take into account the the hidden costs of maintenance and support and the less-tangible costs of training, user adoption and efficiency. Adding these costs in is the concept of Total Cost of Ownership or TCO. This concept applies as well to the implementation of new systems as it does the acquisition of hardware. When evaluating the Total Cost of Ownership, there are three main elements to take into account: Acquisition cost, Implementation cost and Support/Maintenance cost. Acquisition cost: Typically, this category will include the outright purchase of hardware and software and is usually accounted for as a capital expense in the organization’s budget and can be depreciated over time. Acquisition through in-kind donations or grants should also be accounted...
by Cloud for Good Blog | Mar 10, 2015 | Blog
This is a cross post from the Cloud for Good blog. When implementing new technology in your organization or expanding your existing system, a little bit of planning can go a long way in ensuring the success of your project. Planning the project well and having subject matter experts and/or experienced project managers can help the project move smoothly. Every project will have bumps in the road, but below are some tips that will help smooth out the bumps. Caution #1: Run your discovery sessions well. Now is the time to sit down with the main “sponsors” of the project (whether it’s the executive committee or a small team of people within a department) and your client team to make sure you fully understand what your teams needs. Allow your team to do a “brain dump” of their ideas, pain points, and needs. Don’t focus yet on the technological solution; just allow them to talk about their processes or desires, or even allow them to vent for a few minutes about what simply doesn’t work for them. Allow the conversation to be organic and go in its own direction, but don’t miss an opportunity to ask follow up questions. You may hear a tiny little factoid during a conversation that is crucial to the implementation. Also make sure you have documented those “exceptions” that always pop up every now and then. Sometimes the exceptions aren’t worth planning around, but sometimes they are. After the “brain dump” is finished, the questions are answered and you have a clear idea of what your project will look like, take some time to...
by Cloud for Good Blog | Mar 3, 2015 | Blog
This is a cross post from the Cloud for Good blog. Who doesn’t like the idea of a sandbox? You can get creative, get dirty, and get better at what you’re looking to accomplish. Salesforce has some nice options here. Depending on the type of sandbox you spin up, you have different features, capabilities, and pricing. Your sandbox options are; Developer (Free / 6 per EE instance) Developer Pro (Free / 1 per EE instance) Partial Data (Paid / Contact your Salesforce AE for pricing) Full (Paid / Contact your Salesforce AE for pricing) This page explains the sandbox types that you can create & a general overview. How can I create one? Go to: Setup | Deploy | Sandboxes > you can create either a Developer or Developer Pro sandbox for free (assuming your instance has some available to create). The amount of time it takes to create a sandbox is dependent on the size of your production organization. Contact your Salesforce account executive for pricing for additional Developer Pro sandbox licenses or for a Partial Data or Full Sandbox. What can I do with it? Test New Features – With each new release, Salesforce rolls out the new features in a sandbox. This is a great place to test new features/customization before they are available in your production environment. Install App’s – You can install apps from the AppExchange and test them out. This is very helpful when assessing options for a new roll-out or simply exploring how to expand your environment with new functionality. Application Development – You can built and test without risking the...
by Rachel Natik | Feb 26, 2015 | Blog
Creating new forms for your congregants just got easier when using FormAssembly. We have created some templates so you don’t have to start from scratch. Whether you are creating a form for an upcoming event or a donation page, we have just the right templates for you. Actually, the trick is, you should never start from scratch. The first step is to look at the templates that your consultant created for you and to clone those. To clone a form, click on the template name and click the copy button on the top right of the screen. Once you are in your new form, make sure to save the form with a new name, otherwise it will save as an untitled form which can be confusing. If those templates aren’t working for you, then take a look at the ones that we made, which are explained below. To access our templates, in the My Forms tab, click on the sub-tab for Templates. Once you are in the Templates tab, you can take a look at the Uncategorized, Default, and Client forms but please note, these forms are not modified and managed by us. We cannot remove them or our clients will have issues with their forms. Please use the forms that are in the categories called Events or Donations. Events As you can see in the image above, there are a few event templates to choose from. There are three templates that I highly recommend using based on your needs. If you are looking to have a paid event in which you want to track each...
by Cloud for Good Blog | Feb 24, 2015 | Blog
This is a cross post from the Cloud for Good blog. Roll out is often considered the end of a software or systems project, but the end of every Salesforce project is really just the beginning. As a Salesforce administrator or champion, you need to be prepared to help your organization through its journey with Salesforce. Chart a course for success by making investments in knowledge, data quality and your users. Investing in knowledge gives you the power to steer the system towards more fully supporting your organization’s needs. Investing in data quality is essential for building trust in the system and investing in users helps build community around Salesforce. INVEST IN KNOWLEDGE According to the old adage, knowledge is power. The more you know about Salesforce, the better equipped you’ll be to answer user questions, make decisions about enhancements and be a valuable resource to your organization. Salesforce is a platform whose features and functionality increase with each thrice-yearly release. Your organization’s use of Salesforce will change over time and knowing what the capabilities of Salesforce are is important for maintaining the growth and health of the system. Learning doesn’t have to be a chore, though. There are excellent online resources and a vibrant community out there for you to engage with. The Salesforce Help portal should be your first stop when you have a question. It’s rich with user guides, videos and support answers. If you’re looking for help on how to do something specific in Salesforce, check out the Salesforce Foundation’s YouTube playlist of the Top 25 Best Help Videos from Salesforce. The video topics cover everything from...
by Rachel Natik | Dec 9, 2014 | Blog
You may have seen the Idealware report from January 2013 on Synagogue Management Systems (SMS) that describes many products (including Cloud for Synagogues). The initial report was sponsored by UJA-Federation of New York in order to help synagogues understand what their current and future needs for their data. The report identified key requirements for a SMS and evaluated 22 vendors based upon how well their system met the requirements. At the time of the initial report, Congregation Connect (formally Cloud for Synagogues) was just getting started and we weren’t able to demo many of our current functions to the researchers. An updated Idealware report was published this past July this time only listing the top 9 systems. The report only covers changes which were made to the system which enabled Idealware to give a more accurate picture of Cloud for Synagogues. According to the report, a synagogue management system should be able to provide a “360 degree look at all of your different constituents” where members, yartzeits, invoices, and emails are seamlessly integrated and easy to access and report off of and cloud based technologies are built to do just that. Cloud based systems mean that the synagogue can access the system as long as they have internet, a computer or mobile device without having to store any data on their own servers. CFS stands above our other cloud based competitors because we are website flexibe (we do not require you to use a certain content management system), have the power of the Salesforce.com platform, and Cloud for Good consultants are experts at implementing Saleforce solutions. The results of the updated report show that...
