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ChMS
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT
Church Windows
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Recommended
Jason P.
Associate Pastor of Administration
Religious Institutions, 51-200 employees
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Jason P: My name's Jason. I'm associate pastor of administration and finance at a church, and I give...
Saralyn W.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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Membership side changed way too much from the previous V5 version. Some upgrades were improvements while others set us back from what we like and find useful for our ministry.
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.
Virginia W.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
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The support has always been outstanding -- every individual I've worked with is friendly and super helpful. And the crowdsourced support (online) gets good answers to your questions too. The software is easy to use -- only a few things I needed to train the secretary to use it effectively. The most complex part is maintaining groups using automated rules (like the church directory, or recent attenders, recent givers, etc.)
SaaS (hosted in the cloud), smart phone App available, easy to train church staff, strong functionality and great support
When we went live (I haven't had a chance to check lately) there were a few limitations: 1) the integration with ShelbyNext Financials for Giving, 2) user-friendliness/ease of doing sunday school check-in or congregation attendance, 3) cost of connecting with and using on-line giving service.
Jim G.
Religious Institutions,
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Have been a customer of Shelby Service products for over 20 years. Service and responsiveness is the cornerstone of what Shelby offers when it comes to operational use and implementations. No calling to get Ticket number and waiting for a response, no frustration in the CSR not understanding what you are asking and having someone else call you back after another waiting period. Willing to hand hold admin people on the phone and using webconnect to solve the issue or train the worker. Offering a web based Prodsuct (Arena) that allows us to virtually do what we need to do in and present it in a way that our church expects to see it and identify it.
Sometimes the bug fixes take longer to get fixed than they should.
Daniel N.
Accounting, 51-200 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Membership database and communicate with members is the key to this software. Highly recommended if you want to follow up with your member with new technology cutting age
Be able to have membership database was one of my favorite. Create the group for your bible study. Connecting with members and send their giving statement via email or mail.
So many features to learn but overall this product worked really well in long run. Keep finding a way to simplify the software will be helpful. Also not be able to edict automatically giving is a little challenging but it is manageable.
Koko S.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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There are a lot of great things about the ShelbyNext membership software but unfortunately there are still quite a few things that need to be worked out.
When there are no glitches I love the forms and the calendar side of shelby next .
The poor customer service. I rarely ever receive any feedback after I have either made a phone call or emailed. It also appears that they are still working out a lot of glitches and it’s very frustrating when you depend on a software and it doesn’t work properly at least 99% of the time.
Anonymous Reviewer
Verified reviewer
Religious Institutions, 51-200 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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Love the way you can tie together a profile and giving seamlessly. Annual giving statements are easier and we are all cloud-based!
It was pretty stressful migrating from CCB to ShelbyNext. It was worth it after weeks of cleaning out a dirty CRM database.
Peggy M.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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So far, haven't used it enough to come up with a good list, but it's working out well for me.
Ran labels for the first time, and it was so much easier than old Shelby. Much more trimmed down in the amount of stuff retained. I am still learning....so I'm not the best one to go into too many details. Running records seems to be easier, as the old system was SO difficult! I like being able to see the various groups and checking off the ones I need to access and print.
Can't put in a birthdate for someone unless you know the year born (automatically plugs in the current year). Have to use the mouse more. I though looking up a record by name was a little easier with the old system. I may be wrong but I'm hesitant about putting in any visitor records because I know we have limited names we can store in ShelbyNext without being charged extra. But it DOES help me keep the system "cleaner" than the old one, as names tended to hang around too long. In attendance-taking...I don't like to have to state the date each time I check off an attendance roll. Would be nice to put the date in once and have it apply to all the rolls I'm doing attendance on.
Laura D.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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It seems that ShelbyNext is somewhat a step backwards from V.5.
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.
Annette F.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 1-2 years
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Overall, we like it.
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.
Carol P.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 1-2 years
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What I like most about this software is the consistency and ease of use. The searching for a member is easy and the advanced search comes in handy when you don't have enough information to locate exactly who you are looking for.
The least thing about the software I do not like is linking family members. I will admit is it easier than what I was used to in V5 but I think there should be an easier way to link family members.
Jodi O.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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We brought in a trainer to work with us directly and help us utilize some of the customization. We are keeping track of our visitors, regular attenders, and members data. We are able to manage our busy calendar and all of the financials are connected to the membership files.
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.
Anonymous Reviewer
Verified reviewer
Used daily for 1-2 years
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The best benefit is the ability to communicate and plan between our departments in a larger organization (1000 plus)
I love the child check in and security feature. I like the fact that you can check in your children and the ease with which we can contact parents should an emergency arise. I also like the room reservation, calendar and mass communication features. Shelby does a great job of allowing so many different and effective uses of their software.
