Category Archives: Update

Back to School – Already?

Administrators, Back-to-School, Ideas & Tips, tips for success, Update

How can it be? Didn’t our summer just begin? Yes, it’s August and parents, teachers, and some children, are thinking about the coming weeks ahead. As the parish app admin, here are some ideas that you can share with your parishioners that might make the transition from summer fun to back to school smoother.

  1. Eat Dinner As a Family
    After busy schedules of vacations, summer camps. time with friends, dinner around the table as a family may have fallen by the wayside. Try to get this important event back in your routine at least twice a week.
  2. Pray As a Family
    This is something that you could combine with dinner or right after. Make a list of important prayer topics. Maybe world events, or maybe something requiring prayer right in your community, or special prayers for family members and friends. Get the children to suggest what they feel needs prayer.
  3. Attending Mass Together
    Just as with dinner, try to work towards getting your family back to Mass together. You might have to adjust to Saturday or Sunday options, whichever works best for the majority of the family.
  4. Religious Education
    As the app admin, reach out to parishioners whose children do not attend Catholic school. Remind them of Religious Education/Faith Formation classes and schedules for these meetings.
  5. Youth Groups
    Encourage children to become involved in youth groups activities. Make sure that parents and students know the schedules and location for their age group. You might consider adding a back-to-school group to the App to help organize this.

You probably have more ideas that are specific to your parish that you can share with parents. For more detail, or help with groups, call or email Marc for assistance. Text app to 55321 for parishioners not using the app. All of us at Diocesan hope that your parish community has a fun, safe, and healthy back to school season.

 

Catholic Life Every Day

Reinvigorate myParish App

Administrators, Ideas & Tips, tips for success, Update

Parishioners using the App count on information to be accurate and up to date. As an App Admin, it might be helpful to create a checklist of things to verify or change regularly. In addition to messaging, which we covered in last month’s blog post, here are a few things to consider reviewing often so that parishioners feel confident using the App:

Staff Directory – Check this often, and especially if you have a new Priest or clergy at the parish. Be sure that you have the correct details for roles in your parish such as bulletin editor, office admin, communications, web & IT staff, as well as other critical administrative contacts.

Parish Calendar – There are so many important events happening at parishes. Check your list of important dates, holiday programs, guests & speakers, along with other dates that are helpful for parishioners to know. Be sure to add this to your specific myParish App calendar.

Mass & ConfessionTimes – Having a guest try to attend your parish and Mass times are incorrect on the App would not be a welcoming. Check Mass and confession times often if they tend to change seasonally, and be sure to update.

Buttons – Buttons on the App help parishioners find the subject they are looking for, i.e., prayers, rosary, groups, etc. Are there too many unused buttons, or think you would like a new one? We are here to help with anything you want to add or delete. Email Marc for assistance and suggestions.

Volunteers or Part Time Staff – As an admin, we know how difficult it is to stay on top of these technical tasks with all the other daily to-dos. Maybe you’ve had offers from parishioners to volunteer for something. This could be a volunteer project for someone. Not being interupted by others, as staff often is, this would be the perfect project for them. The same for students, high school and college, if they have a little free time and want to work on something worthwhile for their church this should still allow them time for a summer or part time  job.

If you have any questions, simply reach out to Marc or Dana at Diocesan.

Catholic life every day

changes

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Administrators, Ideas & Tips, Update, , , , , ,

Make sure your app is up-to-date for Ordinary Time.

Note as of 1.9.17: This blog post is causing some confusion; our apologies. Here is an updated version regarding re-loading:

The app updates automatically. The different platforms (iOS-Apple, Android) handle updates differently. Androids do a complete update weekly in the early morning hours on Saturday (midnight-1:00 a.m. or so). Apple also does a complete weekly update, but it’s scheduled according to when the app was loaded to the device, so we can’t be specific as to when it is. 

Additionally, different parts of the app check for updates for their content regularly. For example, if you tap on messages, the app goes to the server to check and see if there are new messages.
You only need to do a re-load if you’ve made a change that’s not showing up, and you don’t want to wait out the week.
Again, our apologies for any misunderstanding and/or confusion.
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As we leave the Christmas season behind and enter into Ordinary Time, you’ll notice some changes to the look of your myParish App. You’ll also see some content changes, as we’ll be removing the Advent and Christmas reflections.

One thing to remember: you (and your parishioners) will need to “re-load” the app on whatever device you’re using. That means you open the app and click on the Menu (the three bars in the upper right corner.) Once there, tap “change parish,” and select your parish. (You may need to search for your parish, then select, as the app gives suggestions based on your location.) This will update all the content you and your parishioners see.

