CarePortal Product Updates

September 2022

Jump to:

	Church Leaders		Network Leaders		Other Updates
	Agencies		Community Champions & Responders

 

  Church Leaders

• We've made the 'Affiliation' field in church settings a drop-down with pre-populated options. This will help a Primary Point Person ensure that their church is connected to the correct denomination/affiliation in the system.
  
• Churches now have the ability to be associated to multiple strategic partners.
• There was sometimes an error when churches attempted to commit and claim. This has been resolved!
• When Respond to Team Leader setting was on, the only way to be able to "Edit / Approve" that response was by clicking the "Yes, I can help" button first. We've fixed this!
• The 'network' map on the internal request card was not loading. This has been fixed!
• The text alert for 'urgent' requests included a link that caused an error. We've fixed this, so clicking the link will work correctly now!

  Community Champions & Responders

• The text alert for 'urgent' requests included a link that caused an error. We've fixed this, so clicking the link will work correctly now!

   Agencies

• The request catalog has been updated! Updates include improved categorization, better and more accurate estimated values, as well as a few new items. Here's one example of an improvement we made:
  

   Network Leaders

• The buttons at the top right of the 'IP', 'Churches', 'Agencies', and 'Champions' tabs will now copy that enrollment link to your clipboard. For IP Admins and Ambassadors the links copied will be your IP's custom enrollment links for churches and champions, respectively.
• Network Leaders now have view-only visibility over a church's 'Leader Actions' and 'Yes, I Can Help' tabs when 'view'-ing a church. This should improve the ability to train and support the churches they serve.
  
• Church Leaders for pending churches now have visibility on the 'Yes, I Can Help' and 'Leader Actions' tabs so they can familiarize themselves with their contents and follow along with the training.
• On the app, agency roles were able to submit requests from agencies that were pending or deactivated. We've fixed this!

 Other Updates

• The emails we send when someone has donated have been cleaned up a bit and should now have some clearer language!
• We made improvements to the table display and search ability on the 'My Giving History' section of User Preferences.

-----------------------

August 2022

  Church Leaders

• The Transactions tab has gotten a refresh! It's now easier to see helpful data related to transactions!
• We've improved the sign-up flow for new responders! It is now easier than ever to create a CarePortal account!
  
• We've created a dashboard experience for responders! They now have a place to log in to CarePortal, view and respond to requests, see the map, view giving history, and manage user preferences.
  
  

  Community Champions & Responders

• We've improved the sign-up flow for new responders! It is now easier than ever to create a CarePortal account!
  
  
• We've created a dashboard experience for responders! They now have a place to log in to CarePortal, view and respond to requests, see the map, view giving history, and manage user preferences. 
  
  

   Agencies

• We've made some updates when closing a request! These include improvements to how it looks, now much cleaner and simpler, and better clarity for agency workers on why we're asking these questions. There may even be a fun celebration when you finish!
• After some review, we decided to change the new purpose statement language from "Help a Pregnant Mom Keep her Baby" to "Support an Expecting Mom and Her Unborn Baby".

   Network Leaders

• The Primary Point Person of a pending church can now set up response teams ahead of activation! This allows the preparation of team structure and placing responders accordingly so that the church can hit the ground running once activated.
• We've improved the language in the email ambassadors get when they have been assigned to a church or champion. Previously, this email used "church" language for churches and champions and was not as clear or concise as it could be.

 Other Updates

• We made some updates to the User Preferences page, you can now update your first and last name, email, phone number, and address.
• We're always looking for ways to clean up our internal systems and recently found some ways they can work more efficiently together.

-----------------------

July 2022

  Church Leaders

• CarePortal Cards can now be reassigned to another church leader! The Primary Point Person can reassign a CarePortal Card in the church's settings. Learn more about CarePortal Cards here.
• When closing a church entered need, there was a weird zoom issue where the save and cancel buttons would disappear but the modal also wasn’t scrollable. 
• We've made some updates to the commit and claim language to provide more clarity around which funds have been committed! 
• On a mac, it wasn’t obvious that the contribution sources list was scrollable.

  Community Champions & Responders

• Champion response teams weren't able to change their county location to a county in another state. We've fixed this so now champion response teams can be located in any state! 

