Great App Builder for churches

Any time I've had a problem or a question about a particular part of the app building process, I've reached out via email and Aware3 has always gotten back to me within 24 hours and they are always very helpful and very upfront about what can or cannot be done. They are a great team to work with!

Pros

It's easy to update different elements in your app. Adding notes, updating and adding sign-up links, sending push notifications to users. There are a lot of ways to use these features to reach people at your church and you don't have to be super 'techy' in order to get them to work.

Cons

One of the things I have found to be an issue is the way android phones (I can't confirm the way iPhones work with this) receive the push notifications. If there's more than 10-15 characters in the push, then my android devices just cut off the message so I can't get the full message right away. I will say when you tap on the message you can have the user go to a specific part of your app or go in and read the whole message, but I have other apps that send push notifications and you can swipe down to see the whole message. That would be a great addition to the push notifications feature.

Great Concept but Execution Needs Work

The response times of customer service are exceptional and the interactions with representatives are intentional, positive, and productive. I look forward to seeing opportunities at which my technical recommendations, as they pertain to memory and cache management to alleviate freezing on the user's side, are accessed and implemented within the development level instead of just on the GUI level. Aware3 was the fastest and easiest way that I could get our Organization mobile relevant. I couldn't have imagined accomplishing what we have without them.

Pros

The fact that I can put everything our churches and constituents would ever need within the Aware3 platform with respect to categories and departments relieves much of the work our administration often had to answer to by way of phone or email. Referring to the app has lent us "saving grace" when on the go and in need of information for our staff, pastors, teachers, & constituents. It is the "wix.com" of apps and gives us the ability to do anything we want by easily integrating or linking external resources and effectively applying its own with mutual consideration. Updates from the editor are immediately live and ready to go.

Cons

The app, has the tendency to freeze while running in the background. I've been told that it's because my company's app pushes the limitations of the software, and if that is so, let's work together on developing the software so its not so "limited". All-be-it many apps naturally have freezing issues when attempting to access while they have been running in the background, it however renders it's user-friendliness as a wanting experience that has caused some to forgo the app entirely. To have to close the app and go back in so that things load correctly, places an undesired process that I personally dislike greatly.

Could be so much more

The customer service is always great, and up until this point it has done everything we needed, but we haven't used it to it's fullest because of the functionality on the back end.

Pros

It does everything I need it to do, especially in the area of connecting with our CMS.

Cons

I wish they made it easier for the end user on the back end who needs to use it. I would like for my team to be able to publish and post things to the app by themselves but the technology is a bit tricky for laymen. It's too hard to use so they don't use it (for push notifications).

Great support for App

We can connect our church to the outside community with ease using this app. The use of an app brings us to a modern age.

Pros

I loved the app we setup for our church using aware 3. This allowed us to post material from sermons to anyone having a smartphone. Our members can interact with my blog and pay contributions with ease.

Cons

We had to work adoption of the software and get people up and using the app. It took our IT person a while to figure out just the right configuration of features for our people.

Easy to Use, Great to Start Out

It's been a great purchase for our church. People can get everything they need from the app - info about events, livestream, bible app, sermon notes - and it's been really great to have the data online about how people interact on the app so we know what works and how to tailor how we are doing things on the management side.

Pros

It's very user friendly and pretty intuitive. The staff who have helped our church have always been patient and great at getting back to us in a timely manner, a swell as walking us through each step when there is an issue. The members and guests of our church find it easy to use on their end, whether they are taking notes on Sundays or registering for small groups and events. Also a great way to keep track of member engagement on the app.

Cons

There aren't a super long list of features and sometimes there are less intuitive processes, but they don't take away from the ease of use or the final product of the app.