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Life Apps - November 2024

Introducing Volunteer Connect, a brand new way to connect with your volunteers!

Volunteer Connect

  • We designed Volunteer Connect as a one-stop shop for all things related to volunteer management. Check out the exciting highlights below, then see the new Volunteer Connect help section to learn more and get started.
Volunteer View of a ScheduleCoordinator/Leader View of a Schedule
Example of what a volunteer would see when they view a schedule in Volunteer Connect, with options to sign up for open assignments and view the attached fileExample of what a coordinator or leader would see when they view a schedule in Volunteer Connect, with options to add volunteers to open assignments, remove existing volunteers, and add attachments
Something for everyone!
  • Platform administrators can distinguish between serving groups and non-serving groups. They can keep an eye on overall volunteer activity via MinistryPlatform.
  • Volunteer coordinators can create team schedules tied to events so they can track volunteers serving in different roles on their team.
  • Team leaders can see who accepts or declines serving assignments, keep up with compliance requirements, and communicate with their team — all within Volunteer Connect.
  • Volunteers can see their upcoming assignments and sign up for open opportunities (if allowed).
There's more to come!
  • That's right, we already have plans to enhance Volunteer Connect! Look forward to things like advanced scheduling for multiple dates and groups of people, volunteer preferences and blackout dates, as well as marking attendance.

Care Life

  • On the dashboard, the Show All option is now selected by default for users with the Case Viewer security role. (For administrators, the checkbox is still cleared by default.) This is helpful if you don't assign Case Managers and want Case Viewers to see all cases by default.
  • You can now filter the dashboard by the congregation/parish assigned to cases. The totals update based on your selection.
  • On the dashboard, the Closed tile now displays Care Cases that have closed in the last 30 days.
  • In the Care Case details, you can now tap a location's phone number to call them on your mobile device.
  • When adding or editing a Care Log entry, you can now include a time, if applicable, in addition to the Action Date.
  • For Care Log Entry records in the Platform, we deprecated the Date Provided, Care Outcome, and Private fields that are no longer in use. These fields are no longer updated when an entry is created or edited in Care Life.

Group Life

  • When sending a message to a group, you can sort the Recipients list by first or last name. This is useful for finding people in larger groups.
  • On the Participants tab, you can select multiple roles when filtering the list. The Filter stays expanded to show that it's being filtered.
  • If an activity is associated with more than one group (such as a combined small groups meeting), group leaders are no longer able to edit the event. That means they cannot use the options menu (ellipsis) on the Activities tab or the More button on the Attendance tab.
  • By default, the option to add guest attendance displays on the Attendance tab. If leaders should not track guest attendance, an admin can hide this section using the new configuration setting, CLOUDAPPS, ShowGuestAttendance.

Coming Soon

  • Life Apps name changes - In a continuous effort to improve your experience, we've been reviewing the language used in MinistryPlatform. "Life Apps" is one of those terms that people find confusing because they are not "apps" that you download from your app store. In researching better terminology, we determined that most people preferred "Connect" over "Life". (Huge thank you to those who participated in our research efforts via the MinistryPlatform Community!)

    So, we're planning to change Care Life to Care Connect and Group Life to Group Connect. Volunteer Connect and Need Connect already follow this pattern. And these will be collectively known as Connect Suite. We'll remind you of this change closer to time but wanted to give a heads up so you can prepare any necessary communications with staff and congregants who use Life Apps today.

Note:

Reminder about Supported Browsers: Before accessing Widgets and other MinistryPlatform applications, make sure your browser is up-to-date. Otherwise, you may see errors.

The technical details: TLS versions 1.0 and 1.1 are no longer supported for our services. To use our applications, the browser must be on TLS 1.2 or higher. For this reason, we suggest using the most updated browser version.