Soft launching

As promised a few weeks ago, today is the day we plan to launch the new Church Social redesign! And while we're moving forward with that, we've decided to do a "soft launch" of the app first, only making it available to administrators and statisticians for now. There are a few reasons for this:

First, a number of congregations have reached out to us expressing concerns with launching the redesign without them having the ability to try it first. It's difficult for Church Social administrators to update their congregations on the upcoming changes if they themselves haven't been able to login and look around. Doing a soft launch gives administrators a chance to familiarize themselves with the new app, and provide documentation to their congregations before the official launch.

Second, we're nervous about launching an update of this scale without a little manual testing from the congregations first. While we've done everything we could to make this a great piece of software, it's always possible for bugs or other issues to exist. Doing a soft launch gives us a chance to "kick the tires" before releasing it to all members.

Third, there are still a few pieces of the app, specifically the reporting tools, that we're still finishing up. We're probably only a day or two away on being done those features, but obviously can't launch without them being complete.

So, here's the plan: If you're a Church Social administrator or statistician, expect an email from us later today explaining how to login to the preview app. You will have ten days to test the new Church Social. Assuming no major issues arise, we plan to release to all members on February 10, 2018.

—Jonathan Reinink