To effectively carry out my job as a pastor.

It creates ways for me to effectively carry out Pastoral Care with others, in a variety of different contexts.

This software while helpful, requires long updates to the computer depending on the computer you upload the program to. That is probably the computer's fault and not the product, yet I thought it was worth noting..

We have used this program for many years and seen it grow from good to great. With the cloud facility included now we have found it an invaluable tool for maintaining church records and making up to date information available and accessible to all staff at all times. The reporting capabilities are very powerful. The way the program works isn't always as intuitive as some other programs but easily learned. The privacy features are more than adequate and give confidence in using it. There are some features we don't use, for example the financial features. Being able to have multiple "churches" is a great feature and one we use to enable different groups to keep their own records. Overall this is a great program that saves us time, helps us keep track and stay people focused.

Powerful reporting tools. Great privacy protection. Keeps up to date information and data available at all times.

Not always ready to use.

You can back up your data? The program opens quite quickly.

Customer support is non-existent once you are set up. Interface is confusing and illogical. Functionality - attempted to do everything but nothing well

Pastoral Care has been a great addition to my office tools to manage our Church databases, directories and various ministries.

The latest edition is much easier to use than previous ones. The custom reports and directories are great and very easy to use now.

I would still like some more freedom to put some details into Custom forms without having to use a whole "group" of fields.

In 2007 The Caboolture Region Uniting Church sought to find software to manage membership details and to develop communication processes that worked more effectively with our members. The Pastoral Care program opened up other opportunities to manage congregational life and to respond to other problems within church management and administration. We have been using Pastoral Care since 2008 to initially manage membership rolls. As our use developed and the training for the use of Pastoral Care Program through the training programme in Toowoomba that particular year, we have increased the database of membership details to suit the management of three congregations. Today the program manages Rolls, Email communication on a weekly basis, Rosters for congregation worship preparation, Membership directory, Blue Card registration, Congregation and membership reporting for statistical purposes. We are starting to utilise the visitation and care of members this year as we commence ministry with two ministerial agents. This will allow better security of internal communication of pastoral issues. The resources for financial, library, venue booking and asset register are yet to be explored, as at this point they are managed by other methods.

Ease of use and seamless updates

We have found PC12 to be an amazing product that is an absolute gift to the church. The program does much more than we have even tried to do, the security is rock solid and support fantastic. I would highly recommend it.

Price, features, ease of use, security, flexibility, user manual.

If I open the program and then do not use it for a long period of time it will crash.

I have been using Pastoral Care for the past 15 years. In that time I have found it to be the best means of keeping the statistics of the Church in order. With each update, Pastoral Care has only got better.

Ease of use. Extent of Features

Cost

We began with Pastoral Care 10 and the program does lots of tasks. Our issue is with using the program - we don't find it intuitive or user friendly. It seems to be the kind of program and help area that points you in the right direction but leaves you to work out exactly how to produce the report or complete the task . We have worked out what we want to do over the last 10 years and written our own instructions for our office staff. We are all in the "over 50" category but nevertheless each one who has used/uses the program finds it a little difficult.

We recently migrated the software to a new server and had a few hiccups with remote access. I contacted customer support and our issues were solved immediately. A most professional organisation.

The software is intuitive and easy to use. The remote access via dropbox is an excellent solution denying direct access to our server.

It enabled attendance tracking and well as contact information, streamlining procedures.

It is a fantastic database service. The default fields are very comprehensive and you can add you own. It also organises it in a very simple manner. It has a huge range of reports and filters you can you to find and display what you are looking for, as well as contacting whole groups of people at once.

It doesn't handle multiple people accessing the database at the same time too well. It also has been prone to becoming very slow to load resources at times. It can also be challenging removing people from the database or separating families.

