Realm

Avantages

Our reasons for using Realm out weigh the reasons not to use Realm. It is a robust system that offers your organization a lot of features, maybe more than you will use. It is simple to use and the features available allow you to implement as you need.

Inconvénients

Some of the products in Realm are not needed but cannot be a la carte. The system can be expensive but they work with smaller organizations to accommodate this.

Avantages

I like the reporting and event section and its not hard to understand

Inconvénients

the check system, because Realm has not created the capability to connect of their check-in system to wireless printers like Planning Center. We use to have Servant Keeper with the pc ...so we updated to make a more streamline look for check without all the cords and pc's. So I have to use 2 databases Planning Center for Check In and Realm for everything else. We had been told before we transfered to Realm that it was in the works to get wireless printers for check in..that was many years ago 7 or 8.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Realm 

Pourquoi passer à Realm

Avantages

Easy to use. Really like the "newsfeed" - I feel like it's a great way to keep people informed and also follow up on ministry events (with photos). Also, it's nice to have easy access to my giving history and also to be able to make donations easily through the "realm connect" app.

Inconvénients

Really the only struggle we've had is getting the word out about it - and getting people to use it. There's a little bit of a learning curve and, especially with older parishioners (and we have a fair number of them), there can be a bit of an aversion to technology and learning new things.

Avantages

I like the ability to use a check scanner with the giving software

Inconvénients

There are serious gaps in the way Realm relays information. When certain payments are made online, the software does not notify the Administrator of their receipt. I have to go and look for the payments (such as VBS registrations) without the software telling me that it has come in. Then it does not list the deposits from the registrations, only the individuals that made payment, after I go outside the giving module. Our checking account has been out of balance because of this.
Also the giving statements allow very little configuration. The pledge set ups do not allow for change. Nor can you easily go back to a previous screen or report that you had to navigate from.
I do not find the software intuitive, and often have to search for long times to get information that I need,
The searching seems fragmented and not easily connected.
When i edit a previous gift I do not get a notification or ability to print out a report so I can do a journal entry so we can keep our records balanced.
The online help is entirely worthless. It lags far behind many other help searches that I use for software.
I feel that I am forced to call the help desk. Usually after searching for at least a half hour down many dead ends, the I call the help line and there's another 30 minutes explaining my problem. And another 20 minutes hearing the condescending comments telling me that I have to not expect REALM to preform according to my expectations.
It is not seamless, nor is the contribution

Avantages

Realm has allowed our parish to get into the 21st century of church management! It is so nice having everything in one place and having the ability to provide access to our parishioners so they can see their giving in real time. Realm is opening so many doors for us and we are so happy to be on this path.

Inconvénients

It was difficult to know exactly what to do when I was handed 'the keys'. I took over a lot of the finance responsibilities as well as administrative tasks and I struggled to know where to start.

Avantages

Ease of use. I can add, edit, unactivate, or even delete profiles in seconds. Online giving is the best! Having used other providers, the ability to create separate giving page links, funds, text giving is far superior to any other product I have tried. Plus, it all pulls over into reports got me to look at YTD data in a moment.

Inconvénients

Integration of Pathways. We still struggle with utilizing this tool as it seems cumbersome. And when an event is created in a group, it can't be shared outside that group. I would love group events to show up in "Registrations" with a way to hide repeating events or have repeating events show up as just 1 event with the next one shown. I also would appreciate the ability to delete profiles that gave 7+ years ago. We have no need to keep them. Wish there was a service planning option so we didn't need to use Planning Center anymore!

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Realm 

Logiciel antérieur 

Pourquoi passer à Realm

Avantages

The simplicity of Realm is what I like the most. We do not have to invest a huge amount of time getting staff to understand the modules. The system is intuitive and able to handle complex workflows.

Inconvénients

We do have some functionality that hasn’t been deployed. I wish there was an easy way to take a look at the functionality prior to a decision to implement.

Avantages

Realm Connect has been a tremendous way for our congregation and staff to communicate and keep abreast of news and events. Our people love the fact that they can not only see their own profiles, but also the online directory of members.

Inconvénients

I have not found anything that I do not like about Realm.

Avantages

The online database and connectivity with congregants who will use the app.

Inconvénients

Congregants who refuse to use the app. Struggle learning the system from admin side - congregants complain not user friendly. People still having glitches with sign in so they have abandoned using it. To meaning settings required to opt in to notifications.

Avantages

We haven't encountered any glitches in Realm. It works as it is supposed to. Once you get used to how things work in Realm, it's easy to use.

Inconvénients

There are features I requested be added to Realm. These requests have not been acted upon.

Avantages

The best qualities of Realm allow us to easily track donor gifts and create registration events to which congregation members can RSVP and pay.

Inconvénients

There are occasionally things that are not intuitive and require a call into Realm/ACS for help. The help line does almost always get us a quick answer and help us with our concerns.

Avantages

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

Inconvénients

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!