It’s a good idea to run a little note in the bulletin for a few weeks; that way, your parishioners won’t be stuck in Advent when Lent rolls around!

Thanks to all the parishes who took part in our Advent and Christmas reflections and backgrounds. We enjoyed hearing from many of you during the holiday season.

May your New Year be blessed and peaceful!

Scott Hahn Bible Reflections Feature

Administrators, Update

Here in Applandia (as we like to call it) we’re always looking for ways that mobile technology can aid our faith. As such, we’re very excited to announce a new partnership with Dr. Scott Hahn and the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology.

Known for both his speaking and writing skills, Dr. Hahn is the bestselling author of numerous books including The Lamb’s Supper, Reasons to Believe, and Rome Sweet Home (co-authored with his wife, Kimberly). Some of his newest books are Many Are Called, Hope for Hard Times, The Catholic Bible Dictionary, Covenant and Communion, and Signs of Life. With his weekly Sunday Bible Reflections, Dr. Hahn offers inspiring insights into a fuller understanding of the readings heard every Sunday at Mass.

His talks have been effective in helping thousands of Protestants and fallen away Catholics to (re)embrace the Catholic faith.

A new “Reflections” button with Dr. Hahn’s  weekly Sunday bible reflections is now available for your parish’s app. If you would like us to add this button to your parish’s app, please let us know.

Be sure to also check out the other special features with great content for your parish’s app, including: Chris Stefanick of Real Life Catholic, daily Gospel reflections from CatholicMom.com, Year of Mercy reflections from the Diocese of La Crosse, daily Mass from CatholicTV, and inspiration with Living the Good News from us here at Diocesan Publications.

myParish App Log and Updates

Update

New Online App Log for Administrators

Capptain’s Log

In an effort to make all updates and app administrator communications available together in one easily accessible location. We are happy to introduce the Capptain’s Log! All administrators will still receive our helpful emails with details about app version updates and ideas and tips but with the added bonus of being able to access a complete archive of the information at myparishapp.com/app-log.

 

App Version Updates 2.2-2.4

News • Bulletins • Analytics • and More

Over the last few months we have been very busy. We have been pushing out some exciting app and app admin updates. We celebrated the one year anniversary of the national release of myParish app with conferences in Chicago and Silicon Valley, and we have been doing a lot of future planning for app development. Things are going very well with a lot of exciting things to come!

Some of the biggest releases this fall have included an improved News button, a more robust bulletin upload feature, and the introduction of app analytics for each parish. The updated News button now offers a beautiful and much more user friendly experience. Featured images along with capabilities for inline video and photos where available present a more well rounded reading experience. We will soon be posting more details on the new bulletin upload feature, app analytics, and more exciting updates. Watch for these in the coming days.

NOTE: With the release of new versions it is always good to remind your parishioners to update the app on their devices. Many iPhone and Android phones now update apps automatically, but it is a good idea to remind your parishioners to check for an update on their phone, just in case they have an older device. Keeping the apps on your phone up-to-date always makes for a better parishioner experience!

Monthly Update Reminder

The myParish app team is focused on offering the best solution for parishes to connect with their parishioners and for parishioners to engage Catholic Life Every Day. As such, we are continuously developing and improving myParish App. Every month we release an update to the App Store (iPhone) and Google Play (Android), and along with each app update is an update to the Admin Portal. Since web browsers cache (remember) information on web pages in order to open more quickly when revisiting a site, changes to web pages may not be immediately visible to the viewer.

To ensure that you can always see changes to the Admin Portal when managing your app, please remember to “force refresh” the page when new app updates are released or once per month. You can do a force refresh on your browser by using one of the following keyboard combinations:

Windows: Ctrl + F5
Mac/Apple: Apple + R or Command + R
read more about browser caching
If you have any questions about this, please feel free to give us a call at 1-800-997-8805.

 

 

Latest Improvements

App Improvements

  • New and improved News Feature (check out the article photos)
  • Event end times now available
  • More Prayers
  • Added support for devices without GPS
  • Advent Reflections button

Admin Improvements

  • Improved bulletin upload functionality
  • Upload the last six bulletins instead of just the last six weeks
  • Upload bulletins any day of the week
  • Detailed app usage Analytics for each parish

We are currently in development of a very exciting feature and will be making an announcement about it in the next couple months. We appreciate all of your suggestions. This feedback allows us to continue helping parishes and parishioners connect like never before.