Feature Updates 5/13/2019

MP Portal Framing with Single Sign-On in App Designer

An update is now live that adds new link type options for Ministry Platform churches with the mobile application in the App Designer. The purpose of the update is to allow church administrators an easy method for embedded Ministry Platform Portal pages into the mobile application with single sign-on and displayed using the mobile application MP Portal Skin template for a seamless look-n-feel. Below you will find an overview of the two new Link Type options now visible in the App Designer for MP church administrators:

MP Portal Website Framed with Single Sign-On (required sign-in):

Use this option to frame an MP Portal page into the mobile application and require users to be signed into the application prior to viewing the page.
Using this option the framed MP Portal page will always be loaded with an authenticated MP Portal user via single sign-on with the special No-Header-Footer MP template.

MP Portal Website Framed with Optional Single Sign-On (does not require sign-in):

Use this option to frame an MP Portal page into the mobile application and not require the user to be signed into the application.
However, if the user is signed into the mobile application, that authentication will be shared with the MP Portal via single sign-on.
In all cases, the MP Portal template will be displayed with the special No-Header-Footer MP template.

Planning Center Donor Matching Algorithm Enhancements

An update is now live that enhances the Planning Center (PCO) matching algorithm to take exclude children. The purpose of the update is to avoid matching children with similar names as parents to donor profiles.

Rock RMS Donor Matching Algorithm Enhancements

An update is now live that enhances the Rock RMS matching algorithm to include additional filtering that will perform a last case scenario match based on first name and email. Kindly note this new matching step is only performed as a last case scenario in the event more qualified matches are not present based on other factors including the last name, age, etc.

Text Giving Special Message Formats for Sprint Customers

An update is now live that reduces the amount of outbound text giving messages to Sprint mobile phone devices. Sprint has deployed an overprotective artificial intelligence (AI) filtering system that is falsely reporting real/valid text messages sent by churches as spam. In an effort to reduce these false reports we have issued an update that will now lookup (and cache) the phone number's carrier prior to sending out a gift receipt message. In the event the phone number is registered to a Sprint network, the software will only send out the gift receipt message. The key difference here is that we've removed the "refund" option and "gift recurring" text from the gift receipt message. The purpose of this update is to allow for special modifications to outbound messages for Sprint phone numbers on text giving to allow text giving to not be incorrectly flagged as spam by Sprint's new AI filtering bot.

Text Giving Special Message Formats for Sprint Customers

An update is now live that adds support for the Ministry Platform production option "Days out to Hide" feature. The event registration feature will now automatically hide product options that contain a "days out to hide" that falls within the event registration start date window (event registration start date window = event registration start date - the days out to hide).

Text Marketing Character Counter Display in Control Panel

An update is now live that adds a character count display for text marketing SMS message inputs to allow church administrators to have knowledge of the length of messages directly while creating/editing the message. Typically SMS messages are delivered by carriers in 160 character chunks. It's important to keep this in mind when drafting text marketing messages as anything over 160 characters may be delivered as multiple matches by cell phone carriers. When possible try to draft SMS messages at 160 characters or less. The new character counter is a small feature release that should assist church administrators in being more aware of how many characters are present in custom SMS messages.

Addressing Pulling from Ministry Platform into Online Giving Upon Login - Optional Feature

An optional feature is now live for Ministry Platform churches. When enabled the software will pull their current MP address into Online Giving upon login or single sign-on. Additionally, anytime a donation is completed or the donor submits a giving profile update the address is pushed from Online Giving into Ministry Platform. If the donor updates their address in Online Giving that will push to Ministry Platform. The next time they log in the address is already the same in MP and in Online Giving due to the update. Likewise for the other direction. It's entirely up to the church if they desire to have address updates pull/pushed into Ministry Platform. It's important to note that by default Online Giving will not pull or overwrite MP address information. Typically we find churches prefer to have the donor enter address information when making a donation to ensure the most correct billing information is provided. This feature is strictly optional and not enabled by default. Please contact us if you desire to have this feature enabled for your account.

