What's New

This is a release note summary on new developments for the Sojourner product. Please note that an enhancement may not apply to your environment if you have not signed up for the feature.

16 November 2021

Zoom Integration ^New

Christian Education is now integrated with Zoom
New lesson meetings and new registrants are auto created in Zoom
At the end of each meeting, Sojourner automatically takes participant attendance, no manual intervention required

Dynamic Report Builder ^New

Administrator is now able to generate custom reports using custom filters and selectable columns

Volunteer Rostering

A volunteer now has an option to nominate another volunteer for an assignment
Administrator can now view volunteer unavailability schedule
Volunteer roster can now be viewed in an intuitive calendar format
Volunteer report shows accumulated volunteer schedule for all services, filtered by date range and teams

Cell Groups

Contact field for walk-in visitors are now optional for attendance taking
Cell Type field in Cell Profile is now multi-selection
Preferred Day of Meeting in Join CG Request is now multi selection
Individual CG Detail report updated to show more details in one page
Leaders can now generate CG profile reports for his own tree
XFXZ 幸福小组 attendance taking - BEST contact info is now optional

Children Ministry

While adding a new child visitor, the user is now able to search for existing persons (members and visitors) to be linked to the child visitor as a parent or guardian

Christian Education

Topic is now optional
Added Lesson Title, Instructor and Instructor Bio fields

5 October 2021

Room Booking Integration ^New

Now integrated with ACT365 cloud-based EM door access system
A booker presents booking QR code to door reader to gain access to room

Room Booking. At the start booking page, you can see an entire week of bookings by selection of rooms
Children Ministry

Allows creating of new groupings by administrator for class configuration
Child visitor profile now shows additional child info like class and allergies

Members Report. Now includes an option to list members without roles.
Pastoral Case

Only leaders with permissions can view pastoral cases for members within their tree
Pastoral cases for each member are now viewable within the P-File

24 August 2021

Directory. Now outputs child and adult visitors with more info
Cell Groups. Now allows taking of No Meeting attendance
Birthday / Anniversary Report

Previously only available for the admin user to generate for the entire church, this report is now available for leaders to generate for members in his tree
Excludes Deceased and Terminated members
Allows filter by date range

2 August 2021

Security. Account activation email link can now be re-triggered by administrator
Room Booking

Booking calendar now shows a full-week view in desktop and 3-day view in mobile devices
Booking report is exportable as CSV or PDF
Now sends ICS file in email for confirmation, cancellation and amendment

User Profile. Now supports highest education level and car plate number.
Christian Education

Previously when a course pre-requisite has multiple criteria, a user must satisfy all criteria before he can register for the course. The administrator now has the option to set it so that a user would meet the pre-requisite as long as he satisfies one of the criteria.

1 July 2021

Directory

Output for "Terminated" people now shows the termination reason
Includes Remarks and Misc Remarks fields in search
Includes room bookings in search output
Includes children tag in search output

Christian Education & Event

Event photo can now be cropped and adjusted for size and aspect ratio

15 June 2021

Quick Menu ^New

The menu bar now features a Quick Menu option which brings you to a graphical version which allows power users to type key words to zoom in on require menu options

Site Config

You can now change your own favicon and login screen background image

Children Ministry

Attendance report now includes a class filter in addition to session filter

Christian Education & Event

Registration link can now be downloaded as a QR code

User Profile

Added a new field called NRIC Prefix
Address field can be auto-filled by submitting the postal code

Cell Groups

CG Member Import now supports a role column

1 June 2021

User Profile

Now displays information on current roles and spaces of a user
Address field now provides a link to show the location in a google map

My Course/My Events

Course/event listing to be provide full info just like for admin listing including graphics

DNC feature ^New

Now supports DNC which allows admin user to set the DNC channels for any user who requests for no contact via phone call, SMS or email or any combination of these channels

Members' Report

You can now select the required columns to show in the report

Room Booking

Now supports global block out dates, so admin can disable all bookings in one place
Now Meeting Purpose field is mandatory to make a booking

Survey Form

Added visual demarcation between questions in edit mode
A member's P-File now includes a new tab showing all his submitted surveys

