Church Online Platform updates releases.churchonlineplatform.com

We know following up with attenders is an important part of doing ministry online. To help your church create follow-up opportunities, we released the Sign Up Moment. This Moment encourages your attenders to create an account for your church online services.

Here's how it works: If an attender enters a chat name but doesn't create an account, they'll personally be prompted through the Sign Up Moment to create an account. The Sign Up Moment only appears to that individual, meaning all other attenders will not see it in their chat feed. Also, unlike other Moments, this Moment doesn't require configuration by an admin—it appears automatically.

To increase the likelihood of a guest signing up for an account at your church, guests will now have access to create a profile by selecting their profile button next to the chat input.

Guests can sign up for an account if they have not yet provided a chat name, and the profile button will temporarily display in a neutral state.

If a guest provides a chat name, their profile button will change colors and expose the first letter of their chat name. Similarly, if a User has an account but no profile photo uploaded, the profile button will change from the neutral state to a new color and expose the first letter of their chat name.

If a User has an account and has uploaded a profile photo, the profile button will appear with the profile photo.

With the intention of increasing engagement, and to increase the likelihood of guests interacting with Moments during your Service, we have changed the appearance of Moments to make them more prominent when posted.

From shopping to charitable giving to watching a digital fireplace glow, technology is very much a part of your attenders Christmas experience.

To help your church prepare for your online Christmas services this year, we've created a Christmas Online Playbook to help you build a digital strategy for your church—deciding things like how to invite attenders to your online experience, how to engage families, how to equip your volunteers, and much more.

Get your copy of the Christmas Online Playbook.

Just like you welcome people in your physical building, it's important to welcome guests to your church online experience. A new welcome banner has been added so your church can include a welcome message and encourage guests to create an account—allowing them to better connect with other Users during your Service.

If a User is not signed in to their account, the welcome banner will appear when they attend your service. Users will have the option to "Sign Up" or "Log In" to an account, as well as the ability to dismiss the welcome banner.

If a User is already signed in to their account, the welcome banner will not appear.

To help you follow up with guests after each Service, Admins can now export Users from Church Online Platform into a CSV file.

1. Go into the Admin and click "Users"

2. Select “Export Users" to download a list of users in the CSV file format

Note: This export will not reveal the password for users—only their Nickname, Full Name (if provided), Email, Role, Identifier, Joined date, and Last Login date.

Users are now able to see how many minutes have passed since a chat message was sent with a chat time reference below each chat message.

Previously on Church Online Platform, adding a new user to a church's account required an Admin to create the user's profile, including their password.

To improve the security of the platform, we have updated the system to change this workflow. Now, instead of adding a new user, an Admin can invite a new user to their church's account by sending an email invitation. The user, upon accepting the invitation, will then fill out their profile information, including a secure password, and sign up on their own.

To learn more about an attender and help foster a sense of global community, attenders and Hosts are now able to view a chat message in its original language.

We're excited to release access to our API so your church can leverage technology to better reach and engage your attenders through the Church Online Platform.

• Admins can now embed a countdown widget on their church website to let visitors know when their next Service will begin.

• Adding this feature requires a developer with experience connecting APIs.

• Please refer to our new Developer Support Site to learn how to implement the embeddable countdown widget.