Easy to learn and to use. Helps us track everything from giving to attendance, as well as trends. On-line (as opposed to desktop loaded) software keeps the worry out of losing data. Affordable, even for a smaller church.

Realm is extremely user-friendly. I love that they have teamed with Vanco for donations/payments and the payments are recorded directly into the person's record in Realm. The pastor likes to do analytics and uses that feature all the time. I work in the contribution section every week and it couldn't be easier. The "icing on the cake" is the world-class Customer Service. After two quick prompts, a real person answers the phone within seconds. I don't get transferred. The person is very knowledgeable, friendly, polite, and most of all can answer my questions. They will also log onto my computer - with my permission - if that is the best way to help me.

I can't get all the reports I used to get in ACS People. Also, I have not found a way to link different families together (i.e. showing one family is a mother and father to another family). I also wish that Realm Financials would stop pushing back their timeline to include Payroll so we can switch from ACS Financials to Realm for that part of business, also.

The customer service has been good, and their demo was reasonably well done, though their app crashed for their employee multiple times. I asked some tough questions about features that they said they were still building, and they admitted that they really couldn't compete with planning center in terms of a service planning module, but other things seem pretty good. My preference would have been Planning Center overall, but our finance people pushed us towards Realm because of some of the options on that side, so I'm living with it and trying to figure out how to manage my volunteers and services in planning center while keeping our main database and pathways on Realm. It's not ideal, but Realm doesn't seem bad per say. One oddity was that Realm's marketing pitch included the fact that they were a family business. I love families, but "family business" to me is a point against when I'm dealing with a software development company - as a user I want excellence of design and programming with great customer service, not friendly staff who are also designing software. That being said, we haven't had any significant issues or feature limitations yet!

Because we were previously on ACS, it was easy to import previous data. The online interface is much friendlier than the old version, and it generally has good features and capabilities, but as with any database/CRM, it's all in how you set it up and implement use. Overall, it's a solid choice.

Being a Planning Center Services user who's dabbled in other Planning Center products, I prefer the integration and user interface of planning center. Overall Realm feels more PC than Mac - sturdy, but not as pretty and at times a bit frustrating with the number of clicks you need to do to get to where you want to go. It's functional, but it feels like it'll take longer for people to learn how to set things up and do things properly, which will impede good rollout and ultimately depth of functionality because of that.

While I am disappointed in its current messaging/ministry/engagement portion I cannot speak to the entire program. Since it is touted as a software that addresses all these church needs, I find it lacking on the ministry side. It seems more like this was added on rather than being an integral and integrated portion. My hope and expectation is that this capability will improve with time as the concept of a single system is very much needed.

The most favorable thing about this software is it intended as a single system for Church Management as well as ministry and group support. From the promotional videos it appears there is a very dynamic and interactive church management portion of the software to which I do not have access.

I can only comment on the ministry portion since I am not church staff and have no access to that portion. As an end user involved in leadership of several different ministries I was looking for this part of the program to be user friendly, attractive and engaging output, and easy to communicate and interact with group members. In its current format it does not support this type of need. It is a good membership listing but offers no analytics or graphical capabilities to the end user and really no ability to interact with the church. A standard e-mail system, which it should replace, is much more functional. The architecture of this portion of the software is very simplistic but not very simple. Finding where you need to go is difficult and getting back to where you previously were is equally difficult. There is a chat portion which is a nice idea but it tends to draw the user away from the program. The event posting has an RSVP but you can’t see all the names of those responding, only 1 or 2, and then the number of responders. There is minimal text formatting available. You can’t change font. or sizes, no bullet or number list, no centering. You can send a picture but it must be at bottom of message and will not accept a link. You can copy and paste but not pictures. You cannot change coloring of fonts or background.

I use Realm everyday for accounts payable, member management, and running reports. I create registry and non registry events, and send out emails to select individuals and/or whole groups. Realm makes it easy to keep accurate member information and run reports using the information gathered. It is an essential tool for our church.

