Robust functionality but older processing and interface.

I would like to say that even though I gave this product 3 stars in every field, I give it the neutral review because it has so much potential to be better. I think right now F1 is in a place of a possible explosion of great things? But it's going to take a revamping of old processes and implementing new ones. The biggest benefits is that it's a database which helps us to manage our needs as a congregation and keep account of how we value our team members who serve.

Pros

What I like most about F1 is the SQL database interactions and the ability to pull information on any person in our congregation by the fields on their account. This is hugely helpful when pulling statistics of who attended events, paid their tithes, who has pastoral notes, and so much more. I think the other thing that I enjoy most is that this is truly a one stop shop in regards to what's needed for ministries. You can do anything from background checks to childcare for events based on the manageable forms. You can create contacts for specific staff or titles within your organization to receive information on congregants based on options they choose from visitor cards.

Cons

What I least like about this software is that even though it has so many features, it's almost too much to navigate when you first get into it all. Trying to train a new person on staff with the amount of information overload is a bit daunting. Granted not everybody will be doing the same functions within the program, but to be able to upkeep this database, you almost need a person solely devoted to making sure the data that's entered is correct. I would also say that the knowledge base needs a revamp with more clear information on what the actual functions of the database are, including an admin-like knowledge base with deeper understanding of how data transactions are made. Some things are just kind of ambiguous and unclear as to how the transfer of data happens.

Fellowship One is Robust, but dated.

Overall, we tend to see a huge benefit to our ministries by using this software, but in the future, we'll be looking to something more updated if we don't see a progressional change for F1.

Pros

The amount of functionality for F1 is incredible. We use it in so many ways for our different ministries, from small groups, attendance for services/serving, to tithing/finances and sending mass emails to specific groups of people, it covers a ton of bases. I like that this is a discipleship based software tool. We have to put our hands on almost every part of an account to make sure that we're intentional with the data we record. The security when fully implemented for check-in systems on Sunday services is impeccable. We have really made an effort to improve our security within the past few years and you can dig deep by using jobs that are connected to specific check-in activities and only people with specific assignments can check-in. It's very dialed in.

Cons

The software, while being functionality-wise amazing and broad? It lacks an updated style for the UI, while also using some outdated ways to process what you need. While requiring a hands-on approach to discipleship by having to change every little detail on an account, this can be so tedious and cumbersome to other tasks you might have. The learning curve is also a bit hefty, for users who don't understand systems or pick up understanding quickly? It can be very confusing at first.

I heavily depended on the data captured in F1 to translate in the health of the organization.

Understanding the uniformity of data and the availability to easily access information in a quick moment provided great opportunity to easily connect with someone regarding their involvement or giving to the organization. The website was easy to navigate which also allowed for quick changes to be made on the spot regarding contact information. Viewing check images was of great assistance to allow us to interact and support our contributors especially when it came to giving statement time.

Pros

FellowshipOne is an excellent tool for the church who is large enough and needing organization to their database as they grow. It compiles demographic and interactive information into one easy to view page. Contact information is organized in a section as well as all necessities for engagement within the organization in a separate section and all with a fluidity.
The visibility of contributors donations was a helpful tool. As contributors reach out with concern or questions regarding their giving, the ability to view a check image became crucial in matching gifts to specific individuals or clarifying information for the contributor. This was a highly valued tool.

Cons

Reporting in FellowshipOne is a challenge. Reports are difficult to find and navigating each sub filter to pull the information that you are seeking can be quite complex. It also does not allow you the options to build a report specific to the information you are needing while eliminating unnecessary information.

Poor customer support

This company started out great and has gone downhill. In the past year, we spent months trying to get a response from the billing department on an issue. The woman who was assigned to our company did not respond in a timely manner and, when she did respond, gave us wrong information or did not answer the initial question. We even purchased wrong equipment because we were misinformed about what we needed. We also spent time leaving messages for our account rep, only to find out 3 weeks later that he no longer worked there and we had a new rep. We were not informed and our old rep's voicemail was still active. Our experience with F1 was very disappointing and we decided to leave. In order to cancel, you must give 60 days notice & pay 30% of each month left in your year, according to the contract. And, no matter when you turn in your cancellation paperwork, they don't run the cancellation until the end of the month. So, if your contract month begins on the 14th, you still have to pay because F1 runs the cancellation on the 31st, even if you turned it in at the beginning of the month. The only positive thing I can say is that F1 did let us out of our contract one month early, so we had a 30 day cancellation notice instead of 60. But, that was a small thing after so many months of problems.

Pros

The software is helpful and you can run reports from your database for many different needs. Check-in works well.

Cons

Customer support and especially the billing department caused us many problems. The software is expensive and the contract will nickel & dime you if you try to leave early. The software is expansive and a lot of setup & upkeep has to be done manually.

