Release Notes - 23rd March 2009

Headline Enhancements

• Profile Editor Component

  Some of our customers have told us that they want their users to be able to sign-up for their sites with a minimum amount of hassle, and that they'd rather collect additional information later.
  
  So, we've created a new "profile editor" component, making it possible to embed "my profile" updating into your custom layouts. You can now create a very simple registration form, e.g. name and e-mail only, for quick sign-up to a mailing list group, while maintaining a more complex registration form for users who wish to be full members. In addition you can create customised registration forms for the different areas of your web site.
  
  By using a very simple registration form in conjunction with a series of “profile editor” components on subsequent group pages for logged in members, you reduce the barrier to initial sign-up, whilst allowing you to capture additional details later by driving your users to other areas of your web site.
  
  The "profile editor" can be used to capture the standard user data (name, email, address, etc) plus any global group notes that have been selected to be editable within the 'My Profile' area. For example you could use the "profile editor" to create a form to capture the particular skills that your members can contribute.
  
  The "profile editor" component can be added to a layout in the same way as any of our other components. This new component is located within the 'user account' component category.
  
  
• Component Standardisation
  We're always trying to think about how we can make the system easier for you to use, and so we have started a major overhaul of all of our layout components, in order to standardise the user interface and functionality offered by each component. By having a consistent interface between all our components, they will be easier to use as well as allowing us to add new options more easily to all the components in the future. In this release we've concentrated on standardising the way you pick which groups the components apply to. There's much more to come, and over the coming releases you'll see us rolling out further upgrades, e.g. standardising the filtering and sorting options on modules.
  
  
• Article list - Tag filtering 'Tagging' is an exciting feature that we added in a recent release, which means you can add keyword 'tags' to articles, events and audio/video media (Watch a video out about tagging).
  
  In this release, we've made the feature even more useful by adding an option to the article list component. The article list component, which displays a list of articles from a particular group, now has a "filter articles by tag" option. You can set this new filter option so that only articles that have been tagged with specific words will be displayed in the article list. This gives you excellent control over what appears in your article lists, and allows you to draw in articles from different areas of your site. For example, display only articles tagged as 'event' within an upcoming events article list on your front page.
  
  
• Further Component Enhancements
  We've added a few other features:
  
  • You can now display events and articles from across the whole site on any page of your web site (previously this was only possible on the homepage).
  • We've given you the option to include 'group homepage' articles within an article list.
  • You can now display non-featured articles as a list or as grouped articles (where applicable).
    
    
• Payment Group Upgrade
  Payment groups are a type of group within ChurchInsight where membership requires a separate registration and has an associated cost. The applications for this type of group are numerous - from setting up one-off or regular donation schemes, and conference bookings, to "premium content" areas and "product of the month" clubs.
  
  Over recent months, we've made a number of significant enhancements in this area of the system, introducing default cancellation options and auto-suspension rules.
  
  In this release we've done some work behind the scenes, fixing bugs and strengthening infrastructure, to pave the way for another series of big new features. Watch this space in coming releases for more automation to help you manage your registrations more efficiently, including auto-approval of edits and more default options to minimise the need for admin intervention.
  
  

• Other enhancements and bug fixes

  • iTunes podcast feed will now include the individual artists that have been added to the recording properties.
  • Record creation date can now be queried for organisations.
  • Blog post limit increased from 20 to 200 posts.
  • More performance enhancements.
  • Media list component now allows the selection of a specific media folder. (It previously allowed only the selection of group folders).
  • Podcast title and description have been reinstated on the default podcast feed.
  • Send mailing from an organisation query issue fixed.
  • Links in HTML System email now correctly created as absolute links.
  • The shop order confirmation email on screen merging has been re-instated. This also includes a mail merged test that can be sent.
  • "Void oustanding amount" option added to Payment group cancellation options.
  • Columns added to the financial assignments report - 3 new columns:scheme_id, payment_group_id and registration_id can now be added to the financial assignments report export.
  • The media upload tool has been upgraded to the latest version.
  • Top level menu item links in footer component now use the new search friendly urls.
  • Some data grids in the Web Office couldn't be reverse sorted correctly -  for example the sorting by registrant on payment groups. This has been fixed.
  • The Web Office organisation description box dimensions have been increased.
  • Fixed javascript error when disabling a login that had no email address.
  • The missing Date of Birth label has been re-added to the "my profile" page.
  • The order display in the Web Office now shows the item type of items at the time the order was placed.