I like the ease of use. If I can't figure it out on my own, there is a help option I can select that will walk me through anything I need help with. If I can't find it in the help section, I can call customer service and they are very friendly and excited to help me with anything I inquire about.

I would like the event set up to have more options.

Overall Realm is a good a product. It was first rolled out to small churches and it shows that. It seems that the programmers and decision makers still look at the small churches instead of larger churches when adding features.

It is a communication tool as well as a database. They keep improving Realm. Ease of finding duplicate entries. Customer support is the best in the industry.

There are many features that larger churches need to use the software the best and Realm does not seem to be in any hurry to provide those features. They make larger churches figure out work arounds which is never good. Difficult to get the needed reports for our auditor each year. Contributions is not done by the best practices for debits and credits. They line through entries when a charge back is made at the bank instead doing a debit, which shows a money trail for audit purposes.

Tech support is very helpful if you just need basic help in making something work. They don't seem to know the "big picture" to make suggestions or improvements on what you are asking. However their developers are very accessible, so I like that I can reach someone else with a question or when I need guidance on setting up something.

It is very user-friendly and easy to train new employees on it. Being a new product, they are constantly updating and improving on the features. It was developed from years of software experience, so it is very relevant in everyday church use.

Several of the newer releases address needs we've been asking for, but they are done in a somewhat complicated way. It addresses the need, but not as directly and simply as I would like. I feel like they need to take a step back from some new features and refine and improve what they currently offer.

We enjoy the products ability for us to track giving, children/youth that are registered to track for attendance. We track worship service attendance that is required by our Diocese and of course giving is imperative and the system allows us to do this an efficient matter.

The best part of the feature that all religious institutions could benefit from is the giving module. The online giving is very easy and user friendly and processing of the gifts is very easy for the administrators of the church. We recently rolled out groups and have a BETA group using it. They are very excited about the capabilities and have added their own members and published documents for them to use and communicate. We use the product for event registration and that process has been easy as well, it is intuitive and provides a lot of options for tailoring to particular event needs.

Currently the serving module needs to be built out more for us to fully utilize it. We are trying to avoid having the serving team send emails back and forth about coverage and needs. We also would like more customizable features when it comes to background color and newsletter type communications.

We all enjoy Realm and what it can do for us and our church. We do not use the Financial piece, but hope to someday in the future.

This software is now used by our entire staff. We all speak Realm language and we keep our teams trained.

Probably how some of the reporting exports are not all the same. The opportunity to expand on queries and customize downloadable data would be great. Another thing is that there isn't a calendaring program that replaces Facility Scheduler. To have this all in one place would be good.

Compared to our previous ChMS, Realm is very good, and the frustrations are surpassed by a solid experience and feature set.

Realm does almost anything you would need a church management software suite to do, and does it well: tracking attendance, giving, financial transactions; keeping family and sacramental records; providing good communications and volunteer coordination features. It even integrates with ConstantContact and the web interface is intuitive and keeps improving.

Realm does so much so well--but it isn't good at anything out of the box. For instance, each household in Realm must have a "head of household" --an antiquated notion of family dynamics that isn't necessary. The structure of reports--and what reports are available by default--are limited and can be frustratingly to customize on the fly.

I was responsible for rolling out Realm to my church. The training we received was great and the support resource materials helped out a lot. Unfortunately, my budget and team was super small, so it didn't go as well as I would have liked. Many of the congregants are very resistant. I use Realm for taking attendance weekly and I maintain the directory. I am also responsible for all training. Everything is really easy to work with except the congregation themselves.

I've worked with many databases in the past, including helping to build them from the end user point of view, and Realm is the best I've used. It is very flexible and user friendly. The Help feature is really helpful and the rare times I've had to contact customer service, they've been super friendly and very knowledgeable. I love using Realm!

