OneBody

Release 2.1.0

Deploying With Capistrano (Screencast)

OneBody is complicated software. There are lots of dependencies, many of which must be compiled on the server where OneBody will be running.

OneBody 2.0.0 Beta 1

OneBody 1.2.0

I'm pleased to announce the latest version of OneBody is available for install.

You can read the full announcement here: http://bit.ly/db93fz

Note: For this and future releases, I will post an abbreviated announcement to this blog and the full release announcement to the Google Group. This is due to the dual open-source/commercial nature of the software -- since the latest, bleeding edge features of OneBody are available at beonebody.com as they are developed, commercial customers are more interested (I suspect) in feature announcements. On the other hand, users of the open source release of OneBody should subscribe to the Google Group, and they will get announcements of full releases.

A Few Small Improvements

Things have been quiet on the blog lately, but not quiet in the code! We've continued to make some minor -- but needed -- improvements to the platform.

Here are a few:

1. New Prayer Event feature to manage time slot signups.
2. Better formatting for the printed directory.
3. Groups now have file management. Use this, in addition to standard message attachments, to "pin to the top" specific files for reference by group members.
4. Messages created via the online interface can now have more than one attachment.
5. Fixes for the Google Calendar integration.
6. Numerous other small bug fixes.

We continue to work toward a 1.2.0 release to include these enhacements and fixes (and more); for those on the bleeding edge or hosted at beonebody.com, you have these already!

More to come soon...

Try OneBody For Free!

We've added free trials to all our hosted accounts at beonebody.com.

No credit card necessary.

If you've been holding out, waiting for a dead simple way to give our software a go, now's your chance.

You're only moments away from seeing why OneBody is different than every other church membership database.

• OneBody is the only church membership database for staff plus social network for members, all in one.
• Focus on people -- not numbers. OneBody makes connecting with people a snap.
• Give your groups an easy way to communicate online without having to manage their own email lists. OneBody is great for small groups and Sunday School classes.

OneBody 1.1.0

I'm excited to tell you about the latest version of OneBody -- 1.1.0. This release is huge (really, too big; more about that later) and full of wonderful stuff. Too much to list here, in fact, so I'll point you to the Changelog.

Some of the features in this release are "beta" -- meaning there will be some rough edges. I've chosen to leave them in there as I believe they make the system more usable for more people, even if there are some tough spots to work through.

I18n aka Internationalization aka Translations (beta)

Please help me to thank Gustavo Bim who has put in countless hours in extracting thousands of text strings from OneBody and translating them to Portuguese for his native Brazil. Gustavo has a heart to make OneBody available to more of the world, and I think that is simply awesome.

I'm calling this feature beta just because there are no doubt English-language strings laying around inside OneBody that were missed. We'll work to get these translated as time goes on.

iPhone/Mobile Interface (beta)

The iPhone interface has been coming along nicely, and its to the point where it's useful when you're trying to access your church community site while on the go. Again, this is beta simply because there are some minor annoyances we need to fix. But at this point, I believe the functionality is worthy of inclusion.

Integration with Donor Tools, Campaign Monitor, and Sermondrop.

OneBody has learned how to play nice with others! Rather than reinventing the wheel, we've teamed up with the guys at Donor Tools to provide you with awesome contribution tracking, integrated within OneBody, powered by their amazing software.

Similarly, you can now use Campaign Monitor to send your quality designed email newsletter to groups of people you've set up inside OneBody -- all without re-keying information.

Sermondrop is an amazing service for hosting your church's audio podcasts. OneBody easily integrates with Sermondrop so your members can find podcasts quickly directly from within your commuinity site.

Relationship Management

OneBody has always had the concept of families and has allowed you to easily manage individuals in a family. And now, you can quickly map relationships between individuals as well. Mother, Father, Son, Daughter, Aunt, Uncle, Cousin, etc. -- as detailed as you want to be.

Admin Templates, and more!

