Diocese of Rochester Selects ParishSOFT

Transcription

1 Diocese of Rochester Selects ParishSOFT Ann Arbor, Mich. May 31, 2013 The Catholic Diocese of Rochester in New York has selected ParishSOFT s family suite of church management software for all of its parishes, leaders from both organizations announced today. All 103 parishes will get the Family Directory for census and sacramental record management, Offering & Pledges for contributions management, and Remote Solutions for anytime, anywhere Internet access to their hosted programs and data. Under the terms of the agreement, the Diocese has licensed for 103 parishes the Family Directory program for census and sacramental record management, Offering & Pledges for contributions management, and Remote Solutions for anytime, anywhere Internet access to their hosted programs and data. Individual parishes may choose to get additional modules from the integrated suite of products, including Religious Education with Tuition, Parish IQ, Facility Scheduler, and the Web-based ConnectNow Ministry Scheduler and Online Giving. The modular design gives parishes of all sizes the freedom to choose exactly the tools they need to power their ministries. ParishSOFT will replace the Diocese of Rochester s Parish Information Program (PIP), which was developed in-house and has been the standard church management technology for all diocesan parishes since the late 1990s. Since that time, the diocese s information technology department, led by director Tom Veeder, has supported PIP users and the software itself, developing the fixes and enhancements needed to serve the needs of the parishes in an ever-changing technology climate. Beyond PIP Parishes have long been asking for additional functionality like Religious Education program management, facility scheduling, ministry scheduling tools they ll now have through ParishSOFT. PIP gives each organization an Access database that is installed locally and aggregated by the diocese via an annual extract for each parish. While this model served the Diocese well for many years, parishes have long been asking for the additional functionality needed to power parish ministries, like Religious Education program management, facility scheduling, ministry scheduling, and self-serve tools that would let parishioners give online and update their basic information tools they ll now have through ParishSOFT. The Diocese of Rochester first began looking at ParishSOFT several years ago, tracking the pace of the company s software development and growth, talking with users, and even sending I.T. staff member Renate Parks to the ParishSOFT Users Conference. As the number of parishes operating clustered or merged offices in multiple locations continues to grow, the need for an updated software platform becomes more urgent. PIP simply cannot give staff who work at different sites within the same parish access to their parish databases and tools over the Web. We wanted to give all our parishes the ability to access the same data from more than one office, said Mark Darling, who serves as diocesan I.T. manager for all schools, parishes, and Catholic Charities. The 1 Diocese of Rochester Selects ParishSOFT

2 question was: should we redesign PIP for a Web-hosted environment, or would we be better off purchasing a system. About the time the I.T. department was putting together cost and functionality analyses, they received a loud and clear indicator from parishes in the Diocese of Rochester that helped them find the answer. St. Joseph s Voice is Heard Recommendations from St. Josephs and St. Kateri Tekakwitha were a sign to the diocesan I.T. department they were on the right path in considering the ParishSOFT suite. Fr. Jim Schwartz, who serves as pastor of St. Joseph s Church in Penfield, N.Y., strongly advocates effective use of resources for ministry. St. Josephs was one of many parishes that wanted to make their database work for all their ministries, and especially for their faith formation program. They couldn t do it using PIP, so they implemented the LOGOS church management software. LOGOS worked better, but still, the lack of Catholic-specific features had an impact on how well they could use their data. After LOGOS partnered with ParishSOFT, Fr. Schwartz and pastoral associate Jim Gulley took a look at ParishSOFT s Catholic software and encouraged the diocesan I.T. team to consider the system as a solution to the PIP dilemma. The recommendation was a sign that I.T. was on the right path. [ParishSOFT] will be able to invest the time and resources of an entire company dedicated to software development and customer service. That frees us to focus on supporting our parishes in ministry to the people of the Diocese of Rochester. Mark Darling I.T Manager Diocese of Rochester Rev. James A. Schwartz, pastor, St. Joseph s Church It takes a lot of time and resources to write software code, test it, keep it up, and support the users, said Darling. We don t have the money, the time, or the staff to develop a solution as comprehensive as ParishSOFT s. They ll be able to invest the time and resources of an entire company dedicated to software development and customer service. That frees us to focus on supporting our parishes in ministry to the people of the Diocese of Rochester. St. Kateri Blazes the Trail The largest parish in the Diocese of Rochester, St. Kateri Tekakwitha in Irondequoit, N.Y., was formed in May 2010 from the consolidation of five parishes: St. Salome, St. Thomas the Apostle, St. Margaret Mary, St. Cecilia, and Christ the King. Today, administration and care of all 5,000 families, physical properties, liturgies, and ministries at three worship sites are done from three separate offices with the help of ParishSOFT, which connects every staff member at each location to the same central database. Ellen Brannin, who handles contributions, the weekly bulletin, and website, led the charge after she realized that between PIP s server outages and the difficulties in having three sites trying to use a single Access database, the old system just was not working anymore. We would lose data when the server would go down or when Access crashed, said Brannin, and we wouldn t know exactly what records 2 Diocese of Rochester Selects ParishSOFT