Good at lots of things, but not the best at anything

We've moved away from F1 to Rock, and we couldn't be happier.

Pros

Excellent people-management system: the perfect church rolodex. Tracks finances well, handles basic check-in features, handles simple email communication, and has a very extensible reporting system.

Cons

Other than looking up people's contact info, it's not great at anything. You'll end up using third-party volunteer tracking (PCO integration would be a snap, but they won't do it), third-party finance partners (because their payment gateway is poor), third-party email clients (because their email system is poor), third party registration systems (because inFellowship is a nightmare from which you can never awake), and third-party groups sign-ups (ditto). This wouldn't be such a problem if the Fellowship One design team didn't refuse, as a matter of principle, to cleanly integrate with anyone who provides a competing product. Since almost any electronic service for churches is a competing product, that means F1 doesn't really integrate well with anyone.

Fellowship One

Overall a good system and good customer service that is helping our church stay organized.

Pros

The software offers our church a great way to access our database of people. It's fairly intuitive and can be used on a number of platforms, from iPads, to computers, to phones. They have been getting progressively better over the years at improving the software and working out the "bugs" on their check-in tools. All-in-all it's a pretty good app for housing our database of contacts.

Cons

The biggest issue that I have had is with the check-in software. The software seems to have trouble communicating to wireless printers when we are attempting to print labels for our Kids Ministry. It's very hit and miss on whether or not it will work (this is using the check-in app for iOS). I've spoken with Fellowship One over the phone to try and diagnose my issue or find out if other churches were using the same setup as us (iPad and Zebra ZQ510) and if they were experiencing any issues, but I didn't get very far.

Must have product for churches

One place to store all of our information that is necessary for manage a church.

Pros

Large database that can hold all the information you need about a church member. I like the features that let you add information about a member that can be specific. Also the important aspect of giving different people access to different portions of the system. Not everyone needs to see the financial information so that can be controlled by the rights you give each user. You can also control who can edit or add information. The phone app is useful but only give basic information.

Cons

Phone App would be more helpful if more information was available on a member. The report section is very tricky and difficult to use. I have had to call customer service on several occasions for help with setting up a report. On the plus side the customer service reps are helpful.

Good Totally out of the box ChMS solution

We used F1 for about 10 years. It's a great out of the box ChMS system that has a ton of different functionality. They will send a team out to help you implement the system, and they have built in support (the timeliness of resolution does leave something to be desired) and it really does do the majority of things a church would have a need to do. The downside for us was the lack of flexibility that some of the features had, and the lack of new features being released in a timely manner. The company has gone through a lot of change in the past few years, which has left a lot of customers feeling unsupported. While I would recommend a church taking a good look at F1, especially if they need something that can just be configured and run with, we decided to switch to a different system.

Pros

Out of the box solution that includes most every feature a church would need, including support.

Cons

Support hasn't been great, multiple changes in company ownership has left things feeling unstable.

Great product, even better staff!

The team at Fellowship Technologies is top rate. They strive to make sure that each church is focusing on ministry and not on the administration of the product. I love what Fellowship One offers our church. A single centralized place for our church's data, the security of their child check-in system, the ease of online giving, integrated event registration and ease of their new Groups 2.0 online group finder and registration piece is fantastic. Fellowship Technologies continues to improve the their product with new offerings while working at improving their infrastructure, keeping the product strong and ready for future growth.

Pros

- Software as a service (SaaS) is the way to go for us. Our staff has 24/7 access to the data they need.
- One central location for our data means no more data silos for us. Everyone has access to up to date information.
- Very active user community shares tips and tricks with each other
- Great, secure, easy child check-in program
- Easy to use online giving
- Event registration integrates with our website
- Excellent small groups search and registration tool.
- Great teaching video library and documentation
- Best Practices documentation is very helpful
- Ever improving API integration

Cons

The report library can be tough to navigate because there are so many reports to pick from. This can make it tough to find the report you need when you need it. BUT, on the plus side, once you find the report you are looking for you can save it to a personal library and find it again easily. If you can't find the report you are looking for, the customer service team is very knowledgeable, the help information is good, and the online user base is very helpful.

F1 Database Review after 2 years

1. It would be nice to have a representative come visit us either just after implementation or 1 year after. 2. It would be nice if there were packages for the different sizes of churches. We are about 450 people attendance with 5 paid staff people. Our needs are much different than the 10,000 weekly attendance churches. We have to learn everything even if we aren't using it in order to figure out what we need to know. If there was a package for training and online that would be awesome. 3, Customize reports by type of religion, size of church and their requirements. We do perochial reports yearly, so there could be standardized reports for the episcopal church to meet this requirement.

Pros

1. Has more functions than we would ever use, so we will never grow out of it.
2. Web hosted is great for us.
*we don't have to worry about mainting the software on our server.
*we can access it from anywhere we have internet.
3. Iphone Application is great for the priests.
4, Great for the parish to be able to see their information online.
5. Great for anyone to give money online.