My biggest complaint is that I have some members in my groups that do not receive the Realm emails when I send them out. I've called customer service a couple of times and have been directed to look for the emails in Spam, but that is not always the problem. I don't understand why some emails don't get received.

People are less likely to fall through the cracks when put on a pathway. Follow up is handled better and more likely to happen.

Being able to look up contact information of our attenders on my phone when I'm away from the office.

When a something is listed on my and a co-worker's task list and the co-worker completes the task, it is still listed on my task list. I have to check with her to make sure she did it before I can take it off of my task list.

I work on our membership records, groups, the Realm app, events, registrations, classes, and even meals. I able to schedule all of these in Realm and push them out to a congregation of over 4,000 with relative ease. As a communications tool for a large congregation, Realm is our software of choice.

I like that, when used properly, Realm allows us to create profiles and provide a 360-degree story of a member's engagement with our church. Births, baptisms, marriages, deaths are dome of the events that we need to tell a member's story. Using the attachment feature allows us to attach all letters, documents, certificates, an communications that allow us to tell these stories. Realm allows us the option to digitally replicate the traditional church records and ledgers that we keep. It allows all of these documents to be easily accessed by out staff. We also find that Realm is critical to our mission when we are preparing for our annual Charge Conference. Being able to pull reports and statistics through setting up custom queries is critical to this mission. I also like that we can add specific attributes, roles, and committee descriptions that apply to the life and the ministries of our church. I taken on a project of digitizing decades of church records and documents and connecting them to member profiles. I would never have been able to accomplish this with such ease and accuracy if I did not have Realm as my primary software.

There is an occasional hiccup where we receive error messages, such as "504 Gateway Timeout" or "Internal Error." These are usually easily resolved when we contact the service center.

This product is not as robust as some of the other big products out there, but it has almost everything you need to get the job done. Many organizations do not need or want all the bells and whistles that those products have, nor the cost they come with. Realm manages people and their contributions with ease. It has the ability to use groups to track attendance and facilitate communication among the groups/ministries of the church. The customization fields allow for tracking needs specific to individual ministries as well. For attendance, there is a check in system that can be utilized that can be set up to provide security labels for children's ministry. It can also be used to check in for Sunday School or other events as well. This is tied to the attendance so that if the check in is utilized, the support staff/volunteer posting of attendance is reduced as well. Then you have the support. If you ever run into a question or issue, there are wikis to help you along. The wikis are not just a long list of stuff, but are set up so that when you click the "?" button, it opens the wiki that is specific to the page you are on, so no more searching for what you need in a long list. If that doesn't help, you always have the support team standing by so you can call and get assistance as well. They are always ready to serve and never talk down to you because you ask a "dumb" question.

I like that the software developers take the time to listen to the users and frequently upgrade the software with features that users need, not what they think we should have. The UI is intuitive and easy to use. The wikis are robust and use lots of pictures so there is not confusion as to what needs to be done. The support team in knowledgeable.

The search engine is not as robust as some other products, but that is improving as the product develops.

Overall our church and it's members enjoy using Realm. We just got it in 2017 so don't have a lot of experience with it. I do think the communication functions will be a big help to us. Your support staff has always been very professional and friendly. I think in 5 years we will be using it as our main communications tool.

The cost is probably the best feature for us as a small church. It also allows our members and friends to donate an online gift and have it immediately posted to the member's statement. It is also very user friendly.

When creating the photo directory with family information, there is no "refer to" for couples who have different last names (i.e., Bob Warren and Karen Fisher, Nathan Kotecki and Garrett Southerland). Access ACS had that feature. When creating a .pdf file of the directory, there is no way to password protect it without running it through a different program. Access ACS had that feature. In the photo directory, there is no way to flag various people (like ordained minister, staff, non-member friend, etc.) The .pdf document created is static, not dynamic (in other words, you can't click on an email address and go straight to an email, nor can you cut and paste phone numbers, addresses, etc.) The mobile app for Realm Connect opens automatically to the "news" feed. Since we don't use the news feed, people who are using the app to get contact information do not easily find that information. It would help if we could choose which feature Realm Connect opens with.

