ShelbyNext Membership Features

Like the Check-In, but it's frustrating not to be able to customize font sizes or to choose to print only first names. There is much white space on the name tags but it's not possible to make the name larger. I also like being able to search for a name by putting in only part of the name, either first or last, or both. I, personally, have had pretty positive experiences with support, but others in my organization have had rude responses.

Several things: It's not possible to add an entire family at one time. Instead, each person must be added & then linked as a family which is more time-consuming. When running reports, inactive people show up even if "active" is selected. Also, when running reports, the only choices are labels or a list with no addresses, no phone numbers, etc., unless it's exported as a CSV file. When one does that, every field in the record is exported & then needs to be weeded out if not needed in the report data. When searching for an individual, one can enter just a part of the name, but what comes up doesn't always match what's been entered. Even when a match does show, it's not always the top choice.

For me the connection between Membership & Financials makes my work seemless!

Changing from another software to Shelby had it's challenges but I think all conversions do! The way Shelby does not really 'track' visitors for reporting or historical purposes has also been a challenging change for us.

That it is cloud based, love the app and being able to use the software where ever I happen to be working. The overall look of the site is fresh and fairly user friendly. Easy to get around and update profiles. Check In was not an option with V-5 so that has been a nice feature. We love the ability to create forms as well, really has helped us with many events.

Reports!! Headers, dates, reliability of the data is really poor. V5 gave us way more options for creating and saving reports that are used regularly. The Directory feature needs work as well. Would like the pre-set configurable fields to be more flexible.

I like the connectedness between membership and the financials. This is why we went with the membership. I also like the calendar.

I don't like the absence of some items. E.g. it doesn't email me when a staff member requests time off through the portal. This is not user friendly.

It's entirely web-based, so it can be used anywhere. It comes with mobile apps for major mobile device platforms, so getting to data when not at a computer is easy. Creating individuals and adding them to families is simple and the UI is fairly pleasant to use. The integration with Shelby's giving/donation service works well and the software allows members to see their giving in simple, easy...

Read more

There's no support for custom domains (e.g. "members.mychurch.com") Reporting is too simple in many cases and there's not enough customizability for the data that the system can hold (e.g. being able to generate a report on which members are missing photos). Volunteer management is still very limited / non-existent. Churches that need to see a high level view of which members are doing what should...

Read more

It is cloud based. Our congregation can log in and edit their own record and see their own giving. The calendar, form creation, check in and email service are part of the package. I think the forms work the best of most any aspect of the system. Used to use Jot form, Constant Contact, PlanningCenter, and EMS for forms, emails, check in, and calendar. Now just one system.

So many small things that don't quite function the way we would like. None of the systems that I mentioned above : forms, calendar, email, check in - work as well as the individual systems that we used before. Forms is the closest to Jotform, but the other 3 do not function as well as the prior system we used. Too many things for me to list them all: Constant contact - we could see data regarding how...

Read more

I love using Shelby. The ease and accessibility is user-friendly. I love the many options I have when printing reports.

We utilize the send email/text/voice option several times a week. One problem that we have run into is sending texts to our Spanish speaking ministry. Spanish involves many accent marks and symbols. An accent mark in one word can completely change the word. In the past when we have sent a mass text from the Shelby app in Spanish, it never goes through properly. There will be a "?" where there was supposed to be an accent or symbol. I have called the support number listed and talked with a representative. He had never encountered this problem and said he would call me back. I never received that call, and that's ok. I know this is a minor issue and not an immediate issue to be addressed. This would be a huge help to our ministry if there could be a Spanish option for Shelby.

Honestly I can't think of anything that I can say that I like about this software. I've worked in 3 different churches and used multiple programs and this is by far my least favorite of them all.

This software is not really user friendly. The upgrade from Shelby V5 to ShelbyNext did not go well. The mapping between the two versions needs work. None of the custom reports we created in V5 came over to ShelbyNext. It is very expensive compared to other programs and they lock you into multi-year contracts that you cannot get out of. This is meant more for very large churches. The Shelby Financials is very difficult and time consuming to use it actually caused a Bookkeeper to quit. The Shelby customer service is not very responsive. We almost always have to leave messages and wait for call backs and a good majority of the time when you call you get a recording saying they are in a meeting or away at training or closed for some reason.

If you are a Shelby user, currently using V5, you will love this newer version. The cloud based product is incomparable in ease of use. Our congregation loves having the church directory in an app.

The reporting is completely different from V5 and takes a while to get used to.

Ministry leaders have easy access to member information, groups, and ability to contact them from anywhere using the mobile app or computer. Permissions are easy to customize for various groups of users (staff in different programs, volunteers, members, group leaders, etc). Data is easy to update. Features work well together to automate routine tasks--forms, workflows, online giving, etc). Phone and online support is excellent, whether it is for a quick question, a complicated problem involving multiple people and/or features, or a software fix that is necessary.

While the canned reports are good, the options for custom reports are extremely limited in Membership. With very large groups, entering individual attendance data is frequently slow. Attendance reports for individuals in a group over time are not possible in the system. For a member in multiple related groups (we track worship attendance, with each service time/location as a separate group), it is nearly impossible to get a quick overview by individual or by group.

Shelby Membership helped us track all of our volunteers and church members. We could run reports and keep track of volunteer teams.

