Realm Erfahrungen

Realm has been an excellent resource for our congregation and staff.

Vorteile:

We use Realm Connect - the level that allows for congregants to log in and use the app feature as well. Realm is easy to use and intuitive to figure out. The staff love being able to get to it anywhere and that they can even work on their phones on things if needed. Realm has features that make life easier for church staff, while also allowing the congregation to connect with each other. The Realm development team is always looking at ways to make it easier for people to know where to go, while also trying to find ways to make the church staff's lives easier as they input the data. Additionally, the support staff is very knowledgeable and helpful. I rarely have to wait for support help and if they cannot fix an issue while I am on the phone with them, they are quick to follow back up.

Nachteile:

There are still areas they are building out and things that are not there yet. For example, today we tried to copy a list of people from a registration event into a group roster as the group decided they wanted to be able to communicate with each other during the study. This was not a feature that was available yet, so the person entering the data had to manually add the people to a group. But, they have an enhancement request portal where Realm staff users can enter ideas in on what to change or add and they follow that portal very closely. The things that are not there yet are a small trade-off in my mind, as overall Realm is incredible software. And knowing that those things will come soon makes it easier for me to help my staff realize that if they can be patient for a little bit longer, everything will be in one place. They really like that!

CRM system for churches

Kommentare: Realm is an excellent CRM system for churches and has the added benefit of offering (for additional cost) an integrated accounting system. Customer support hours and level of services are just fine. It takes a while for staff to catch on to its power and Excel skills for a few staff are critical for custom reporting. Cost is very reasonable considering its power and customer service support.

Vorteile:

Realm is a very well constructed CRM system for churches, not surprising consindering how long ACST (maker of Realm) has been in business. It has an integrated donations system. You can buy (which we did) the integrated accounting module, thus eliminating the need to double post donation summary information. Customer support is excellent. Customers get to suggest and vote on enhancements.

Nachteile:

Conversion to Realm should have been easier. I'd like to be able to construct queries like in any database system using parentheses to bracket query logic. It is overkill for many small (under 100 Average Sunday Attendance) churches in my opinion.

Realm is exceptional!

Kommentare: Exceptional product - and service! With each question that we have for the telephone support, the representatives take as much time as needed to provide in depth answers to the questions and solutions to the potential problem. I can't praise them enough!

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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

Serious Gaps

Kommentare: Frustration is the best word that describes my experience with Realm. Frustration on finding information, frustration on looking for help, and frustration even on the help desk. When I write an email, it is almost as if I am getting a computer response telling me only a simplistic response that does not consider my question on the background that I provided.
It seems that my complaints fall on unconcerned ears when i express them to the Staff.

Vorteile:

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

Nachteile:

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

Excellent Support System

Kommentare: Real is a relatively intuitive platform, but the support system available to the user is truly what makes

Vorteile:

The Realm support team are tremendously helpful, patient when we have questions or need instruction, thoughtful when crafting solutions, professional and polite. All our interactions with the Realm team have been very positive, and it is a relief to hear the voice of folks like [sensitive content hidden] on the other end of our calls with we need assistance!

Nachteile:

It sometimes difficult to make corrections or back out entries/actions when simple mistakes are made.

Realm is easy to use and has data at my fingertips!

Kommentare: Great support and prompt help. Tons of resources to learn more online. I love having one place to go for everything - check-in, member data-base, directory, giving, registration/events, etc.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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!

Review of Realm

Kommentare: It is a love hate relationship. As a smaller church without professional tech help and only one person to implement it has been a struggle to move forward. The guides sometimes are not updated to reflect recent changes or stop short of explaining how feature will work ie. What I need to do to get desired outcome. It is a trial and error. The videos sometimes just show features but don’t go into detail if you want this outcome do this kind of instruction. Features work differently in Realm as the admin than a regular congregant on connect - it becomes confusing trying to learn two different ways of accessing what I need and communicating that to congregants.

Vorteile:

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

Nachteile:

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.

MY REALM EVALUATION

Kommentare: WE ENJOY REALM OVER THE ACS PEOPLE SUITE

Vorteile:

WE LOVE THAT ONLINE DONATIONS POST DIRECTLY TO CONTRIBUTOR'S ACCOUNTS

Nachteile:

TAKES ME A WHILE TO FIGURE OUT SOME REPORTING FEATURES. ALSO CANNOT HAVE MORE THAN ONE GIVING DATABASE

Glad we chose Realm

Kommentare: Getting used to a new system is never easy, but with use I'm very comfortable with Realm. The reporting is very helpful, and managing the data is pretty straight forward.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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

Realm Church Management Software

Kommentare: We are overall satisfied with both the functionality and support.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

Realm - Excellent Church Software

Kommentare: Realm has facilitated communication in the church and is extremely versatile given its use on a computer or mobile device. By enabling parishioners to directly engage with each other, with their own profile and church groups they are in - it not only provides the staff with a powerful software tool, but enables the entire church to engage and connect. This is probably the greatest strength of Realm: its function as a staff tool (database management and financial accounting) as well as ability to create engagement, connection and community within the parish. All in one place.