   Agencies

• We added a new message that pops up for agencies when they click “submit” on a request with a total value greater than $1000. This message encourages them to split the request if possible since requests under $1000 are more likely to get a response. Learn more about writing requests that get responses here.
• We've added new character limits for submitting a request to increase the likelihood of getting a response. Requests now must be greater than 250 characters and less than 1500 characters. Learn more about writing requests that get responses here.
• When clicking the 'submit' button to submit a request, if it was clicked multiple times, it was submitting duplicates of the request. We've fixed this!

   Network Leaders

• There is a new agency option type available in CarePortal on the "Agency Detail" page: "Pregnancy Resource Centers"! This agency type will commonly use the recently released new purpose statement: "Help a Pregnant Mom Keep Her Baby", which will still be available to all child-serving agencies.
• New improvements to Area Director dashboards to let you see (1) any agency located in or able to submit requests in your area, and (2) any IP located in or with churches in your area. This will be super helpful for pulling reports and training/assisting your teams and other relevant partners!
• There is a new badge on the Churches tab to filter by We ARE churches in your network! Learn more about the We ARE Initiative here.
• Tier 2/3 application links have been removed from all church public pages. While we are working behind the scenes to revamp the way tiers 2 and 3 work, removing those links from the public pages should help reduce confusion!
• There was an ajax error when trying to search on the 'Contacts' tab, but we've fixed that!

 Other Updates

• When trying to sign up for text alerts, there was a 405 error. Now signing up for text alerts is a breeze!

    CarePortal Mobile App

• The search bar All Open Requests tab wasn't working correctly, but we've fixed it!
• When a user tried to join a church through the app, the search wasn't showing churches based on what they searched. We've fixed this!
• Users with Android 12 weren't able to download the CarePortal App, but now they can!
• Agencies were not able to submit requests through the app when the Monthly Request Limit was set to 0 but we've fixed this!

-----------------------

June 2022

  Church Leaders

• Connecting Church Leaders with no other church leader role weren’t able to access their dashboard because they were getting an error. We've fixed this!
• When viewing requests on a mobile browser, some of the buttons were overlapping each other. We've straightened that out!
• An insufficient funds message was appearing when a church's CarePortal Fund had enough to cover a need but not enough for the need and processing fees even when they hadn't selected that they want to cover processing fees. We've fixed this!
• Sometimes unclaimed funds were not getting escalated to other connecting churches. We tinkered with the inner workings and requests are escalating correctly now!
• Connecting Church Leaders without any other church leader roles weren’t able to access their dashboard because they were getting an error. We've fixed this!
• Under the 'Response Team Settings' section of the 'Church Settings' page, it displays the settings for the default response team. When using the dropdown to view the settings for a different team, the settings weren't refreshing/updating, it still showed the settings for the default response team. It now refreshes as it should!

  Community Champions & Responders

• When viewing requests on a mobile browser, some of the buttons were overlapping each other. We've straightened that out!

   Agencies

• We've added a new purpose statement for child-centered requests: Help a pregnant mom keep her baby

   Network Leaders

• We gave the church and champion enrollment emails a facelift. Now they have updated content and better formatting!
• IP Admins weren’t able to see the ‘Managers’ tab in their settings, we've fixed this!
• The ‘Ambassadors’ tab was not loading properly and was giving an error. We've fixed this!
• Agencies in the enrollment process were accidentally finding a loophole to skip the AD's involvement. We've fixed this loophole!
• When trying to edit inactive Canadian counties there was a 500 error. We've fixed this!
• On the app, agency workers were able to submit requests beyond the request limit.

 Other Updates

• Help Center articles can now be printed with proper formatting!
• Searching in Help Center will now yield more accurate and helpful results!
• We're always looking for ways to clean up our internal systems and recently found some ways they can work more efficiently together.

-----------------------

May 2022

  Church Leaders

• We’ve made it easier for churches to use their CarePortal Fund! Churches with a CarePortal Fund enabled can now transfer money from their CarePortal Fund to their CarePortal Card on specific open requests. Learn more about a CarePortal Fund here.
  
