Realm Reviews - Page 3

This software replaced ACS People Suite for our church and allows us to access information from the cloud. Pastors can look up addresses and even navigate to the member's house by clicking on the map in their record. Teachers can enter attendance while sitting in their Sunday school class. Groups can text and email each other within their groups. It is very robust software. They are constantly adding new features and are very responsive to suggestions from customers.

In the beginning, it was difficult to use as it didn't integrate with ACS On Demand Financial Suite. But they added the ability to import giving information into ACS Financial Suite, which was a big help. We haven't moved to Realm Accounting as of yet, as there are some features of Financial Suite that we use, which aren't available in Realm Accounting at this time.

I love using the Event Registration--it allows us to put all the info for an event in one place, allows people to register and pay online, go back later to review details, allows us to email registrants for updates and reminders.

There seems to be a learning curve for member use--I think we need more consistant training & reminders of how useful it can be.

We have been using Realm as our church management software since 2016. We were upgrading from a really old software system that we'd been using since the 90s or before. Realm walked us through the transfer which was very involved. And I think our transfer took longer than usual but they held our hands through the process. But since we've been up and running, it's been smooth sailing. They're constantly updating the software. I haven't had any problems with it. We haven't rolled out the member portion of the software yet. We have an older congregation and getting every logged in would be a challenge. As a small (under 100 members) Church, Realm has more than met our needs. I believe it's a software we can easily grow with for years to come.

We opted to handle the personalization of the software ourselves. Well...that hasn't happened. With running a church and everyone wearing multiple hats, we just haven't had time. So, I know we're not getting all the value from the software that we could. That's not Realm's fault. If I remember correctly, it was a cost thing that caused us to do it ourselves. Perhaps Realm needs a customization price for small churches like ours.

I started using Realm for Contributions when it first came out. I got an overview with a sales rep for about 15 minutes and was able to move forward with setup and use. I love that events and online giving are integrated into Giving and I don't have to guess who gave or enter from another source.

Queries are not the easiest. Sometimes I need a report for a fund with memos because the memos tell me how much of Outreach is for Shoebox Postage. I was able to get something, but it was a round about way.

It appears that ACS has put in a lot of homework in looking for things that a church might do and how they actually do business. The Connect aspect is only as useful as the people who use it, but the Realm engine in very powerful and has a lot of features that just about any church would want or need. The cloud-based platform is also helpful because 1) our software/interface never need updating and 2) there is no risk of us losing our data. The reporting options are also very flexible: our denomination requires annual reports on numbers and finances, and (I think) we can create enough custom reports to cover these annual reports all within the confines of Realm! That is a huge time saver no more spreadsheets!

Sending invites to Realm seems to be tricky, especially if a child has grown and now has an e-mail address. We can't just send an invite from the person's profile page (hint: make this an option). Also, in order to do child check-in or Sunday School sign-in sheets, there is a lot of layering that is required in order to get the final product. ONce complete, it is fairly simple on a weekly basis, but getting there can take some time (but not difficult time). Coming from a Database Administrator perspective (that's my job), I fully understand the need for such layers, as it keeps things working right, so this is not something that must be fixed. However, for the average user, it might seem tedious.

The software is great for keeping records of donations and contributions. Also, it helps to track members attendance and giving.

It is not very user friendly, so many members didn’t utilize it. You have to search the help menu to find what you are looking for and it is not very easy to find it.

Not in any particular order: 1. Cloud-based 2. Communication Feature within Groups - our group leaders are loving this feature and are engaging more and more with participants in their groups. Attendance marking has also increased since converting to Realm 3. Dashboard/Reporting - helping us greatly in doing ministry effectively: reaching the disengaged, cleaning up data, and planning 4. Merging...

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1. Our church does A LOT of events throughout any given month - currently we've experienced some limitations within Event Registrations (i.e. being able to search for a specific event using keywords/tags). Our end user currently has to scroll down a very long list of events to find the event they want to register for. 2.

I like that Realm is very user friendly. Also, if there is a problem I cannot solve, the helpdesk is super easy to contact, right from the app, and they are always very knowledgeable and helpful.

There may be a couple of features that would be helpful to add, i.e. being able to run a report from the pending page of online batches to see what was given on Sunday during the worship service, but nothing major. I haven't found any difficult aspects in using Realm. They have a great help section and videos to show you how to perform certain tasks. The integration for membership was outstanding, because Realm was able to pull our membership in from our previous software. The accounting side was a major task because we had to do it ourselves, but we're working with it and are satisfied.