25 May 2021

Birthday / Anniversary Report ^New

Report menu now offers 2 new options: Birthdays and Anniversaries over an adjustable date range
Leaders' page shows birthdays and anniversaries of all leaders

Church Calendar

Revamped UI for better appeal and allows clicking on events to make bookings or registrations

Follow Up Module

Now allows admin to define roles which will be performing following up for newcomers

11 May 2021

Survey Form ^New

Create custom survey forms for members
Supports auto re-indexing of survey questions
Supports drag-and-drop of question positions

In-app Editor

The in-app editor is upgraded to support tables, multi-level indentation, text attributes, image resizing etc.

15 April 2021

Communications Module

Optimised sending batch emails and SMS to handle at least 1,500 BCC email/SMS.

Service Booking

Now supports attendance taking via mobile phone scanning of QR code
Now provides an SMS report to show volume of SMS utilisation by month

Room Booking

Booking directory allows searching of bookings by person and allow admin to take action like amendment or cancellation of bookings
Now supports check in by room attendee

1 April 2021

Room Booking module ^New

Allows management of room locations, booking slots, available and blocked out times and booking rules
Allows users access to calendar of available rooms and selection of available slots
Booking is tentative until approved by admin
Allows admin to create booking with recurrent schedule: daily, weekly, monthly, every Nth weekday of a month etc
Admin assisted booking allows forced booking over unavailable slots

Church Calendar

Mobile view now shows Day of Week

24 March 2021

Family Tree Viewer ^New

From the Relationship panel of a user's profile, you can click to see a visualisation of the immediate family relationships that are defined for the user
You can also view inferred relationships based on relationships that defined by the user's own related persons

Communications Module

You can now create a communications message to be run at a later time
For customers who has the Children Ministry module, you can select Parents/Guardians or Emergency Contacts when using the Communications module to connect with Children Ministry Students

Service Booking

Now validates contact numbers to be one of the following formats: 3xxxxxxx, 6xxxxxxx, 8xxxxxxx, 9xxxxxxx

17 March 2021

Private Event Booking^New

You can now set up by-invitation-only events which are not open to public viewing and booking
Management of invitation list
Batch booking
Most of the public event features are available here

Public Event Booking

You can now configure for an event to issue e-tickets through email, SMS or both
You can now customisable message templates for each event
Booking report is now available to Station Personnel

Termination Remarks. When a member status is updated to Terminated (deceased, left), there is now a Termination Remarks field to capture related details. Previously the Misc Remarks field is used for this purpose. Misc Remarks can now be used to capture other information.

1 March 2021

Public Event Booking^New

This is a new module for the management of recurrently or one-off public events like
Booking of service seats which enforces MCCY rules
Issue of e-tickets with a unique QR code for each attendee
On-site check-in and validation of QR code
Amendments and cancellations by users
Admin-assisted booking to support non-savvy users
Automated event creation, no on-going admin intervention required
Booking, attendance and attrition reports
Booking assistant role doing bookings on behalf of members who are not so savvy
Station Personnel role for actual day attendance taking, booking, cancellation
Intuitive UI on mobile, tablet or desktop platforms

8 February 2021

Add Service Member. You can now add new service members directly on the service tree main page.

Calendar. You can now embed the church calendar link in your external web sites or apps for public access.

16 November 2020

Cell Module. Attendance report statistics takes into account

members who attended a scheduled meeting
members who did not attend a scheduled meeting
members who did not attend a scheduled meeting because the cell leader cancelled it
members who are not yet a cell member for a scheduled meeting
members whose attendance is unknown because the cell leader has not taken attendance for a scheduled meeting
visitor attendance which is reported in a separate section

Course and Event Modules

Added reCAPTCHA to public registration page to prevent potentially spurious registrations by bots
The images displayed for courses and events are now of higher fidelity
Added Role Type as one of the configurable prerequisite settings. Consequently, the application administrator can now tag roles with role types e.g. Leader. For instance, an event can be configured with a prerequisite of "Leader" role type so that only user with roles that is of Leader type can sign up.