Vorteile:

Realm is exceptionally easy to learn and use - and it's relevant to how a church operates its ministries as well as how a church manages its finances and its people database. Developers solicit input from users for program enhancements and continue to release new functionality that just makes the software better and better. Both the database management component (how we manage the people in our church) as well as the financial accounting component are exceptional. The bonus is how the functionality also supports how we operate our ministries (managing volunteers, coordinating education opportunities, communication and engagement)

Nachteile:

Not sure I've found anything I don't like. At this point, Realm continues to amaze me.

Tremendous organizational tool! A bit lacking in some desired features and user-friendliness.

Vorteile:

Realm has been our only experience with CHMS and it has been well worth every penny. As a small church of about 200, we know there's so much more that this software is capable of doing that we simply do not have a need for at present. We love the organization Realm has given internally to our church staff and volunteers. The ability to track giving (both regular offering and pledge funds) through Realm is very sound and ensures accuracy in our financial record keeping. It also makes creating and sending year end giving statements a breeze! This software seemingly has no ceiling in its ability to query any information we want to gather from our people (as long as we have imputed the information when adding profiles). We can then quickly generate a report from that information that is easily shareable. Creating groups is also a great feature that has helped us, internally, better understand who is doing what and has subsequently helped us to be more intentional and effective in our communication. Routine tasks that we use Realm for on a weekly/daily basis include: recording giving, finding pertinent information about our people, generating reports/labels, adding profiles of our people and assigning them to groups, and communicating via Realm's email feature with various groups in our church.

Nachteile:

The calendar is not as functional as we had hoped and does not allow for integration with Google Calendars. This has led to our avoiding any use of Realm's calendar. We have also not made use of the Events feature in Realm as there is no public-facing side of Events Registration (that we have found) that could tie in with our church website. The interface is not very intuitive/user-friendly and has held us back from opening up the software for use by more volunteers to handle tasks such as Check-in and Pathway's. This has also prevented us from allowing group leaders to manage their own groups' members, record attendance, coordinate events or activities, or to communicate directly with one another. The online giving feature does not currently allow for any embed code to make for a more seamless online giving experience.

REALM: user friendly software with exceptional customer support!

Kommentare: I highly recommend the investment of time and finances to get the full benefit of the software by getting the training needed! I wish we had done so when we got it. I feel we would be so much further along with the benefits of the software instead of still struggling to search through helps and webinars to find how to do something simple.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

Beware

Kommentare: Not good. But because we have been so enmeshed with them since the ACS days they really have us locked in. our financials are tied to them and they know that and seem like they do't place our requests on anything but the lowest level.

Vorteile:

This software is average at best. They sold us because they are the biggest player in the market. They promised that this tech was market ready when we came online and to this day we still have "trouble tickets" in que....3 years later. They said this was going to be like facebook for your church...people already have facebook - they dont want another.

Nachteile:

They always seem to forget to included the final important details. Example - they told us that the online giving link allows people to make their offering without having to sign into their realm account (because all of the information is taken through the credit card anyway)...they failed to add the detail that if people regularly give a recurring donation you actually have to sign in to your account. They didn't tell or add that to their link. Sp now we have to double back and send an email to the recurring givers. Just poor form

Realm Software is Solid and Ever Evolving

Kommentare: Our experience with Realm has been overall excellent. And if you are a church joining ACS for the first time, you will find Realm's people database and Realm Accounting to be a full-featured option.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

Love this product!

Kommentare: It's a really robust software. The customer support is amazing. And their help file is one of the best I've seen of any software anywhere!

Vorteile:

We have been using Realm as our church management software since 2016. We were upgrading from a really old software system that we'd been using since the 90s or before. Realm walked us through the transfer which was very involved. And I think our transfer took longer than usual but they held our hands through the process. But since we've been up and running, it's been smooth sailing. They're constantly updating the software. I haven't had any problems with it. We haven't rolled out the member portion of the software yet. We have an older congregation and getting every logged in would be a challenge. As a small (under 100 members) Church, Realm has more than met our needs. I believe it's a software we can easily grow with for years to come.

Nachteile:

We opted to handle the personalization of the software ourselves. Well...that hasn't happened. With running a church and everyone wearing multiple hats, we just haven't had time. So, I know we're not getting all the value from the software that we could. That's not Realm's fault. If I remember correctly, it was a cost thing that caused us to do it ourselves. Perhaps Realm needs a customization price for small churches like ours.

Relatively easy management of church administrative functions

Kommentare: A plethora of reporting options! Master membership rolls. Class check-in (and child safety/security). Communication with members on Connect.

Vorteile:

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!