Customer service can be slow to respond and often when they do, they assume the user is the problem first. There are sometimes glitches in the system as well that you have to call about or wait out.
Amy R.
Used daily for 1-2 years
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Communication with our staff and congregants. Being on the same page with one another inputting information and receiving data to keep our organization healthy and accurate.
I like the sharp look and the easy navigation to track members and create reports. I also enjoy having an app on my phone.
I don't like that when I have a ticket submitted for any areas of modules and I never get to hear the outcome of the status or the fact that the calendar is not doing what it's suppose to do and relying and trusting it will be fixed. Here I am 6months still waiting to get the malfunction fixed from software dept but no time frame when this will get fixed.
Ben J.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 6-12 months
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We are able to deploy information somewhat easily to volunteers for ministry which has been great.
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.
Santi K.
Religious Institutions, 51-200 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Organizing and communicate with my church members is easily done with ShelbyNext. Some of the most useful features that I use are reports, attendance, and mass communication. The ShelbyNext app is awesome tool, too.
Accessing the database via internet may become a challenge some times. That’s more of an internet provider issue which affects ShelbyNext. I’d love to see more available characters in the mass contact text messaging feature.
Martha R.
Nonprofit Organization Management, 501-1,000 employees
Used daily for 1-2 years
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We previously used Shelby V. Both products have a great deal of advantages in our congregational needs. ShelbyNext seems to be more user friendly that Shelby V.
This is an easy to use software for tracking membership, attendance and giving for the church. It is used almost daily. It can be shared with members of the congregation if so desired.
I would prefer an ease of doing reports/directories that can be manually edited. The current form is PDF which is not the easiest to edit without purchasing additional software.
Carol E.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Ease to use Different features Used for check-in for our weekend services and other events
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.
Jeff F.
Used daily for 2+ years
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Cloud based that can be accessed anywhere. Mass email works well for my group leaders. I like the constant updates and improvements.
Groups is used for both classes/groups and profiles. Checkin and wireless printers didn't work too well. We had to go with another child checkin system. When entering Notes, you can't search for them accurately. Shelby Mailroom should work to update zips and validate addresses in the software instead of a stand alone.
Melissa F.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Nice software, could use some ease of use upgrades. Really helping with keeping info updated; could also use some updates to tracking features!
Ability to sort and help create lists. Love the app version for giving and on-the-go numbers and addresses.
Not creative enough with data, ease of use and differences in desktop/app versions I find cumbersome. Calendar could be more flexible, especially with printable versions.
Kimberly M.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 6-12 months
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Still trying to get used to the new system.
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.
Becky G.
Religious Institutions, 51-200 employees
Used daily for 6-12 months
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We have had ShelbyNext since November, 2018 and I am just now feeling comfortable using it. Since I am not a computer person, I was not involved in choosing the software or setting it up for our church. I work with what I have. I do like viewing a family unit. Making changes to each record is easy to do. Overall it is fine for my responsibilities.
Promoting children was a much longer process than in Shelby v5. In the old Shelby version, each service could be submitted for promotion versus ShelbyNext where each group has to be promoted for each of our 4 services. Our groups per service ranged from 16 - 23 so it was a challenge and very time consuming to "move" each group to their new group.
Re Anne P.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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My overall experience has been great. It is so much better than the previous iteration, much more user friendly and visually appealing.
I love how easy it is to find a member and their information and create reports for specific information needs.
The way a SMS message in Mass Contact does not send as a full message but instead delivers as several out-of-order text with words broken up in odd locations.
Jayme S.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Was a large database to hold membership information.
A lot! Was very cumbersome to use, too many steps to create and run reports.
We appreciate the honest feedback. ShelbyNext Membership has a very aggressive development schedule that will continue to enhance many areas of the system. We hope you will reach out to either our support team or your Account Manager to request help. We want to make sure we are doing all we can to support your use of the software.
Shane K.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 1-2 years
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We like that it’s web based and it’s intuitive use. We don’t like that there are many challenges getting the reports we want from the system.
Web based application rather than installed software allows for flexibility of use. We like the function of empowering bible study leaders to take their attendance.
Not as flexible as v5. Limited reporting. Check in applications (last time we took a close look) wasn’t great.
Craig F.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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It's a useful tool to keep track of members and or facility. We use it for member information, group management, mass emails and texts, and resource management.
Web-based software and apps are available to use anywhere with flexible permissions for different kinds of users.
Branding and color scheme cannot be made to match our church website. There is also no way to connect app to or church website.