Excellent database

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.

Pros

Customizable Comprehensive Moderately easy to learn to use and teach.

Cons

must have a developer to make many design changes.

I enjoy using Arena but find challenges in customizing it with only minor SQL experience.

ability to know more about the people in our church, ways to track involvement and collect data. An easy directory system to find out how to contact people, a snapshot of individuals and families--not just actual picture, but a glimpse in ways they are connected to our church. in a large church it helps to know more about people in the congregation.

Pros

I really like that it is comprehensive and we are able to customize to make it fit our specific needs. We can add notes, update data, add information easily to people and tags. Sending communication to large numbers of people is easy and easily tracked. Having others who use the software and are happy to share is also a big bonus to use what they are and not have to create something new. Arena works with our finance system. the potential with arena is amazing and so thinking forward is exciting with this product of what could be done and how we might utilize more of its functionality for what we want to do.

Cons

The layers of permission and the skill necessary to take it to a level that is truly customized to what we want is challenging for those who don't have the time or skill level to go deep to create exactly what is desired. The look is not as current or "attractive" as some of the other programs and can be intimidating to those who only look at it on a rare basis--when they have to.

Great Church Management Software

I have really enjoyed using Arena and it has helped us keep track of our growing denomination and all the churches we are adding.

Pros

We use the customizable function of this product to really create what we want. This is helpful because while the product is geared towards churches we have the ability to customize it to our needs as a denomination. The layout is easy to use and we have the ability to take a birds eye view of all our churches. Even our presbyteries made up of an older generation can use it well.

Cons

The reporting function is not the easiest to use. We often have to create our own reports and unfortunately they do not come out like I wish they would.

Old and Dusty

We used it for 10 years. It provided us with more tools than our previous ChMS when we moved onto it in 2007. It was a good tool at the time, but as time passed it never updated with the time and become a better tool. It just did the basics and mostly stuck with them. In the current development environment it is a dinosaur that is unwieldy. One of our happiest days in the past 4 years was when we got to put a bullet in it when we switched to another ChMS in early 2018.

Pros

Checkin was very stable and was very consistent.

Cons

Pretty much everything. It functioned well when it was working. You got what you expected to get. the bugs were minimal, but what you get feels like it is from the late 1990's or early 2000's. To get anything modern requires a herculean effort, and if you want to get that data into another program or application good luck getting it out of the API. Arena had its time and place, but it did not keep up with the times. It has stagnated and no longer has the tools needed for a modern church.

Review of Shelby Arena

Pros

Have been a customer of Shelby Service products for over 20 years. Service and responsiveness is the cornerstone of what Shelby offers when it comes to operational use and implementations. No calling to get Ticket number and waiting for a response, no frustration in the CSR not understanding what you are asking and having someone else call you back after another waiting period. Willing to hand hold admin people on the phone and using webconnect to solve the issue or train the worker. Offering a web based Prodsuct (Arena) that allows us to virtually do what we need to do in and present it in a way that our church expects to see it and identify it.

Cons

Sometimes the bug fixes take longer to get fixed than they should.