Nachteile:

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.

Very happy we chose Realm!

Vorteile:

Not in any particular order: 1. Cloud-based 2. Communication Feature within Groups - our group leaders are loving this feature and are engaging more and more with participants in their groups. Attendance marking has also increased since converting to Realm 3. Dashboard/Reporting - helping us greatly in doing ministry effectively: reaching the disengaged, cleaning up data, and planning 4. Merging of duplicate records tool - very seamless and love the fact that the duplicates are automatically reported on the Dashboard 5. Pathways - LOVE that we can now keep track of where all of members and guests are in their spiritual journey or with their involvement at our church. 6. Online Giving - we've get over 100 New First-Time giver weekly since moving to Realm 7. Check-In Kiosk - our ministries who use this absolutely love how seamless and efficient the check-in process is now. We transition from ACS Checkpoint. Check-In Kiosk in Realm allows for a much smoother experiencing when checking in for children's church 8. The ACS support team that's been PHENOMENAL and dedicated to seeing us WIN with Realm!

Nachteile:

1. Our church does A LOT of events throughout any given month - currently we've experienced some limitations within Event Registrations (i.e. being able to search for a specific event using keywords/tags). Our end user currently has to scroll down a very long list of events to find the event they want to register for. 2.

The BEST Church Management Software Around!

Kommentare: Our church started using Realm over a year ago. It is a wonderful software that provides great functionality, real-time data, and it's user friendly! Information is always just a couple clicks away and we delight in how well our members have received it! Using Realm has freed staff from spending great amounts of times trying to assemble reports because the data is already there. This allows them to focus on other, more important people and ministry driven tasks. One of the best features is the online giving! We're able to offer quick, easy, and secure online giving to our church members and even church visitors (plus TEXT GIVING)!! We are always amazed at how the ACS developers are constantly improving Realm. They take our input and suggestions of how the product can be even better, which is nice since we are the ones out in the real world using the software. We have a voice! Their customer service and support are without fail fantastic!
Overall, Realm is just a really great product and we would recommend it to others without hesitation. It certainly allows us to work smarter, not harder, and it gives us the tools we need to run our amazing church! Thanks Realm!

Vorteile:

Everything

Nachteile:

Nothing really!

REALM - Makes Real Ministry Easier!

Kommentare: Realm has been a great tool in our organization. We use it every day to easily manage profile updates, create reports and so much more!

Vorteile:

I just can't say enough about Realm! Once we got our organization set up with all the ministry areas, groups and individual profiles it makes managing and communicating with our members so much easier! There are so many features that make this product A+ If there ever is an issue or question, Realm has the absolute BEST support team ever! They are very courteous, knowledgeable, and professional and are very eager to help resolve any issues. AND we implemented the Realm Connect Mobile app and this has been a great add-on to our Realm use.

Nachteile:

So far we haven't encountered any cons.

Highly Recommend

Kommentare: Overall, it has been exceptional! I would highly recommend!

Vorteile:

Realm is user friendly and if there is something that I can't figure out, the customer support is amazing!

Nachteile:

Integration with ACS would be helpful. I haven't used the Accounting feature however, I was told that everything would go to Accounting and ACS would phase out. I haven't heard good things about the Accounting option and the fact that ACS hasn't been phased out, makes me leery of that option.

Great ChMS

Kommentare: Realm has allowed us to move away from a printed directory and allow all to have access to communicate with one another. It also allows members the ability to check their giving records at their convenience.

Vorteile:

Easy to use for members and staff; cloud-based means you can access it from anywhere! We are still growing into attendance and check-in functions but look forward to using them.

Nachteile:

Easier group functions could be useful! When we first transitioned they didn't have payroll so we aren't currently using Realm Financials.

too little for too much money

Kommentare: See above. It is too expensive for what you get. It's difficult for our members to understand so they don't use it.

Vorteile:

We already have it and can more or less work with it.

Nachteile:

the pricing is way out of line for what you get. Other church management softwares include texting with not extra cost, and cost about $60 less a month. There are so many things that should be integrated but aren't. A very big disappointment.

Realm Believer

Kommentare: Could not be happier. They are always willing to help. Love that they listen to new ideas from their users.

Vorteile:

The versatility. The ease of use for all ages. The phone app is great and getting better all the time. They update and create new things all the time.

Nachteile:

The phone app is not as versatile as the computer app. The older generation is very leery of trying new things.

ACS Software

Kommentare: What we had before ACS/Realm did not group families together and Realm does.
So looking up a child with a different last name has changed so much for us.
That made a big difference for a lot of things. We are using more and more of the features all the time.

Vorteile:

I like the ease in which information is entered and edited. I like that you can search for a report and then when you have the results you are looking for you can save it and use it over and over. Editing the parameters of the search is also understandable.

Nachteile:

That we don't have Finances on it yet. Will be glad when we do.