21 October 2020

Volunteer Rostering. Improved view of roster calendar by removing constraints on column width and display of long names

28 September 2020

Event Module. Created Event Admin Role with similar access as Course Admin

16 September 2020

Follow-Up Module. Added new state "Called". The standard flow is now Unassigned -> Assigned -> Called -> Assimilated.

Volunteer Rostering Module^New. Enables admin to create rosters of volunteers for weekly or ad hoc services

Allows adding of volunteer roles needed for each service.
Allows defining how many volunteers are needed per role.
One-click auto assignment of volunteers to roles based on predefined algorithm.
One-click notification of all volunteers for an event.
Volunteers given option to accept or reject assignments.
Allows admin to override assignments.
Auto send reminders to volunteers 2 days before event.

2 September 2020

Resource Sharing Module

Add Ministry as a constraint, to control which Ministries are allowed access to the resource.
For each shared resource, show who has accessed it and when.

Events Module. As a logged in user, you can now register for a event or view your event history through the menu option "My Events"

The option My Events > New Event Registration brings you to the event registration page with all the fields pre-filled (name, mobile, email, church).

The option Me Events > My Event History displays a list of events you have registered for and your attendance rate.

Updated course / event registration success message so that it indicates confirmation email has been sent if registrant matches an existing member in the database.

18 August 2020

Follow-Up Module ^New. Allows service or event visitors to be tracked in Sojourner for follow-up

Admin assigns to a CG leader for follow-up, with deadlines, email notifications and email reminders
Standard flow is Unassigned -> Assigned -> Completed
Follow-up dashboard provides overview of different status for visitors: Unassigned, Assigned, Requested to Reassign, Requested to Drop, Dropped, Assimilated

Pastoral Care Case Management^New. Provides case management features for Pastoral Care team

Admin or Pastoral Care team creates cases for affected members
Ability to add Visits and Notes against the case.
Dashboard provides overview of different status for cases: Not Visited, Visited, Follow-up Required, Closed
Member's P-file record will include his/her pastoral care cases

Cell Group. Summary attendance report now includes a section for walk-in visitors and assigned newcomers.

29 July 2020

Church Calendar^New

Show's all course sessions, events and recurrent services created in Sojourner.
Supports monthly and weekly view.

CE and Events Module.

Supports pre-requisite

by membership types
by roles / role type
by ministry spaces
by courses attended

Added a lesson attendance subtotal row to attendance report
Now supports import of historical course attendance where

Import file contains only one lesson per historical course to indicate who attended the course
Course code provided in import file is unique

Now supports view only access to course attendance and registration reports

Role type. Allow administrator to set the role type of each role e.g. Leader, Admin, Participant

Resource Sharing Module ^New. Allows administrator to upload managed resources (files or links), with the following controls:

Membership types
Roles or role types
Resource status
Availability date range

Ministry Tree

You can now add a person to a role in the ministry tree by searching for his phonetic name i.e. Chinese,Tamil...

Cell Groups / XFXZ 幸福小组

Generates XFXZ/幸福小组 attendance report with a focus on BEST and includes Salvation Date
Allow someone who is an XFXZ Leader of a space the ability to add anyone in the system as an XFXZ Assistant or XFXZ Member. However a XFXZ Leader has no access to user profile details of those he added.

8 July 2020

Events Module^New

New module which allows the church to create events for online registration.
Supports attendance taking like course module.
Supports per-event survey questionnaire.

Cell Groups. Now supports capture of Salvation Date for walk in visitors

Cell Attendance History Report. When viewing the cell attendance history of a cell group, the date range can be set to see data which falls within the range. Previously, after viewing the attendance history of one cell, the selection of another cell for viewing will cause the date range to be reset to the default value of the most recent one month. Now, the date range setting is remembered as the user selects different cells.

CE/Events Module

Updated tooltip for Registration button to Register participants as an administrator.
In public registration page, if there's more than one course available, set default to "Select one" instead of selecting the first available course.
If course's unique registration link is clicked, and today is outside the application date period, show the message "Course is not open for registration yet".
For course listing page, highlight in green application date field which matches today.