Avantages

This software replaced ACS People Suite for our church and allows us to access information from the cloud. Pastors can look up addresses and even navigate to the member's house by clicking on the map in their record. Teachers can enter attendance while sitting in their Sunday school class. Groups can text and email each other within their groups. It is very robust software. They are constantly adding new features and are very responsive to suggestions from customers.

Inconvénients

In the beginning, it was difficult to use as it didn't integrate with ACS On Demand Financial Suite. But they added the ability to import giving information into ACS Financial Suite, which was a big help. We haven't moved to Realm Accounting as of yet, as there are some features of Financial Suite that we use, which aren't available in Realm Accounting at this time.

Avantages

First we love that all of our systems are now in one place. Moving from running ACS OnDemand, AccessACS, and The City to just using Realm has created efficiency. Realm has allowed better care of our large congregation and opportunities for closing the back door. That's what we like most. With nearly 4,000 attenders on a weekend, knowing when people are disconnecting is difficult. With easy attendance through the app for all of our classes/events/offerings, and indications coming to the surface in reports when people begin to disengage, we can intentionally follow up with them for potential ministry opportunity. Along the same lines, being able to have family/individual profiles which really show a complete picture of a person and their involvement, along with what processes they're involved in, what events they've attended, what milestones they've met, and any notes pertinent to pastoral care for them as individuals, we are in a better position to care for our congregation than ever before.

Dashboard reports are great and put a lot of actionable data at ministry leaders fingertips.

Inconvénients

Communication via Realm needs some minor improvements. The ability to share a message with multiple groups is missing at present. The option to reply to an email notification and have the message go back to the original thread in Realm is missing. Those two improvements would make a big difference in communication, as well as the ability to "feature" a post within a group to make it stay at the top of the group's News Feed. Need to be able to turn off ability to comment on a particular post, yet not delete it -- something that's informative in nature, but we're not necessarily looking for responses on.

Emails coming out of Realm need to be more customizable to have the look and feel the sender is going for. Calendar/events in Realm needs some help too. We are not to the point yet where we could use it as the one place to see events, as it's listing all service times and things we don't necessarily want to show in the events listing (things that are a given and don't need to be listed as events -- however they have to be in there so attendance can be marked/entered). A few enhancements need to be made in event registration as well, though it has come a long way.

Avantages

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.

Inconvénients

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.

Avantages

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.

Inconvénients

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

Avantages

I love the ease of using the software. Everything is easy to navigate and it manages people and contributions very easily. They are always adding improvements which is a plus. I know that there is so much more to this software but we haven't got there yet. At the time that we transitioned from ACS on demand to REALM we were not able to get the training needed to transition more smoothly and regret so much now that we didn't just wait until we could afford to actually get the one on one training that is so needed in order to really benefit from ALL that REALM has to offer and to expedite using it more effectively quicker. As they say, every software is useless, if those using it are not trained to use it! Love how online giving posts directly to the members statement and is very user friendly.

Inconvénients

Can't complain much since I don't feel like I have had the training I need to properly use it to its full potential. The complaints I might have are probably not a software problem but lack of training problem...I have just been winging it and limping along for the most part but the things that I have learned to use have been pretty awesome.

Avantages

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.

Inconvénients

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.

Avantages

We started out with ACS many years ago. I like all that Realm has to offer.

Inconvénients

I have had no cons about this program. Enjoyed it from the beginning.

Avantages

First, it was a lifesaver during the pandemic. I was able to access all my data from absolutely anywhere. I didn't have to scramble to adjust.
Second, the Customer Service is amazing. I have always gotten off a call thinking "wow, that was easy and they are so nice"

Inconvénients

Honestly, I am pretty pleased. No complaints.

Avantages

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!

Inconvénients

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.

Avantages

Realm is very user friendly and customer service is fantastic!

Inconvénients

We are very happy with Realm. When we have something that doesn't work for us, ACS is wonderful at listening to customers and updating the software.

Avantages

Realm is simple, intuitive, and powerful

Inconvénients

. . . . nothing. I cannot think of anything about Realm or Realm customer service that I would change.

Avantages

Realm helped our church keep track of our finances and funds and it was a simple product to use and get used to.

Inconvénients

There were a bit complex features, but we figured it out once we started to use it more and more.

Avantages

Intuitive. A step up from the City in features. Easy to use. Solid offering for the price but it does not function well on the web.

Inconvénients

Several critical errors. The website version of Realm is divided into two platforms: backend admin and community. Backend stays persistent and responsive even when you navigate away or do not use it for a while. The Community side dies if you move away and takes minutes, if ever, to load pages upon your return. You will notice this on Messages and Events (Community side) but not on Groups and Giving (Admin side). Realm tech support says this is a known issue and WILL NOT be resolved. This leaves the software fundamentally unusable throughout the day. If you can log out or clear your cache, you may get it to start back up but the problem WILL ALWAYS repeat itself. Being told that the problem is what it is - is terrible support and they should not market a product that does not function that they will not fix.