If your community site has several administrators, it can be tedious to set up individual permissions for each one. Admin "Templates" now allow you to set permissions for a group of people with one go.

...

There are tons more enhancements, fixes, and refinements detailed in the Changelog. Definitely check it out!

Download

As always, the best source for download, instructions and other information is at the wiki. Click through to the Download page for your preferred install path. If you're upgrading from a previous release, there is a special Upgrade page to help you through the process.

Too Huge!

This release took too long and is just plain too big. There are 34,000 lines in the diff between 1.0.0 and 1.1.0!

I intend to shorten the release cycle for OneBody over the next few months. Expect to see a leaner, more focused release next time, and hopefully not 5+ months from now. Release early, release often, as they say.

Blessings.

-Tim

Updates on beonebody.com

We're still working to make the 1.1 release avaialble to everyone, but there are some things to wrap up before we do. In the meantime, the latest edge code has been pushed to beonebody.com for our current customers.

Some of the improvements include:

1. Super Admins are no longer managed through the Settings screen. Instead, add Super Admins in the same way you manage standard administrators.
2. Donor Tools integration for contribution tracking.
3. Campaign Monitor integration for mass mailings.
4. Sermondrop integration for podcast hosting.
5. New group batch editing interface.

...and, of course, lots of little fixes here and there.

Also, we're proud to announce our small (but growing!) help section at beonebody.com/help. Check there for how-to guides and screencasts for basic and advanced topics about your OneBody site.

If you have feedback about any of the items we mentioned here (or anything really), please don't hesitate to comment or send us an email at support@beonebody.com.

New Features Coming: Translations, Reporting, and More

It's been 3 months since OneBody 1.0 was released to the public. While this blog has been quiet during that time, the project most certainly has not. As of this post, the changelog shows nearly 11 major new features, 17 bug fixes, and 29 general refinements and improvements.

Some of the new features include...

Multiple Languages: English and Portuguese

I'm excited to announce that OneBody will soon be available in a language other than English! The first job is huge: every page in the app has to be combed over and every string of text replaced. Thanks to Gustavo Bim for his amazing job, the task is nearing completion, and Portuguese will be the first language other than English.

Site administrators will be able to select the language for their site to meet the needs of their community.

Once this work is done, adding other languages will be much simpler and faster. Expect to see other translations soon after.

Reporting Engine

Built on the power of MongoDB, OneBody will soon have powerful reporting capability.

We're still working on the report output functionality and formats, but the report building interface is mostly done at this point.

iPhone Interface

Utilizing the jQTouch framework, we've created a slimmed down web version of OneBody, specifically for the iPhone, Android, and other mobile devices. There are still a few rough edges to iron out, but we're close.

And a whole lot more...

• Interface for managing relationships between people.
• Improvements to the admin dashboard, including graphs.
• Sync api and interface for viewing synchronization results (UpdateAgent).
• Add changed emails interface in admin section.
• New Admin "Templates" feature.
• Way better handling of deleted records, and an interface to manage them.

Version 1.1

All these changes are currently on GitHub and are slated for release in the next release of OneBody, version 1.1. We plan to wrap up these new features in the next few weeks, and push out a release when ready.

Stay tuned!

OneBody 1.0 Is Finally Here!

I am pleased to announce the release of OneBody version 1.0! This has been three years in the making, and I'm super excited to make it available to churches all over the world.

Changes since 0.9.1 are light, but that was the plan. No new features means no new bugs, right? ;-)

• New Debian package release.
• New virtual appliance (OVF) release.
• Ability to add/remove group memberships from profile edit page.
• Improvements to the layout of the administration section.
• New rake task for modifying settings (even hidden and global ones) from the command line.

If you've been holding off installing OneBody, now is the time! This is the first release where we've started to provide some great and easy new ways to install the software, including a Debian package and a virtual appliance (OVF) for use in VMWare or other virtualization tools.

See the wiki for more download details.

And as always, we continue to offer the most advanced and full-featured software for church social networking at beonebody.com, starting at $25/month.