PowerChurch CSV Donation Export

An update is now live that adds a new donation export format for PowerChurch. Churches using the PowerChurch ChMS may now the new format for exporting donation history and importing into PowerChurch.

Fund Changes to Existing Donation now Pushed into Rock RMS Donation Record

An update is now live that upgrades our Rock RMS integration to push fund/sub-fund updates from the Online Giving control panel into Rock RMS. Online Giving will now update the associated Rock RMS Transaction Detail record when a donation is redesignated with different funds from within the Online Giving control panel. Additionally, we've updated the donation detail display to have a button to the associated Rock RMS transaction detail page.

MP Group Participant Recording Added to Text Marketing Autoresponders

An update is now live that upgrades the autoresponder Ministry Platform Event Participation recording to support recording the associated MP Group Participant (see attached for an example MP recording from our staging/test environment). Prior to the update, the MP Group Participant ID was not supplied with the MP Event Participant record creation/updating. Moving forward the software will add the MP Group Participant ID to the MP Event Participant Record (when applicable).

Dashboard Updated to Only Display Funds Present in Date Ranges

An update is now live that adjusts the dashboard to only display funds that are present in the selected date range. Prior to the update all of the funds in the transaction history were used for the graph which was cluttered for churches with a large amount of fund change history. The update is significantly more focused.

New Tool to Migrate Fund into Sub-Fund from Online Giving Control Panel

An update is now live that adds a new tool to the Online Giving control panel to allow the church administrator to migrate a parent fund into a sub-fund. The purpose of the update is to provide church administrators the ability to move an existing primary fund into another primary fund as a sub-fund (for fund clean-up purposes or similar). Using this feature the software will automatically migrate all associated recurring gift schedules, transaction history and custom giving page settings to reflect the new sub-fund location.

Support Added for Ministry Platform Complete Message for MP Event Registrations

An update is now live that adds support for the MP's Forms Complete Message. In the event an MP Form has a Complete Message, the platform will now display that message to the end-user upon form submission. Kindly note this update applies to Online Giving's MP Event registration feature made available to our mobile application customers.

Text Marketing Auto-Responders Updated to Allow Enabling/Disabling

An update is now live that upgrades the text marketing auto-responder feature to allow enabling/disabling of auto-responders. When disabled the associated keywords will not be active and not trigger the auto-responder. The purpose of the update is to allow church administrators to temporarily disable auto-responders once a campaign is finished but still required for future use.

Text Marketing Chatbot Intent Action Added - Subscribe to Ministry Platform Publication

An update is now live that upgrades the text marketing chatbot intent builder to with a new action called Subscribe to Ministry Platform Publication. The new action allows church administrators to subscribe a matched MP contact to an MP publication. The new action works with the existing conditional features to allow a subscription to be conditionally triggered based on the user's answers.

Text Marketing Chatbot Intent Action Added - Unsubscribe from a Ministry Platform Publication

An update is now live that upgrades the text marketing chatbot intent builder with a new action called Unsubscribe to Ministry Platform Publication. The new action allows church administrators to unsubscribe a matched MP contact from a Ministry Platform publication. The new action works with the existing conditional features to allow a subscription to be conditionally removed based on the user's answers.

Text Marketing Chatbot Intent Parameter Auto-Fill New Optional Feature - Ability to Required Auto-Fill Confirmation Prompt

An update is now live that upgrades the text marketing chatbot intent builder with a new feature for the parameter auto-fill settings to optionally require a confirmation prompt of the auto-fill information. The upgrade allows church administrators to verify auto-filled information with the user in the conversation with a yes/no prompt automatically generated by the system. Kindly note the name overwrites is for that specific user intent session only. While this feature is very useful for confirming information, it should be used sparingly (or only when necessary) to avoid inconveniencing the end-user as it requires additional prompts, etc.