2023 ‣ TouchPoint Software

Dec 15, 2023

One of the improvements that came with Phase II of the Finance Enhancements was to include all online transactions in Batches. Since then, you may have noticed some batch items without a description. This happens when a registration is received for an Involvement that does not have an Account Code configured.

We have created a convenient report for you to be able to easily identify the registration Involvements and batch entries with missing account codes. The ideal results of this report being run would be zero returns.

Learn more about this report in our Registrations Without Account Codes help article.

Dec 12, 2023

Join us for 30 minutes this Thursday!

‘Tis the Season! As 2023 comes to a close, we invite you to join us for our annual Fireside Chat. Ross, Morgan, Chris, and other members of the TouchPoint team will gather around to chat about 2023 highlights and what’s ahead for 2024.

Join us this Thursday at 1pm Central for 30 minutes!

Sign Me Up!

Dec 12, 2023

Check Scan v1.0.6 is now available! This update includes enhancements and improvement to matching. This should decrease the number of times you need to manually modify the routing, account, and check numbers once you’ve scanned in checks. If you do encounter a check that isn’t matched as expected, be sure to make the appropriate adjustments in the Pattern Match section, enter the Bank Name, and click the Save button. This will tell TouchPoint to remember that pattern so that the check will scan properly next time.

To download this update, click here. For additional information, please see the Scanning Checks to Import Data and Images help article.

Dec 04, 2023

The next TouchPoint Software release is scheduled to be deployed Wednesday night, December 6. This includes new features and updates to existing features.

Check-In Add Family Form – We have added two enhancements to the Add Family form when using Check-In.
- The Date of Birth field is now a text entry field that only allows entering numbers (no dashes or forward slashes needed) in order to make entering birth dates faster than using the previous date picker.
- There is now a Cancel button when adding a child in case you accidentally click the Add Child button too many times.
Mass Background Checks/Trainings – It is now possible to run background checks and/or Ministry Safe trainings in mass from the blue toolbar. If you have a saved search that identifies who needs a check or training, now you can send this to all people at one time instead of individually.
NEW Emergency Contact Flag – A new flag can be displayed at the top of a person’s record when he or she has an emergency contact set on his or her record. To turn this on, navigate to Admin > Settings > Features > Status Flags and set Badge For Emergency Contact to True. You can configure the color of the badge using the Badge Color Emergency Contact setting.
TouchPoint Giving Reports – The following reports are now available exclusively for church partners using the TouchPoint Giving payment gateway. Note: links to these reports will only show in the new navigation menu.
- First Time Giving Report – Identify those who have contributed to your church for the first time.
- Increased Giving by Range Report – Compares two date ranges to see those whose giving has increased.
- Decreased Giving by Range Report – Compares two date ranges to see those whose giving has decreased.
Mass Creation and Deletion of Users – It is now possible to mass create MyData users and add a random password for them. This process can be exported for a mail merge if you wanted to mail users account information. You can then search for accounts that have not logged in during the specified time and delete them in mass.
Miscellaneous
- SMS Replacement Codes – Additional replacement codes have been added when sending SMS messages. A full list of replacement codes can be found in our documentation.
- eSPACE Integration – Enhancements have been made to the eSPACE integration to pull in events to TouchPoint so that they can be synced with your TouchPoint Sites website calendar widget.
- Involvement Export – The Involvement export/import tool now supports updating extra value of all types.
- Involvement Creation – It is now possible to limit who has access to create new Involvements based on roles.
Several settings and API updates to support Mobile 3.0 as well as a various bug fixes were included in the release.

Nov 29, 2023

We plan to perform maintenance on a monthly basis, at a consistent time. This maintenance window will be performed on the first Sunday of each month from 10:30 PM to 12:30 AM Central Time. To read more about our maintenance and deployment windows you can check out our documentation.

Thank you for your understanding as we work to enhance the security, stability, and performance of our systems!

If you have any questions, please contact Support.

Hayley Whitworth • Nov 28, 2023

This is a webinar you don’t want to miss!

We have a special guest host this month: Sarah Cavanaugh, Database Administrator with Mount Pisgah Methodist Church, will be discussing processes for First Time Guests. With the holiday season in full swing, we’re likely seeing an uptick in visitors. How well do we welcome them and follow-up with them (both inside and outside of TouchPoint)?

Sarah has served at Mount Pisgah for over 9 years and has been using TouchPoint for 6 years. She is full of great tips and tricks for making Sunday (and beyond!) smooth.

Grab a seat!

Thursday, November 30 – 2pm Central

Nov 06, 2023

The next release is scheduled to be deployed Wednesday night, November 8. This includes new features and updates to existing features all relating to the finance area of TouchPoint.

