Getting help - The Support Beacon
We've made every effort to create an easy-to-use, intuitive platform that anticipates the needs, expectations and workflows of our customers. Still, from time to time you'll inevitably have a question or need some help. So what help is available?
Online support articles
Most questions can be answered by our online support articles. In the bottom-right corner of every page in ChurchSuite is the Support beacon, giving you instant access to all of ChurchSuite's online support articles.
Support article suggestions are related to the page in ChurchSuite that you're viewing. You can also search by topic, phrase or keywords - press Enter after typing your search term to see a list of matching articles within the beacon.
Clicking on an article in the list will open the article to 'preview'. You can scroll and read the article within the beacon...
...or you can click on the article title to view the full-page article in a new browser tab.
If you're unable to find an answer to your question, click on the Ask option within the help beacon to raise a support ticket for the ChurchSuite team - typical response times are within an hour during UK office hours. Support is also monitored outside of office hours and at weekends.
The Support help beacon is available within ChurchSuite in both browser and app environments. You may also like to bookmark the support article library in your preferred web browser: support.churchsuite.com.
Case studies
In addition to the support articles covering each of ChurchSuite's modules, the help beacon includes a growing number of case studies, each written from the perspective of practical application - search in the Support help beacon for Case Studies.
ChurchSuite website
The ChurchSuite website includes a wide range of resources, including a dedicated Support section covering everything from support articles...
...to free training videos, webinars, user forms and an on-site training enquiry form:
There are also resources for developers wishing to use our API and JSON feeds, branding resources and a link to our demo website where you can explore and preview ChurchSuite's embeddable content for your own website:
The ChurchSuite website has further sections about our Pricing, Customer Reviews and a high-level Tour of each ChurchSuite module:
You can keep up to date with the latest news and updates from ChurchSuite through our Blog:
Finally, in the footer of every page in the ChurchSuite platform and on our website, we've provided direct links to pertinent information about Security, our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Acceptable Use Policy, Cookie Policy and our social media links.
Is there a printed instruction manual?
The short answer is that there isn't a printed instruction manual for ChurchSuite. We'll explain why, and then we'll give you a suggestion if you do need something in a printed format (if you can't wait for the suggestion, click here!)
Things change visually
The ongoing nature of developing ChurchSuite and the other related parts of the ChurchSuite ecosystem (My ChurchSuite, Apps, Connect, Donate, Embed etc) means we can't produce a definitive instruction manual. In addition to the new features we release, we're constantly improving and updating existing functionality too. This often results in visual changes to the user interface, which can quickly render screenshots or instructions out of date.
Things change functionally
In response to customer suggestions and our ongoing development plans, the functionality inevitably changes over time. Similarly, changes in internet security and data protection best practices mean that changes within the platform are inevitable to ensure ongoing compliance. Consequently, any printed commentary would become outdated.
Browsers and operating systems change
Like ChurchSuite, browsers and operating systems change; sometimes in response to bugs or security fixes; but certainly as they enhance their platforms to compete with other systems.
Platforms and devices change
With every new Android, Apple, and Windows operating system release and new device, this inevitably results in changes in ChurchSuite. Hardware requirements change over time as devices get older and new devices emerge.
Organisations change
Yes, resist as we may, sometimes your organisation changes too! New ministries, new staff/team, new ideas, new strategies and priorities. ChurchSuite exists to help serve churches and charitable organisations in meeting the demands of these changes. A good example is the implementation of multi-site functionality, which would create significant visual changes across every part of ChurchSuite - any printed instruction manual that pre-existed the addition of those sites would be out of date and incorrect.
The workaround...
Instead of a printed instruction manual, we have focussed on a more effective method of managing and communicating how ChurchSuite works, producing online support articles and training videos. New support articles can easily be produced in response to a new feature and existing articles can be updated when there are visual or functional changes.
Support Articles are accessible from every page within your ChurchSuite account when you're working in a browser environment (not apps) - they are fully searchable and context-suggested, which means depending on what you're doing, relevant articles will be suggested right where you're working.
Therefore, if you do need a printed manual our suggestion is to use the "print" option (using the printer icon at the top of every support article), to print a PDF file of just those articles you want in your manual. You can save these PDF-printed files locally on your hard drive and then compile them into an instruction manual (e.g. using a PDF tool such as Adobe Acrobat Pro). You can even annotate an article PDF, adding your bespoke notes or instructions. Your compiled PDF manual can then be circulated electronically - we discourage hard copies as the paper usage will be huge!
The ChurchSuite Team