Feb 28, 2012 by Matthew Warner
Howdy Flocknote family! We've got some updates for you below that have rolled out over the past month or so. And we have some even bigger changes and improvements rolling out very soon. These are all a part of the continued effort to focus Flocknote on meeting your most pressing communication needs in the Church — and doing it better and better.
Of course, your feedback has been essential to this effort and you've been so gracious in your support and suggestions. Please keep it up!
New and improved Note creation view
You'll notice that when creating new notes now, they appear on the website just like they appear in somebody's email inbox. This makes it easier to create a really beautiful, simple (but very effective) newsletter for your subscribers. You'll also notice that when you change the "style" of the Note to "Newsletter" it changes immediately right there in front of you to the new format.
We're also releasing updates in the next couple of weeks that will make inserting images and changing your newsletter header images a WHOLE lot easier and more intuitive. We're really excited about that.
Simplified Network page
Network pages have been simplified a bit. This is part of our overall change toward a much better user experience of Flocknote. More of which you'll be seeing in the coming weeks.
Urgent subscription option removed
We wrestled with this one for a good while. But while we saw the benefits of being able to set subscription settings based upon whether a Note was marked "urgent," the additional complexity it added to subscription settings for each individual user caused more trouble for admins than it was worth. This small change is also going to allow some of the additional improvements rolling out soon which will greatly enhance the subscriber experience and make it much easier for admins to manage.
If your Network is interested in having a kind of "urgent" alerts List, we've seen it done more effectively on some of our Networks by simply creating a separate, designated "Urgent Alerts" List. From there your subscribers can set their subscription settings directly for such alerts (text or email) and admins can turn on phone calling for any subscribers they wish, also.
Importing and exporting large lists
If you have a large Network, you may have noticed that importing and exporting members can take some time. No more! The interface has been improved, too, with more advanced features already in the works.
Redirects for RSS Lists
If you drive any of your Lists with an RSS feed, you can now have the emails and texts that go out to your subscribers link directly back to your blog or website, rather than to the Note on Flocknote. You can turn that on or off and learn more in the More Details section when you Edit your List.
Those're the major ones for now. Flocknote has grown to serve over 150 parishes and dioceses now - in a fairly short time. And it continues to grow faster and faster. Thanks for being a part of this. We are very, very excited about the next release of updates. I think you will be, too. And, as always, we are praying for the important work you're doing in our Church. Please pray for us, too.
God bless,
Matt