• All Church Leader roles (Point Person, Pastors, Connecting Church Leaders, Church Needs Leaders, Team Leaders for Default Team) can now receive CarePortal Cards! Learn more about CarePortal Cards here.
• Non-Connecting Churches can request CarePortal Cards when they enable their CarePortal Fund.
• We gave the mobile request card a spa day! Now, not only does it look great, but it's easier to use and includes Leader Actions!
• For a quick second, there was an error on the 'Need Detail' page for church needs with funds pending release. We've fixed this!
• Some of our wires got crossed and some people were seeing the mobile view of the request card on their desktop. We've straightened that out!

  Community Champions & Responders

• We gave the mobile request card a spa day! Now, not only does it look great, but its easier to use and includes Leader Actions!
• Some of our wires got crossed and some people were seeing the mobile view of the request card on their desktop. We've straightened that out!

   Agencies

• We've updated the 'Learn More' link for approval options to lead to the correct Help Center article.
• When submitting a request with a purpose statement requiring a grid quadrant but forgetting to select the grid quadrant, there was an error and the grid quadrant box would disappear. We've fixed this!

   Network Leaders

• We've added the 'Strategic Partner' dropdown to the 'Church Edit' page to give Network Leaders better visibility on which churches are associated with Strategic Partners as well as the ability to assign a Strategic Partner to churches.
• Tier 2 responders weren't able to see a 'Yes, I Can Help button', which meant they weren't able to respond to Tier 2 requests. We've fixed this! Reminder: We are re-envisioning Tier 2 to work better and we do not recommend using this feature in your network until we do.
• We discovered a loophole that allowed a Pending Church to act like an Active Church. That gap has been fixed so Pending Churches will be treated like Community Responders until they've been approved.
• The '+' button to add sponsors on the 'County Details' page wasn't working. We've given the button a stern talking to and it is now working correctly!

 Other Updates

• We're always looking for ways to clean up our internal systems and recently found some ways they can work more efficiently together.

-----------------------

April 2022

  Church Leaders

• Sometimes church responders weren't receiving email notifications about new requests. We've straightened this out!
• We've updated how the Respond to Team Leader setting works! To learn more, click here!
  
  
• When a church leader viewed their dashboard from a mobile browser, the 'Yes, I Can Help!' button wasn't working correctly. We gave it a stern talking to and now it works great!
• When a Church enables the 'CarePortal Fund' for their church, responders are able to donate directly to their church's fund so that the Primary Point Person and Team Leaders can use money from the Fund to meet requests. Only these two roles, the PPP and TL, should be able to select the church's Fund. However, for a brief time, Church Responders were able to select their church's CarePortal Fund and use the money on requests.
• We've added some helpful context to emails that alert you to an update on a request you're following! It should be much clearer now what type of update the email is in regards to and any other relevant information you should know. Yay!
• Sometimes when a church 'provided' a need, a local Connecting Church got a notification when they shouldn't have. We tinkered with the inner workings and everything works properly now!

  Community Champions & Responders

• We've added some helpful context to emails that alert you to an update on a request you're following! It should be much clearer now what type of update the email is in regards to and any other relevant information you should now. Yay!

   Agencies

• The ‘Churches and Response Teams Received’ section on ‘Request Details’ pages now include hyperlinks on each church and team. These hyperlinks go to the church/team’s public page.
• When an agency worker submits a request, there's a new checkbox to confirm that they've reviewed the estimated values for the request's needs.

   Network Leaders

• The names of responders who responded anonymously were showing up on the Request Details page for Network Leaders. We've fixed this so anonymous responders can respond anonymously!
• When a church enrolled, the system was automatically assigning them an ambassador and not allowing that field to be left blank. We've fixed this so an ambassador can be assigned at a later time.
• In the past, when a church or champion enrolled and entered a zip code that overlapped two counties, the system would pick a county for them. We've added a new dropdown so now an enrollee can select the correct county!
• The ‘Churches and Response Teams Received’ section on ‘Request Details’ pages now include hyperlinks on each church and team. These hyperlinks go to the church/team’s dashboard (like the ‘View’ button).
• Pending church dashboards come stocked with open requests! (Yes I Can Help and Leader Actions tabs will not show until they are active)

 Other Updates

• We're always looking for ways to clean up our internal systems and recently found some ways they can work more efficiently together.
• We're working hard behind the scenes to speed up our page load times. Hooray for less waiting and more serving children and families!

-----------------------

March 2022

  Church Leaders

• The Requests tab in your dashboard just got a makeover! Not only does it look better and is more intuitive to use, but it is stronger than ever and functions great!
  