We are comparing PowerChurch, Servant Keeper and Realm. Of the three, Realm is the most robust, organized and simplest to jump right in without a lot of training. We can track records in our Adult Spiritual Education program. We can track visitor outreach. We can track attendance collectively and individually. Gift entry is awesome! You must enter a batch first, meaning the full dollar amount of your deposit; then you enter individual gifts against that dollar amount. If the final figures do not match, you know immediately that you have a data entry error. Can't tell you how much I love this feature! Also, they have a super robust wiki site that explains every facet of their software. The info is broken down into bite-sized, easily digestible chunks. It is presented through a combo of pictures, videos, and text. Very well laid out; easy to navigate. I found things in the free demo that made no sense to me. The help button to me to the wiki site where I was able to easily get my question answered. I rarely use the help on other software programs because it's confusing and not worth the effort. By contrast, I spent over an hour each with the folks from PowerChurch and Servant Keeper to get help making sense of their software. All 3 solutions are highly customizable. But, Realm is the most organized. For example, our education program includes 2-3 years of classes. I need to track students through classes and know when they've finished. Both PowerChurch and Servant Keeper allow me to create a customized tracking system. But each makes use of multiple screens that take some effort to navigate between. Because this info is entered periodically (not daily), I'm concerned my volunteers will need to retrained every time they use it. Realm offers a solution where everything is on one screen. No complicated navigation. Can't guarantee a volunteer won't need retraining, but they'll only have one thing to learn and remember with Realm. It's the right price point for a church of our size. The ONLY reason for the 4-stars overall is that the accounting module is extra and I cannot find the cost for it ANYWHERE on their site. Very frustrating! Also Realm does not integrate with MailChimp. Just Constant Contact (my least favorite email solution). If it weren't for the data conversion, we'd be able to get started for under $200! You can't beat that kind of value. The only reason we wouldn't go with Realm is that I get outvoted. :)

Sending messages quick, keeping reach of giving for management stand point and being able to have one location for everything you need.

Initially setting this up was a little of a hassle from when we migrated. But the customer support was super amazing and helped so much!

A plethora of reporting options! Master membership rolls. Class check-in (and child safety/security). Communication with members on Connect.

It appears that ACS has put in a lot of homework in looking for things that a church might do and how they actually do business. The Connect aspect is only as useful as the people who use it, but the Realm engine in very powerful and has a lot of features that just about any church would want or need. The cloud-based platform is also helpful because 1) our software/interface never need updating and 2) there is no risk of us losing our data. The reporting options are also very flexible: our denomination requires annual reports on numbers and finances, and (I think) we can create enough custom reports to cover these annual reports all within the confines of Realm! That is a huge time saver no more spreadsheets!

Sending invites to Realm seems to be tricky, especially if a child has grown and now has an e-mail address. We can't just send an invite from the person's profile page (hint: make this an option). Also, in order to do child check-in or Sunday School sign-in sheets, there is a lot of layering that is required in order to get the final product. ONce complete, it is fairly simple on a weekly basis, but getting there can take some time (but not difficult time). Coming from a Database Administrator perspective (that's my job), I fully understand the need for such layers, as it keeps things working right, so this is not something that must be fixed. However, for the average user, it might seem tedious.

