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.

Testing the Limits

We have learned so much from the F1 team when it comes to organizing our attenders and getting them involved.

Pros

FellowshipOne has been a powerful software package for managing participants and volunteers. The child check-in system has been extremely important to us as we have improved on our security. The ease of adding online giving shortly after implementation has been super important. It's nice to be able to check a person's attendance, involvement and giving in one place.
It is also beneficial to be able to run a background check directly from the software.

Cons

To have an accounting piece would be make this an almost perfect system for our church. A seamless integration of giving into our financials would eliminate a step and reduce the potential for error. In addition, we did move from using F1 for online giving to using PushPay which simplified bank reconciliation.

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