Shelby Arena

Excellent database

Comentários: Overall I have had a great experience with Arena and would highly recommend it. The more we use it, the more we learn, the more we can do with it.

Vantagens:

Customizable Comprehensive Moderately easy to learn to use and teach.

Desvantagens:

must have a developer to make many design changes.

A long history of stability and scalability

Comentários: Overall we were able to get many things accomplished with our ministry to kick start a new era of tracking and managing congregant data, and were able to directly import check donations including scanned copies. We were also able to provide online event registration for the first time.
Despite our issues with it, I still am glad we chose it over many of the other systems we were also evaluating at the time.

Vantagens:

Arena allowed us to track congregants and have them sign up for events and more easily track and record donations. It gave us a single place to store congregant data, and to provide our congregation with a single username and password for everything our church did online.

Desvantagens:

It was not as easily customizable as we would like, and many of the issues we had couldn't be resolved by support. It felt like the features it came with out of the box determined what we could do. We ultimately switched away from it after a few years of use.

Way behind the times

Comentários: The people at Shelby are nice people, they just aren't up with the times. If they could get ahead and make things easier to use and more attractive or just add simple things like making their group search feature customization so it could be integrated into your existing website's design - and making everything platform agnostic so it would easier to use on tablets and phones, then they'd be halfway there. They're just so far behind and still not catching up that I would really recommend against putting your church management needs in their hands, because if you do you'll be stuck there.

Vantagens:

If you're using arena, it's probably because you used Shelby - they'll port your info from your old Shelby account making it easier to move from one system to the other. It is web based and it generally functions as a decent database.

Desvantagens:

If Shelby classic was stuck in the 1990s Arena is stuck in the early 2000's - Shelby is at least ten years behind with everything they do. The small groups search function isn't really useful and doesn't look good when integrated into a well-designed website. All the interfaces are archaic and difficult to use. It isn't intuitive or forward thinking in its interface. It seems stuck in the 80s and 90s when it comes to its way of thinking. It has no worship planning component, no event planning component, no options for creating calendars that are accessible or visible to the public. (though if it did have those features I have no doubt they would be difficult to use and unattractive.) Anyone who is knowledgeable about modern church management software will hate everything Shelby produces.

Shelby Next Membership Review

Comentários: Great customer service! Prompt and knowledgeable. It has streamlined our processes for tracking membership and visitors.

Vantagens:

Ease of use for both admin and membership.

Desvantagens:

Transition from previous software was a little rocky. Took too long.

User for 3 years, Arena is user friendly

Vantagens:

Easily accessible, able to locate files in multiple ways i.e phone #, email, b-day, areas of ministry. Well organized, provides for detailed info (W9s, areas where volunteering/ ministries, individual notes) & easy to edit. Address provides map/directions; feature pastor's use for visitation. Contributions used by Accounting Dept-- Fund Management allows for large number of purpose codes so donations can be categorized for easy access when doing reports. Batch Lists provide donor info; particularly useful when using ShelbyGiving which aids in identifying donors of Online Giving donations. Ability to use Check Scan for large volume of in-house donations to be processed quickly & provides ability to store records of all checks received--a very useful tool to provide copies of checks when bank disputes Deposit Total & deducts funds from account. Annual Contribution Statements can be easily printed for mailing & Contribution tab allows Accounting personnel to give donors quick info regarding receipt of check/donation or to generate statements on demand; a priceless addition which saves time when donor wants mid- year statement. Online giving also allows donors to access their own account at any time during year. Provides ability to email Contribution Statements rather than mail, an option we will use at end of 2018. Contribution analysis offers various breakdowns of data; providing useful info for Elders to make sound financial decisions.

Desvantagens:

Printing on tabs at top of individual's account info is too light, sometimes difficult to read. Print is small in body of forms. would like Arena to have longer access time; having to logon repeatedly is frustrating