Everything

Nothing really!

- Messages and Topics are available as push notifications from the app - Huge improvements from it's predecessor program, The City - For larger churches, easy searches focusing on specific members or parameters - Giving to a church is easy - The Kids Check-In is initiative and easy to pick up for parents - Easy to create events that require registration and payment

- There is a learning curve for the average user - There is a time lag between messages sent via laptop/desktop and the app - The larger the church, and the more you use Realm, you will need to dedicate a significant amount of time to the software to keep it humming.

I just can't say enough about Realm! Once we got our organization set up with all the ministry areas, groups and individual profiles it makes managing and communicating with our members so much easier! There are so many features that make this product A+ If there ever is an issue or question, Realm has the absolute BEST support team ever! They are very courteous, knowledgeable, and professional and are very eager to help resolve any issues. AND we implemented the Realm Connect Mobile app and this has been a great add-on to our Realm use.

So far we haven't encountered any cons.

The software is set up to be member driven and not staff driven. You can add participates and they can then have access to functionality of the group.

The release of new features is sometime premature before they have worked the problems out. They are not good about getting back to you once they have something working properly.

Realm is user friendly and if there is something that I can't figure out, the customer support is amazing!

Integration with ACS would be helpful. I haven't used the Accounting feature however, I was told that everything would go to Accounting and ACS would phase out. I haven't heard good things about the Accounting option and the fact that ACS hasn't been phased out, makes me leery of that option.

Ease of Use Fabulous support by phone Integrated online giving Continuous build out and enhancement Relevant to our work in the church Extremely beneficial User Conference annually

Unlike our use of the ACS On Demand software, it doesn't differentiate between pledge payments and general giving when we post the contributions to the GL. This is an enhancement I will be grateful for when and if it is done.

Easy to use for members and staff; cloud-based means you can access it from anywhere! We are still growing into attendance and check-in functions but look forward to using them.

Easier group functions could be useful! When we first transitioned they didn't have payroll so we aren't currently using Realm Financials.

User interface is clean, crisp and easy enough to use. Our Church congregation enjoys using it and adopted it fairly quickly.

This Church Management Software feels like a Beta-version, and you can tell that it hasn't been tested. It is unrefined, and glitchy, with navigation being confusing at times and illogical. Development teams are not helpful ("Sure, we'll add that to the suggestion box."), and there are some major functionality issues - specifically with their Group Search tools. We've had to manage to separate systems...

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We already have it and can more or less work with it.

the pricing is way out of line for what you get. Other church management softwares include texting with not extra cost, and cost about $60 less a month. There are so many things that should be integrated but aren't. A very big disappointment.

We have used ACS products for nearly 10 years and are so happy to leave behind the painful inhouse and shrinkwrapped systems we used to use. Our Realm Consultant is super knowledgeable and helped us determine the best processes,practices and scope for our ministry needs. Support is always available and super helpful. ACS is a true pleasure to work with.

The Realm team is working on a couple of functions that are important to our operations. They have released weekly enhancements and are quick with workaround solutions. They release enhancements weekly and seamlessly.

The versatility. The ease of use for all ages. The phone app is great and getting better all the time. They update and create new things all the time.

The phone app is not as versatile as the computer app. The older generation is very leery of trying new things.

Realm is easy to learn how to work it. The videos and instructions provided are very helpful, as well.

I do not like having to create payroll from scratch and making adjustments for prior payrolls. it is hard to do payroll for two checking accounts, because options are needed to make correct entries. I have to make adjusting entries to correct it after every payroll.

I like the ease in which information is entered and edited. I like that you can search for a report and then when you have the results you are looking for you can save it and use it over and over. Editing the parameters of the search is also understandable.

That we don't have Finances on it yet. Will be glad when we do.

We have been thrilled with Realm and the communication tool it has provided us. Our groups and members are more connected than they have ever been. Elderly people who are home-bound can stay connected to their church and their groups. It has communication features similar to Facebook so congregants to realize it is a database that staff find very useful. The Pathways feature keeps us on track with visitors, baptisms and confirmation steps. Love it!

Enhancements to Realm come often but there are still developments that need to come faster.

The Realm support team are tremendously helpful, patient when we have questions or need instruction, thoughtful when crafting solutions, professional and polite. All our interactions with the Realm team have been very positive, and it is a relief to hear the voice of folks like [sensitive content hidden] on the other end of our calls with we need assistance!

It sometimes difficult to make corrections or back out entries/actions when simple mistakes are made.