Cons

1. Haven't been able to get the staff onboard fully to use it as well as intended.
2. Sign ups don't work that well. People are choosing to use google groups or other ways to share files and calendars. Groups 2.0 may help here. I just signed us up for that.
3. It would be nice to have a representative come visit us either just after implementation or 1 year after.
4. It would be nice if there were packages for the different sizes of churches. We are about 450 people attendance with 5 paid staff people. Our needs are much different than the 10,000 weekly attendance churches. We have to learn everything even if we aren't using it in order to figure out what we need to know. If there was a package for training and online that would be awesome.
5. Too many reports.

Fellowship One Benefits are Limitless!

Before we began using Fellowship One, our church was comprised of many data silos. These silos were formed due to the inaccuracy and difficulty of use of our previous system. Fellowship One offered us a wonderful tool that was easy for our staff to use, and allowed us to break down the silos and put our data all in one area. Event Registrations and Check-In are utilized heavily here at CSPC. Through my discussions with other churches, this system is great for all sizes - from the start-up church plants to mega size churches. Fellowship One is a wonderful tool that helps churches do ministry better! The only true limitation of this system is in the users of the system or how a church utilizes it for their ministries.

Pros

-Much more than just a database
-Electronic check-in for any activity & secure check-in for children's events
-Email communication to anyone or any group in system
-Online registrations and online giving that ties to database records
-Ability to tag records to allow for easy searches later (spiritual gifts, first time visitors, etc.)
-Member portal (InFellowship) offers online church directory, groups interaction and searches, and profile editing.
-Easy background check processing through the system that also adds requirement to individual records.
-Vast reporting library as well as easy to use query function
-Top of the line customer support
-A company that actually listens and responds to customers' issues, requests and ideas
-Gives churches the tools to reach out and connect to their members in ways unheard of before.

Cons

-Contributions module lacking in area of audit trail (this is on their radar)
-Reports sometimes hard to find due to size of report library. This issue is being handled with the creation of core reports that combine numerous reports into one all-encompassing report.

Great Product! Can't wait to see what's next!!

I have seen tremendous growth and improvement in Fellowship One over the past 4 years. The staff at Fellowship Tech are extremely hardworking and committed to meeting the needs of churches. Many go above and beyond and that is the "heart" of FT. I am excited about what is yet to come!

Pros

*The trainings are easy to understand and can be viewed over and over
*Addition of Best Practices and examples of processes is very helpful. Less of a learning curve when you have the benefit of other's experience.
*We can see who's attending (or no longer attending), who's serving, who's giving and how (if) they're growing spiritually.
*We can provide necessary follow-up care for our congregants based on information in their profile.
*We are using Groups 2.0 beta and it's amazing. We will be able to connect more people into groups than ever before. Can't imagine trying to do this using a spreadsheet!
*FT encourages customer suggestions and feedback. Beta testing opportunities give churches the ability to have a voice in product functionality.
*Yearly conference is a great way to learn, connect, and generate user enthusiasm.

Cons

*Finding reports takes time
*Merging duplicates from new accounts is tedious & takes many steps to complete.
*Would like to see more advanced trainings available online (i.e.: Adv activity set-up)
*I wasn't here for the implementation (2005) and have rated the implementation review based on staff feedback. The process has changed since then and I'm sure has improved but I'm giving honest feedback based on our experience.
*Ease-of-use is getting better but we would like F1 to be more intuitive especially for the non-tech pastors.
*F1 is not integrated with Planning Center and our worship team info is not consistently up-to-date.

We utilize Fellowship One as our main database for records.

Pros

I love the functionality of the system. I like that it is web based so you don't need a server or special app on your computer to use. Anywhere you have internet you can use it! If you utilize it to its potential there is a ton of data you can store but most importantly you can run reports to pull that data. The report function is amazing, you can pull exactly what you are looking for exactly the way you want it.

Cons

I wish there was an activity log to track who makes what changes. We have a large number of users and its sometimes hard to know what information has been altered and if it should have been altered by that person. I know you can give permissions to users but having the log would add a great tool for administrators to use.

I use Fellowship One at my church regularly for administration and people tracking.

Tracking and data that has been uploaded can be found and used when the right report is put in.

Pros

F1 is robust. It has many features and the ability to collect a lot of data. The reports are extensive if you can find the right one. Seeing information on a family can be simple if kept up to date.

Cons

F1 has fallen behind the times in terms of interface and ease of use. many of their reports are hard to find. The interface looks like windows 98 and their email tool is much too simple for the normal church today. Check in and tracking are its bread and butter and with a new ipad app it makes it much easier. If you are using anything other than the ipad its difficult to navigate. They need a major update on ease of us.

