Part I: Rquirements of A Church Management System (ChMS)
Chosing a new software package is always a big deal. Whether you're a $5 billion dollar company or a 50 person church, there are important questions that need to be asked before you even begin looking at your options. It's important to know your needs, just like when you go into any other major purchase. I mean, you wouldn't go into a Ferrari dealer looking for a reasonably-priced and fuel-effiecient car, would you?
Let's start by looking at some of the different types of solutions that are available…
Software-as-a-Service vs. Boxed Solutions vs. Customized Solutions
Software-as-a-Service means that you don't pay for a physical product, but, as the name implies, you purchase a service where the provider takes care of the hosting, support, maintenance, upgrades and modifications of the system. This can be a great model if either your church doesn't have the resources or manpower to take care of these pieces itself, or if the service needed is so large and robust that it just doesn't make sense to have a team of people on staff dedicated to it. However, these solutions often have limited customizability because the same service is being offered to numerous clients.
Boxed solutions are physical products you can buy, but you must provide the host or computer on which the product will be installed and accessed. Support of the product will probably be limited, and upgrades or modifications may require additional purchases and installations. Depending on the software purchased, there may be different levels of customization possible. This can be a good solution if you want a more hands-on approach to your system, but will probably require one or more people dedicated to maintaining it.
Customized solutions come in all flavors, but will most likely be your most expensive alternatives. They can be created by outside consultants, or a team of developers can be hired on staff to create and maintain the solution. However, as the name implies, this solution can be completely customized to your needs.
Each situation likely has one or more solution that will work, but the important thing is to figure out which one works best for you and your church.
Next time, we'll continue or ChMS requrements discussion and look at the different scopes of ChMS packages.