Not in any particular order: 1. Cloud-based 2. Communication Feature within Groups - our group leaders are loving this feature and are engaging more and more with participants in their groups. Attendance marking has also increased since converting to Realm 3. Dashboard/Reporting - helping us greatly in doing ministry effectively: reaching the disengaged, cleaning up data, and planning 4. Merging of duplicate records tool - very seamless and love the fact that the duplicates are automatically reported on the Dashboard 5. Pathways - LOVE that we can now keep track of where all of members and guests are in their spiritual journey or with their involvement at our church. 6. Online Giving - we've get over 100 New First-Time giver weekly since moving to Realm 7. Check-In Kiosk - our ministries who use this absolutely love how seamless and efficient the check-in process is now. We transition from ACS Checkpoint. Check-In Kiosk in Realm allows for a much smoother experiencing when checking in for children's church 8. The ACS support team that's been PHENOMENAL and dedicated to seeing us WIN with Realm!

1. Our church does A LOT of events throughout any given month - currently we've experienced some limitations within Event Registrations (i.e. being able to search for a specific event using keywords/tags). Our end user currently has to scroll down a very long list of events to find the event they want to register for. 2.

Our church started using Realm over a year ago. It is a wonderful software that provides great functionality, real-time data, and it's user friendly! Information is always just a couple clicks away and we delight in how well our members have received it! Using Realm has freed staff from spending great amounts of times trying to assemble reports because the data is already there. This allows them to focus on other, more important people and ministry driven tasks. One of the best features is the online giving! We're able to offer quick, easy, and secure online giving to our church members and even church visitors (plus TEXT GIVING)!! We are always amazed at how the ACS developers are constantly improving Realm. They take our input and suggestions of how the product can be even better, which is nice since we are the ones out in the real world using the software. We have a voice! Their customer service and support are without fail fantastic! Overall, Realm is just a really great product and we would recommend it to others without hesitation. It certainly allows us to work smarter, not harder, and it gives us the tools we need to run our amazing church! Thanks Realm!

Everything

Nothing really!

Realm has been a great tool in our organization. We use it every day to easily manage profile updates, create reports and so much more!

I just can't say enough about Realm! Once we got our organization set up with all the ministry areas, groups and individual profiles it makes managing and communicating with our members so much easier! There are so many features that make this product A+ If there ever is an issue or question, Realm has the absolute BEST support team ever! They are very courteous, knowledgeable, and professional and are very eager to help resolve any issues. AND we implemented the Realm Connect Mobile app and this has been a great add-on to our Realm use.

So far we haven't encountered any cons.

We are using Realm for both Accounting and the data management of our parish. I've appreciated how user-friendly it is to use and I especially appreciate that I can call and get a quick answer if I'm stumped when trying to do something. As a Parish Administrator it truly supports my ability to do my job - and I'm grateful for its continued excellence.

Ease of Use Fabulous support by phone Integrated online giving Continuous build out and enhancement Relevant to our work in the church Extremely beneficial User Conference annually

Unlike our use of the ACS On Demand software, it doesn't differentiate between pledge payments and general giving when we post the contributions to the GL. This is an enhancement I will be grateful for when and if it is done.

Could not be happier. They are always willing to help. Love that they listen to new ideas from their users.

The versatility. The ease of use for all ages. The phone app is great and getting better all the time. They update and create new things all the time.

The phone app is not as versatile as the computer app. The older generation is very leery of trying new things.

We have used ACS products for nearly 10 years and are so happy to leave behind the painful inhouse and shrinkwrapped systems we used to use. Our Realm Consultant is super knowledgeable and helped us determine the best processes,practices and scope for our ministry needs. Support is always available and super helpful. ACS is a true pleasure to work with.

The Realm team is working on a couple of functions that are important to our operations. They have released weekly enhancements and are quick with workaround solutions. They release enhancements weekly and seamlessly.

Probably the best part might be the database end. It's pretty good at keeping all the information for our people, and creates a nice directory.

One of the worst features is the lack of email options. The window to type in is about 2 inches high, and formatting is seriously limited. You would think with these limitations, Realm would work harder at integrating with third-parties, but they don't play well with others. I am constantly calling Realm to see if there is a solution to one problem or another, and every time I am basically told "we don't do that" and "we have no plans to do that". As a former IT/programmer this software is the worst... very frustrating to use... slow...