Unsatisfied

The online event registration and giving management were the most successful aspects of the software for our organization. There were other versions that came available besides what we were using, but due mainly to the extra cost and we remained in that version. Since our experience with support was not stellar we felt it would be better to switch companies that to change products within the Fellowship One offerings.

Pros

Online giving worked well and there are lots of built-in reports.

Cons

We found that the support was inadequate for our needs, with slower than desired response times. We are no longer F1 customers mainly for that reason. We also wanted more flexibility to add on to the functionality and found that the competition was ahead of F1.

F1 at The Village Church in Texas

As things stand right now with what is available today, if your church is looking for a very good, if not great, Church Management System Fellowship One is the system you want. The old adage, "You get what you pay for" applies with a SaaS product you are no longer supporting a server and software yourself or trying to develop something on your own. Having said that the company's "development to production agility" needs improvement as there are still things that need to be done on the congregation facing side of this system that hopefully will be taken care of in the very near future and make F1 one of the most complete systems available.

Pros

Excellent implementation team!
F1 software has delivered what they said it could deliver in response to our RFP.
Support is responsive.
Communication has been good. We have the benefit of many Active Network/Fellowship Tech employees attending and in membership at The Village.
No server or site to manage is great (obviously that is a big part of what we pay for)
Functionality is really good.
Access to the data via API is great and getting better with every new API realm.

Cons

Implementation Team could have been more assertive with some suggestions and less with others.
Though F1 has delivered it has not delivered at the level we had hoped for, specifically public facing via weblink where the UX has left a lot to be desired. The back-end functionality is great but the interface needs a makeover now.
Support though responsive has been dismissive with some of our requests and we have experienced some delays on what we consider a pretty serious request.

Powerful But Not Very User-Friendly

Pros

Fellowship One is a tremendously powerful tool that meets most of the needs we have for our church database. We are able to track an infinite number of details related to each person in the database. Recently, we began using F1 to allow our church members to search and find a small group, then sign up - all online. I am still learning all the ways we can use F1.

Cons

The most frustrating aspects of F1 are: 1) It doesn't have a mobile interface for online registrations - and online registration is a huge part of how we use F1. We have begun using a third party app that integrates with F1 so that our online registration process is mobile friendly. 2) F1 is not very user-friendly and they don't offer easy-to-find support. This is the most difficult aspect of the product.

Great product and awesome staff!

I would recommend the product and the team. Great tool to help your church and your staff to build the kingdom of God. F1 is consistently improving and upgrading the system. Working with them has been a rich rewarding experience.

Pros

We are a large church with a weekend attendance of 6 to 8 thousand and currently have four campuses in two states. As we grew it became more and more difficult to keep good information on our congregation in order to serve them best. With Fellowship One we now share all information between all our pastors in a quick timely manner. We can tell at a glance who may have fallen down in their attendance, giving, etc or if there has been a recent hospitalization in their family therefore may need a call to see if everything is well with them. Great tool for scheduling and tracking volunteers and small groups. You may make some or all of this confidential and still be able to use volunteers to do data entry without access to the confidential areas. It has been a great experience working with all the staff at Fellowship Technologies.

Cons

My only negative is that there are so many reports, well over 1,000, that I have trouble sometimes finding just the report that will give me the information the I need. The ones I use all the time I save to My Reports but sometimes I need a little different criteria. They are always willing to help with a report but I just don't always have the time to wait. The pros definitely out weigh the cons in every way.

Poor Expectations - but powerful system

I would recommend F1 but with high caution. Make sure you have a point person that is highly computer literate. Be very patient... I gave 5 stars to "Meets our needs" on the premise that eventually when we get all our questions answered - it will meet our needs. That's why we chose F1.

Pros

This software is very feature rich and capable. It has resolved some of our immediate needs with check-in for kids, contributions, and mobile app for access to our data base as well as our small groups.

When you read my cons please don't think I would not choose F1 again. I am just highly displeased with how they set expectations and how they train.

Cons

They do a very poor job of setting expectations. While the system is capable of a lot of features...good luck figuring them out. They are very limiting on what they will show you during implementation of the product. We also paid for the certification training and even that is limited to what information they will release to you. It seems that their attitude is "You need to figure it out". They do host a one hour weekly call for Q&A, but that's still not satisfactory to us. I can't even send an all church email out!! Something that should be the simplest process is cryptic at best to figure out. If something isn't working you have to submit a trouble ticket. There is no customer service line. They should have a customer service line for those who have paid the $700 fee for training and certification.

Fellowship One keeps track of people and processes

Pros

It helps me keep track of people and processes in my church attendees and volunteers. We use it to track finances as well. You can set up workflows that will help you automate certain functions and that's a huge help.

Cons

It's definitely not the easiest software to use. You have to really dig into it to learn it and be committed to it, because if you're not, the team will try to find workarounds so they don't have to use it.