Self attendance taking for online events. How it works:

With one click, admin sends an email to attendees with a self-attendance link.

Link can only be accessible on the day of event.

On the day of event, admin retrieve a 5-character event code.
Attendees opens the self-attendance link and enter the 5 character event code to take own attendance.

Import. Now supports import of relationships.

24 June 2020

Mobile Access. When viewing any Service or Ministry Tree on a mobile device, the user interface now provides a slider drawer which allows you to view the full tree before you select a space. The drawer auto hides to reveal the details of the selected space. To select another space, just touch the drawer handle to slide it open.
Communications Module

At the first step when selecting roles, a new filter is provided which allows you to specify the sending mode:

Send Either, which sends emails to those members with emails and sends SMS to those without email but has mobile number.
Send Email Only, which sends emails to members with emails.
Send SMS Only, which sends SMS to members with mobile numbers.

On Email/SMS Editor page, the system now shows the number of recipient at the Email section header and SMS section header, to give an indication of how many messages will be sent.
On user selection page, an export button is provided to export the list of users who are uncontactable i.e. those with neither email nor mobile numbers.
Allow the sender email to be a preconfigured admin email. For each email sent, the system defaults the sender email to this email address.
Allow the To email field to be replaced. By default the To field is set to the user email. It can be replaced with another email. If left empty, To will default to the pre-configured admin email.
Service space has been added to the navigation tree so that you can select from any ministry or service space to determine your target audience

Directory. The search output now shows the last login time of each user.

10 June 2020

Members' Report. The report now occupies the entire width of the screen, thus displays more information.
Communications Module. At the first screen when selecting roles, you can now use the Membership filter to select only those who belong to the selected membership type(s).
CE Module.

In the course listing page, you can now use "Copy Registration Link" button of each course to copy its specific registration link to the clipboard. This is a convenience feature so that you can embed this link in your external web site, if required, and when the user clicks on this link the specific course will be pre-selected in the registration page.
As a logged in user, you can now register for a course or view your course history through the menu option "My Courses"

The option My Courses > New Course Registration brings you to the course registration page with all the fields pre-filled (name, mobile, email, church) except for the course to register for.

The option My Courses > My Course History displays a list of courses you have registered for and your attendance rate for those courses.

6 May 2020

CE Module.

Improved course management page with pop-up help text for each action button.
Attendance taking by scanning is improved to display an indicator when an attendee is a walk-in participant instead of a registered participant.
Attendance report is improved to

Show lesson date in the Lesson column header.
Indicate attendance with "Present" instead of lesson date.
Indicate absence with "Absent" in red instead of a dash.

Members' Report. The latest supported import spreadsheet template is available for download on the member import page.

24 March 2020

Members' Report. The column Phone will now display the preferred number if the user has indicated a number as preferred. Otherwise it will show the latest updated contact number regardless of whether it's mobile, home or office numbers.

28 January 2020

Communications Module. Only applicable roles to a selected space will be shown for selection, while previously it shows up all roles that are declared in the parent spaces.
CE Module. You can now take attendance directly against a course from the course listing page instead of first searching for a course session by date.

4 December 2019

AGM

The system now allows more than one AGM and EOGM per year.
It now supports the notion of population by congregation. For instance if you have a Chinese Service space, you can now organise an AGM that only accepts church members from this service as official attendees for a Chinese Service AGM.

Members' Report.

Export button on Members Report page now allows export only by roles with the permission to export.
The import spreadsheet now includes a Enable Login column. By default, the value is "No" if not specified. If value supplied is "Yes", the system will send an account activation email to the member which will guide member to define his password to complete his/her account creation.
The import spreadsheet now accepts Partial ID instead of Partial NRIC. This is so that the admin can input any partial ID based on NRIC, passport or other identification applicable to the member being imported.

21 November 2019

Cell Attendance. When a Cell Leader or Cell Admin is taking cell group attendance, the system will automatically select the cell group if the user only has one cell assigned to him/her. Only when there's more than one cell assigned will the user be required to select which cell group to take attendance for.