Manage Recurring Giving Page – We have added the ability for users with the FinanceAdmin or Finance + Admin roles to add new and edit existing recurring giving. More details about this new functionality will be released in a separate blog post soon.
Multiple Refunds – Churches using the TouchPoint Giving payment gateway can now issue multiple refunds for the same transaction. For example, if someone paid $100, you could refund $10 and then refund an additional amount after that.
Batch Enhancements
- Search Performance – The search for people when assigning contributions has been optimized so that it is now much quicker.
- Deceased People – A label will now clearly indicate donors that are deceased when assigning contributions.
- Reversals and Returns – If a transaction is reversed or returned, it will be automatically removed from the batch, regardless of the batch type or status. Reversals and returns continue to be handled from the Contribution Search page. Read more about how to do this in the Corrections / Reversals for Contributions and Returned Checks help articles.
- Mass Updates – If a batch is open, you can now perform the following mass updates to entries:
  - Move to another batch (only to an open batch)
  - Delete entry – pops up a warning before performing the delete and the deletion is tracked in the change log
  - Edit entry
    - Date
    - Fund/Account code
    - Type
    - SourceEmail receipt – This is only available for churches using the TouchPoint Giving payment gateway and can be used to notify donors who give offline (cash, check, stock, etc) that their gift has been received and recorded by the church.
Soft Credit Enhancements
- The {pledgeamt} and {pledgebal} replacement codes now include soft credits.
- The Pledge Fulfillment Report now includes soft credits.

Oct 26, 2023

TouchPoint already offered the ability to enable reCAPTCHA, which protected payment pages against certain types of fraud and abuse by malicious bots. We recently updated to the latest version of reCAPTCHA in order to improve security and the user experience with online transactions. This update provides several benefits to the church when it comes to Online Giving and Online Registrations.

1. The new reCAPTCHA allows us to reset the form based on a number of failed payment method entries instead of resetting after 2 minutes. This new way better guards against more sophisticated bots. A church can set the default number of failed attempts by navigating to Admin > Advanced > Settings > System > Security > Lockout on Number of Consecutive Failed Gifts. The current default is 3.

2. The new reCAPTCHA allows a default strictness level for determining suspicious behavior to be set. This gives you more granular control to turn on reCAPTCHA (to allow for an extra layer of security), but to lower the strictness so that it does not create friction for most users. This setting can be adjusted by navigating to Admin > Advanced > Settings > System > Security > Google Recaptcha Minimum Score.

3. For most users, the reCAPTCHA will simply work in the background, so they don’t even know it’s there. In many cases, there will be no need for the user to solve puzzles or click checkboxes.

4. The algorithms used to analyze behavior to determine whether the user is a human or a bot are more advanced and better at identifying and stopping malicious bots.

5. Instead of only challenging the user once in a while, the user’s actions are constantly assessed, allowing it to adapt and react in real-time to changing circumstances.

To learn more about enabling reCAPTCHA on your database, please see the Online Giving Setup help article.

Dania Lane • Oct 26, 2023

If you are using TouchPoint Ticketing, we have some exciting enhancements to share. We have created a new My Tickets page. Ticket holders can now access an improved ticket page.

Attendees can access their tickets on their phone or computer and provide the QR code to your ushers for scanning.

You’ll notice two new options that are customizable per Involvement:

Transfer Tickets – Attendees can access their tickets and transfer one or more tickets to someone else.
Release Tickets – Attendees can release their tickets very easily from this new interface.

The My Tickets page can be customized as well as the tickets themselves with JSON and CSS code. Although you can continue to use the {seatingtickets} replacement code in the confirmation email, we encourage you to fully embrace the following replacement code instead for the best user experience: {mytickets:1234,Please follow this link to view all your e-tickets.}

If you’re interested in learning more about Ticketing in TouchPoint, please request further information at https://www.touchpointsoftware.com/demo.

For more information, see the Ticketing in TouchPoint and My Tickets Page help articles.

Hayley Whitworth • Oct 24, 2023

You don’t want to miss this! Learn why your church needs to be involved in legacy giving!

You are in for a special treat with this month’s webinar! Guest host Doug Ripley from PhilanthroCorp will be joining us to discuss why legacy giving is a major factor in your church’s future financial health and how to offer legacy giving to your members.

PhilanthroCorp serves churches, universities, and other charitable organizations by providing their constituents with a unique estate planning service from a Biblical world-view. PhilanthroCorp’s clients can offer their confidential planning services to their supporters. Their expert advice and guidance is a great service that produces both gratitude from these supporters and significant gifts to their clients. For their clients, they are trusted partners that provide a customized approach, generating consistent, measurable, and significant results.

Tune in October 26th at 2pm Central

Sign Up!

Hayley Whitworth • Oct 06, 2023

Introducing TouchPoint’s chatbot to help you get answers to your questions quickly!

As this feature is still in beta, we strongly recommend only the TouchPoint power users begin testing for now. (The power users will know if the answers are correct or not and can also guide the bot when the answers aren’t correct.) You will likely see inaccurate responses, but the software is learning and improving.

How to begin chatting with TouchPoint Copilot

1. Visit copilot.touchpointsoftware.com. You’ll see the chat icon in the bottom right corner.

2. Simply type in your question. TouchPoint Copilot will provide a typed response along with corresponding documentation and video(s).

3. Rate and provide feedback. After you receive your response, please take a moment to indicate whether the answer was helpful or not. You will be able to indicate that yes, it was helpful or no, it wasn’t. And then you can rate the response by 1 to 5 stars.

Thank you for helping us test out this exciting new feature!

Hayley Whitworth • Oct 05, 2023

Catch up on the latest announcements with this webinar replay!

In last week’s New Features Webinar, we shared some Summit highlights, looked back at the Q3 roadmap successes, and shared a sneak peek at 2024’s roadmap. Get caught up below!