My church is - at last - in the process of evaluating church management software offerings so that we can get a better hold on lots of things - mainly membership and ministries. The solutions we are considering include web access for various functions, some - such as calendaring - overlapping functionality already represented in our WEC site. I don't expect the choices to be too difficult as we decide which "calendar", for example, to use when we roll out the new solution, but I would appreciate any pointers anyone can offer as we evaluate church management solutions. I think I know pretty well what functionality we're looking for, but, from this forum, I'm more concerned with coexistence issues with WEC and TYPO3.

One issue, for example, is whether there is a way to have a single log-on honored in both apps. Of course part of the answer depends on which package we choose, but what facilities exists within WEC/TYPO3 to accomodate that requirement? What other types of coexistence issues should we be looking at as we evaluate web-based software packages?

David,

TYPO3 does have single signon support. Since we have not had the need, we have not tried the available extensions. But I know it is used. In fact, it is used on TYPO3.org to allow a common account for all the TYPO3-related sites.

In Him,
Mark

Well, as far as WEC/TYPO3, you probably have a lot of flexibility to use whatever APIs are provided for the system. I know that Fellowship One offers Data Exchange, but nobody's coded against Data Exchange for TYPO3 that I'm aware of (disclaimer - I work for Fellowship Tech). However, I am aware of several customers who have managed to integrate the login of their web site with F1 with very little trouble. From what I understand, that takes some planning, but shouldn't be too bad.
That portion of the process should be pretty similar - people create an account to the church web site, that is stored in the web site's DB. That same info can be passed over to the other system in order to keep the accounts in sync.

I can't speak too much about a lot of the other Web-based ChMS systems out there as I don't have first hand knowledge of them. I've seen a couple of them, but am not a daily user. Shelby/Arena has the advantage of running on a local SQL Server machine, which means that you have access to the data directly through SQL Server. However, you'd still have to work out the interface to TYPO3 and if your SQL Server is hosted somewhere other than your Web Server, you're kind of back to the beginning.

As for evaluation, do that based on your needs and your desired features as well as what you plan to do with the system. There are lots of great systems out there, but all of them are different and you have to look at whether or not it works for your congregation. Check out various blogs and you can see what people think of the systems. If something's not mentioned heavily, it may not have a lot of adoption yet so would require a little more digging.

For co-existence, I think you'll find that a lot of the WEC functionality really is different than what a ChMS offers. Most ChMS systems are designed to handle finances to some extent, attendance, how well you're keeping in touch with someone, etc. A lot of that is sensitive information and requires careful thought to make available elsewhere. WEC is more designed to be a web portal into what's going on at your church and keeping your members connected with each other. It offers a lot of flexibility and functionality, but is not really designed to handle the core ChMS functions.

Probably the biggest co-existence issue I can think of is that your data might get into silos. WEC will contain one set of data. Your ChMS will contain another. Which is correct? How do you know? If someone changes their information in your ChMS (Address, phone, email) should it also change in WEC? What about the people who have registered on your web site, but are nowhere in your ChMS? Who's contacting them and inviting them to grow?

I would definitely put your questions to the sales teams you're working with. See if they can get you in touch with some people who have handled single log-on scenarios. Of course, you know best what areas you want to retain in WEC and which would likely move. That's also a good question to ask. The more you can learn up front, the better your decision will be.

-Peter Schott