While we could run reports, we weren't able to get custom things that we needed to be able to track volunteers and schedule volunteers for serving. There were many other things that our staff got frustrated that Shelby couldn't do to help with day to day task that we needed. The overall look and use of Shelby wasn't super user friendly either.

I love that you can access the software via the internet at anytime instead of having to be on the church's network. The phone app is awesome and we truly love it as a staff. Additionally, I really like the new interactions for ministering to our members.

We converted our office over to Mac computers. We use a scanner to scan contribution checks and it is not compatible with Mac. Very frustrating.

It is much easier to access data across the system. I can go to a member page and access groups or attendance in a click and then back to the member's page.

The name-tag system is very slow. We have check in for our Nursery Department. The system is designed to enter a child in attendance and print a name tag. Name tags take much too long to print out and we have found that we have to send parents on and deliver name tags later.

We'd like to troubleshoot with your church. Please reach out to our support team. We are here to help!

This software was easy to integrate from V5.

Things we had in v5 (selections and listings reports) are no longer easy to use. Changes are harder when moving people from one "group"/Class to another. Inputting giving is harder in that you have to enter each amount separately instead of a person giving to multiple things. Birthdays are hard to do when we don't get a year. Having to "show all" or next page is also a problem. Starting all over when you are checking attendance is a problem. Not being able to share reports across users. Not having names/address/DOB etc on attendance roles.

Its is nice seeing the individual person's information on one screen. It is fairly easy to use.

There is only a canned contribution statement, and I would like to be able to add some features. There is no way to show who the memorials and honorariums are for in Contributions. Donors like to know who they gave their money in memory of or in honor of. There is no way to indicate that a person does not want their statement mailed. There is no way to indicate miscellaneous persons who are added...

Read more

I absolutely love the app and that our church members can access their Sunday School Class members, etc. One of my responsibilities is making care calls, and I can pull up the individuals on the app instead of going back to the office to look up their teacher and deacon.

The fact that when we add a visitor to our choir rolls, they don't show up for attendance; they have to be re-entered (at least that's the way it appears to me). Since we have to "pay" for each individual, we are limited to registering the visitors just to a children's choir, for example.

I like how everything is in one spot with ShelbyNext and there are customizable options. You can track almost anything with groups.

I do not like the how their isn't a system log on the calendar.

Mobile App was easy to use and makes ministry “in the field” more possible.

The conversion process was not as well managed as I have experienced with other companies in the past.

lots of different features and ways to use the software easy to use and learn good software for registration for events

Working in Children's Ministry, we frequently need to send emails to parents, but there isn't an easy way to do that without creating a list. You can't do it just from an event sign-up or from a list of kids. You have to create an excel worksheet to do that.

Some reports are easier to attain and print.

I can't see last contributions on this new system and some reports I'm not able to pinpoint information to get a report on this information. When I called ShelbyNext support - they could not help either. Also - recently, after I've inputted the attendance for our Sunday morning - after hitting save - all members of our church come up as "present". I've had to manually "excuse" members so that the attendance for that week would be accurate. Also - when inputting attendance - I don't like that I have to type the person's name in to mark their presence-I liked Shelby 5 where I could type the last name and click on all family members that were present.

The browser based platform allows the user to drill down and open multiple screens, very useful for processing donations, confirming gifts, membership status, and updating donor info on the fly. Workflows and interactions give our pastors a road map for following up with members and prospects, whether a desire to join our church, an upcoming surgery, or other needs - no one falls through the cracks,...

Read more

The most noticeable shortcoming, to me, is the inability to see who received group emails and contribution statements via email, who didn't, and which emails bounced back as invalid for whatever reason. It's impossible to get correct emails from members and prospects when you're not aware that the email you have is invalid. I understand this is being addressed, but it should be a priority. There's a learning curve to ShelbyNext Membership, although I believe there would be with any software other than basic membership management for a small organization. Both our Membership Coordinator and I are still learning nuances and new ways to handle things.

It's a really solid product overall. The best features are it's ability to easily enter, edit, combine or delete member records. The combining of duplicate records is ESPECIALLY useful. It transfers all information, including giving information, to the chosen record and misses nothing. Again, an excellent tool indeed. Plus, the entire package is just user friendly. It doesn't require indepth instruction to use and find needed information about an individual member, a group or team, and so on. Finally...the email function that allows emailing end of year giving statements is excellent.

I cannot really identify a significant downside to this software package. It simply does the job in an efficient, easy fashion.

The portability and distributed nature of the cloud database keeps everyone on the team and in the church connected and up to date. There is ongoing enhancement that helps make the product more user friendly. The security of the data and the ongoing updates and the redundant backup process reduces in-house IT staff time.

The giving reports are not accurate. When you run a demographic of givers from three years ago against current date, the current data is wrong. The program does not look at the dates. We live in a complicated world and we must be able to show through reporting tools how the giving is coming in to the system. Shelbynext does not do this well.

1- We like the accessibility on mobile devices. 2- Allowing various users to have access to specific groups has been great in terms of communication & attendance. 3- Overall appearance & ability to view information have been enjoyed by our users. 4- Search tools have been very useful (except that we cannot easily report once the search is completed).

1- Reporting options are very limited so the data has to be manipulated through Excel. This is not easily done by most of our users, so the burden of reporting rests on one individual. It would be nice if reports could be run right out of Shelby including the data fields the user chooses. 2- We have 'snowbirds' and the use of 2 addresses is not precise at this time. We do input addresses with corresponding...

Read more