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11.0F Release

If you're part of the Preferred Client Program, you can download the latest desktop version in the Client Portal.

PDS Church Office 11.0F, released for desktop and OnDemand 6-29-23, offers the following enhancements.

New and Improved Features

Transfer Transactions
  • We added the ability to move a transaction to a different family or a different fund/activity. This may be especially helpful at year end. First, click Find History Entries in the Contributions window and locate the transaction you need to transfer. Select it in the grid, then click Move Entry. Select the new family, fund, and/or activity to move to, then click Select/OK. If the family does not have the necessary fund, you're prompted to add it.

    Example of moving a matching fund entry to another family

Easy Access to Setup Options
  • Some of the Initial Setup options are "set-it-and-forget-it". But other options may need to change over time. Instead of having to remember where that option was when you first set up your program, we provided an easier way to change it -- right from the relevant window!

  • In all data entry windows (Families Primary Information, Members Personal, and so on), you can click the gear icon black gear with a hole in the middle to view and access all the setup options related to the information in that window. When you hover over each item, a hint shows details about the options you can choose from. (Note that the gear icons on listing screens and overviews only display options related to their functionality.)

  • For example, let's say you want to change the Preferred Family Title to use "Mr. & Mrs." instead of "M/M". You can go to the Families Primary Information window, click the gear icon in the top-right corner, and select Family Name Options. A dialog box displays with options related to the way family names are set up.

    The Families window with the gear selected, showing the Family Name Setup Options

Sacramental Register Volume Format
  • The Volume fields (located in the Sacramental Registers and on member sacrament tabs) now accept up to 10 characters, including numbers and letters. This way, you can enter the same format you use in real life! Some examples include:
    • Roman numerals, like IV and XII
    • Year ranges, like 1990-1999 or 2023-2025
    • Letter/number combinations, like 144A and 144B

    Example showing the Baptismal Register and member Baptism tab with the Volume set to Roman numeral IX

Show Keyword Counts
  • Ever wondered which keywords are actually used in your data? Now, you can see the count for each keyword, which shows the number of records that use it. In any keyword list, click Show Count to display the Count column. You might use this number, for example, to determine whether you should keep or delete a particular keyword.

    Example of a keyword list with the Show Count button; once clicked, the Count column displays with the number of records each keyword is used on

Left Parish Date for Inactive Families
  • When marking a family record inactive, you're now asked if you want to set the Left Parish date. Click Yes on the message to automatically add today's date, or click No to enter it manually or leave it blank.

  • Likewise, in the Inactivate process, you can choose whether to set the date for the families you're inactivating.

Improved Data Cleanup
  • Do you have old family and member interactions (like letters, emails, phone calls, and visits) that you no longer need to track? Now, there's a way to clean those up!

  • In the Clean Up Data process, we added sections for Family Letters/Calls/Etc Entries and Member Letters/Calls/Etc Entries that show the total number of entries. You can specify how far back you want to keep, with the default being 5 years before the current year. The number of entries before that date also displays so you know how many will be deleted. When you click Delete Entries Before <Date>, those entries are removed from family or member records.

    Clean Up Data process showing the new section for Family Letters/Calls/Etc Entries with the total number of entries, date field, number of entries before that date, and the Delete Entries Before (Date) button

Date of Last Data Cleanup
  • We added the date of the last time the Clean Up Data process was run. This helps you and our Support team know how long ago data was cleaned up. To view it, go to Information > Dashboard and see Last Clean Up Data.

Help Center - New Look & Enhancements
  • The Help Center (what you're reading now) is getting a new look! All the same help articles you need will still be available at help.acst.com, and you can still click the help icon in PDS to get here.

  • With the new look, we also have new features to enhance your Help Center experience. You can easily navigate between solutions, stay up-to-date on what's new, and find useful links to training, support, and more. Keep an eye out for those changes coming July 12!

Corrections

We fixed several issues that were reported internally to our team, as well as the following issues that affected some of our customers:
  • In some cases, amounts posted to certain activities were not being included in End of Year statement totals. This was due to how activities were ordered after adding them to the end of the list, which has been corrected.
  • Church Office was not able to synchronize data with Parish Life.