There are a few changes or inprovments I would like to sujest. One is, under the title 'individual condition' I think it woud be great to add 'member' as a choice. Because we have active people that call our church their home but they are not members.

user friendly

I do not find it easy to proform alot of the benifits in the program

I have heard good reports with this database and have found it to be user friendly. I am disappointed in the lack of training or professional development. There was a seminar in 2016 in Queensland but seeing we live in Tassie it seemed like an expensive exercise. Just wondering when there will be some sort of pd in Melbourne or Tassie. I volunteer my time at church and only have limited time to use it so any helpful hints, info would be great rather than just reading the online help tabs. Thanks!

there is plenty to learn, but I have limited time, easy to read and organised.

lack of help, time

We used this package for 15-years, until last year when we moved to another package. Unfortunately, there are some aspects that make it too 'Australian', such as the address formats. We also were requiring more from our CMS than PC could provide. Having said that I have fellow administrators in my city who love the software.

Easy to use

Limited customizability.

Overall very good. Previous requests for assistance have been dealt with quickly. However, when sending emails to groups or roster groups there is no provision to CC another person. This limits the use of PC as quite often someone outside the group needs to be copied in (this has previously been raised as help desk request)

A great way to keep an up to date database that can be shared with the Ministry team. Great tools for organizing rosters. Ability to keep data on attendance.

We have been using Pastoral Care since release 9, and we find that each new release brings a treasure trove of increased functionality.

It covers so much of our church's administrative and pastoral record keeping needs

the things I didn't like so much have been significantly improved in version 13

Feel very frustrated that despite downloading and printing all 1700+ pages of the Pastoral Care User Guide it's no real help when I want to ask a question such as "How do I start to create a directory for my church?" I am hoping to attend a training day asap. Currently I am picking my way through the maze and getting some results, the help icon is helpful some of the time but with no availability to ask questions one to one it is a very frustrating experience. Messaging has its place but nothing beats talking to someone on the phone to get immediate answers.

It is much easier to use than our earlier database. Finding specific information is easy. We don't use the software to its full capacity as yet, hopefully in the near future. Any support that we have needed has been by email. We have been satisfied with the response time.

Easy to use

That there is a new version update and costs!

I enjoy using Pastoral Care 12. It has made it a lot easier to keep various data bases for our church. I also really appreciate the online customer service which I have used a few times. So thank you for this awesome product.

As a leadership team, we find this program quite easy to use, enabling greater accountability between each other. It's simple to navigate and helps us keep on top of the pastoral care aspect of the church.

It's simplicity.

Updating between computers. Having to put in a request to visit.

This program is wonderful in keeping all the information about your people in one safe database. It is versatile as well as functional. I like its ability to generate bulk emails with specific criteria eg Worship Team. It is a must for effective and efficient ministry record keeping.

Easy to use and easy to create forms and reports from

I am waiting to do training so that I can learn the full extent of the functions of this program

Their target audience is helping churches stay on top of things and be organized and I think that as a team they really do care. I think this is evident in the features they have developed for churches benefits.

This is very confusing and slow software. Its full of insider language and just looks and feels dated. The pricing models are extremely confusing to wrap your head around and just overall makes working on these things not as smooth and efficient as we all would like.

I love using Pastoral Care 13 and would love to promote it throughout our Diocese, however it has not provided the level of functionality that we were expecting. Trying to use networking and cloud together, has proved to be difficult as we can't seem to get them to sync correctly. WA members need training availability. This would help immensely. If we could solve these problems and I was able to get the training I'm sure if would be better received in other Parishes here in WA.

I love the flexibility of Pastoral Care although there were some teething problems. The option to add extra fields for adding all sorts of information is great. The possible reports are endless. One thing which is not flexible is "condition" for family or individual, I would love to add some of my own for "grey area" attendees. I attended a training session which was very useful but the manual is set out for training, difficult to find things in it.

We have been using this program for many years and find it a useful way to keep information safe and in a usable form. There are many options available which would suit almost any group and any assistance we have needed has been given promptly, professionally and with understanding that not everyone is a computer wizard. This is always followed up to make sure it is now working satisfactorily and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this program and the customer service that goes with it.

We use PC13 mainly for the Church Directory and compiling the Duty Roster for each 3-monthly term. The product covers much more of church management than we need to use. I would like to see more enhancement in Directory design, particularly with photograph inclusions for each family entry, otherwise a great product that we use extensively. Cloud use of the database is a great asset, it allows remote access for home based work.