3 were gone until later. It was a major problem that we don t have to worry about anymore. She, too, worked with the diocesan I.T. department and had Darling s full support. Ellen took a look at ParishSOFT, and she just ran with it. It s a fantastic model for them. Better Off with ParishSOFT St. Kateri started using ParishSOFT in January 2013, and Brannin was pleased with the data conversion by senior training and data conversion specialist Kristine Collins. Kristine took our database and sent it back to me a week later. Once I reviewed it, the only fixes needed were things that had needed fixing in our PIP database, and she helped me take care of all of them for us. For the first time, we have access to the parish database from all locations on our campus. Jim Gulley, St. Josephs Penfield, N.Y. Today, staff at St. Kateri and St. Josephs are still learning all their software can do. Brannin catches up on data entry quite often on the weekend at home via her Remote Solutions login. And she likes to watch the declining balance as she posts her parish contributions in batches. When I get to the end, it s fun to see the $0 batch balance because I know everything is correct, she laughs, and if it s not $0, well, I know I ve got something to fix. Gulley has been pleased with his experience from the beginning. The way we had all our questions answered, not just in a theoretical way but in a way that was relevant to our parish information and our processing methodology told us we were doing the right thing in moving to ParishSOFT, he said. Not only is the terminology of the software comfortable and Catholic in a way that our LOGOS software was not, it s great the way we ve been untethered. For the first time, we have access to the parish database from all locations on our campus. Despite initial concerns about data conversion, Gulley reports that talking with ParishSOFT users and staff helped to defuse any fears. It quickly became clear that ParishSOFT understood parish and network environments like ours and that they had the experience and the resources needed to adapt ParishSOFT to us, rather than force-fitting one configuration on all customers, said Gulley. This was further confirmed when the actual data conversion was completed, virtually without error, in one weekend. We froze LOGOS on Friday afternoon and were up and running with ParishSOFT on Monday. In February 2013, St. Josephs began using Family Directory, Offering & Pledges, Religious Education, and Ministry Scheduler. Gulley himself has taken the training courses and likes that the Ministry Scheduler program will handle all their scheduling needs and let them immediately communicate schedules to parishioners. Once you start mapping your parish activities, groupings, and people into Ministry Scheduler, the system really makes sense. It s going to save us a lot of time. Gulley has taken advantage of remote access to connect with his parish database from his Android smartphone, and Fr. Schwartz looks forward to doing the same. The software serves pastors well, connecting them with parishioner information that can enrich the ministry and pastoral 3 Diocese of Rochester Selects ParishSOFT

4 care they provide. Fr. Schwartz has his own login, so he has quick access to the information he needs to care for his parish. I ve found ParishSOFT very accessible in terms of looking up family and member information, finding s and phone numbers, and I like that I can go deeper into the database when I want to do so, said Fr. Schwartz. Moving Forward Together Parish and diocesan staff gathered at regional meetings April 23-25, 2013, in Rochester, Elmira, and Geneva, where ParishSOFT and diocesan I.T. personnel were on-hand to demonstrate the software, discuss the benefits, and answer questions. Darling reports that 9 organizations representing 17 parishes are eager to get started with ParishSOFT, and they will comprise the first group to do data conversion, training, and implementation. The balance of parishes will follow with rollout in groups of 10 per month, beginning in June. Parishes will continue to have the full support of their diocesan I.T. department, as well as ParishSOFT s customer service team, who are working closely together to ensure a smooth transition for everybody. ParishSOFT is much more robust than what we had before, and it gives us the opportunity for much more communication with our parishioners than we ever could do before. Ellen Brannin St. Kateri Tekakwitha Irondequoit, N.Y. And having support from the Diocese of Rochester offers definite advantages for parishes. We ll be able to help each parish get their PIP database ready for conversion, said Darling, and we ll be there to help them get up and running. They re not losing their I.T. support they re gaining an additional level of support from ParishSOFT. Brannin has encouraging words for other parishes preparing for a change in software: ParishSOFT is much more robust than what we had before, and it gives us the opportunity for much more communication with our parishioners than we ever could do before. About the Diocese of Rochester Established in 1868, the Diocese of Rochester was originally part of the first U.S. Roman Catholic diocese created in 1789 by Pope Pius VI in Baltimore. As the region s Catholic populations grew, the 12 counties that comprise today s geographical footprint of the diocese shifted to the Diocese of New York and then the Diocese of Buffalo before ultimately becoming the Diocese of Rochester. Throughout its history, from the days of the early immigrants who gathered according to ethnic heritage and language to modern times, generation after generation of Catholics in the Diocese of Rochester have experienced a consistent pattern of building up, disintegration, and building anew as they responded with strength and grace to challenges and shifts in their very identity in an ever-changing world. Bishop of Syracuse Robert J. Cunningham has served as Apostolic Administrator since September 2012, when Bishop Matthew H. Clark retired. As they await the appointment of their ninth bishop by Pope Francis, more than 300,000 Catholics in the Diocese of Rochester 4 Diocese of Rochester Selects ParishSOFT

5 remain focused on serving the journey of faith with a century-old tradition of courage and creativity. About ParishSOFT Founded in 1998, ParishSOFT offers a complete suite of church and diocesan management software to connect people and the church, while reducing administrative work. The company's desktop-based Parish Suite of products, designed specifically for Catholic parishes, helps staff to manage family and member information, sacramental records, religious education, contributions, volunteers, scheduling, communications, and reporting efficiently and accurately from a single database. This model serves Catholic parishes well, providing staff and parish priests with the most up-to-date information about their ministries and the people they serve at any given time. ParishSOFT s next generation of solutions are being developed on a true, Web-based platform called ConnectNow. First launched in 2008 with the release of the ConnectNow Church Accounting system, the ConnectNow product offering has grown to include Online Giving, the staff and parishioner portal My Own Church, Ministry Scheduler, and most recently, ConnectNow Family Directory and Offering. The first release of ConnectNow Religious Education will be available in May ParishSOFT continually invests in improving its software and Web solutions, as well as adding new features and products. ParishSOFT presently serves more than 8,400 parishes, and the company's products have been implemented in 76 arch/diocesan offices. The company holds an annual Users' Conference for parish and diocesan staff, which will take place October 21-23, 2013, in Baltimore, Maryland. 5 Diocese of Rochester Selects ParishSOFT

6 For more information, please contact: Victors Way, Suite 200 Ann Arbor, MI Michael Cusick, V.P. of Sales and Marketing Buffalo Road Rochester, NY Doug Mandelaro St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish Kings Highway S Rochester, NY St. Joseph s Catholic Church 43 Gebhardt Road Penfield, NY PUBM MAY ParishSOFT Press Release 6 Diocese of Rochester Selects ParishSOFT