• Church leaders who have the ability to refund responders after their church commits and claims funds were not able to actually refund. We've fixed this!
• When Canadian church users submitted needs with Canadian postal codes, the system was getting confused and giving an error. Because of this, Canadian churches couldn't escalate church needs. We know Church Entered Needs are super important for Canadian churches and we've fixed this up!
• There for a hot second CarePortal Cards could not be requested, because the Submit button produced an error. You want a CarePortal Card and we want you to have one, so we've fixed this!
• Other church responses were getting included in the 'Commit & Claim' process by Connecting Churches when they shouldn't have been. We've fixed this, so now when one church provides an item and another church commits and claims resources from other responders, the other church's response won't be included in the 'Commit & Claim' process.

  Community Champions & Responders

• The Requests tab in your dashboard just got a makeover! Not only does it look better and is more intuitive to use, but it is stronger than ever and functions great!
  
• On the internal requests tab for Champions, the button for Champion Admins to activate their response team wasn’t working. The 'Share' button wasn’t working, either. We tinkered with that page a bit and both buttons function correctly now!

   Agencies

• Sometimes, when a caseworker closed a request, the system read their rating incorrectly. We gave it a stern talking to and now all ratings will reflect the rating that was entered. The Close Request pop-up got a little spa day and now functions better than ever!
• When a request has been approved, an email is sent to the caseworker. When clicking on either link in this email, there was an error. We refreshed those broken links and now they work!

   Network Leaders

• While in pending status, a church or champion’s information can be saved without all required fields on the 'Edit Church' and 'Edit Champion' pages by clicking the 'Save Without Validation' button.
  
  
• IP Admins, Ambassadors, and Community Coordinators can now view the 'Churches and Response Teams Received' box in 'Request Details' pages. This will enable them to better engage churches in response to specific requests!
• When the 'Ambassadors' page was loaded, it was not loading all of the ambassadors in the system. We've fixed this!
• When Area Directors or Regional Managers tried to 'view' an ambassador in the 'Ambassadors' tab, they were getting an error. Now, you can view your Ambassadors error-free!
• The 'Utility Bill Assistance' need wasn't working in CarePortal's Demo Environment. We know you may want to add a Utility Bill Assistance need to a request when demonstrating or training on the system, so we've fixed it!
• There was an error that prevented saving when attempting to update anything on the Agency or IP Details page. We've fixed this!
• The 'Churches' table on the 'Ambassador Detail' page wasn't showing all of that Ambassador's churches. We gave the table a stern talking to and now Ambassadors can see all their churches!
• Now, if a church has an active CarePortal Card and wants to be deactivated from CarePortal, they will first need to deactivate their card.

 Other Updates

• We're working hard behind the scenes to speed up our page load times. Hooray for less waiting and more serving children and families!
• We found some ways to improve our platform's security.
• We're cleaning up our internal systems, they now work more efficiently together.

-----------------------

February 2022

  Church Leaders

• Church Settings got a facelift! Your Primary Point Person can now add new Team Leaders here and we've added a link to their team's dashboard right on their contact card!
• Church Response Team Settings also got a facelift! We've updated it to match the Church Settings page and be more intuitive to use.
• We've added the Enable Your Church's CarePortal Fund setting to your Settings tab so you can turn that on anytime! Learn more.
• When a non-connecting church enabled their Church's CarePortal Fund, the button to allow donations on that church's public page wasn't showing up. We've fixed this so now anyone can donate to your fund to help serve kids and families in need!
• When someone donates to your Church's CarePortal Fund, as a Church Leader, you probably want to know about it. Good news, now you will!
• For a hot second, non-connecting churches could only use their Church's CarePortal Fund toward requests outside their escalation radius. We've fixed this so now those funds can be used on requests local to your church!
• You may start seeing multi-family requests pop up. These requests will typically be submitted to help facilitate broad collection drives. We've also added the ability for agency workers to add special instructions to multi family requests to include additional helpful information. 
• We've had a really ornery escalation radius issue for a while where churches within the escalation radius weren't receiving escalated requests. We've fixed this issue and now escalated requests will escalate to the correct churches!
• When a church responder funded a request and their church was a connecting church but didn't commit and claim the funds within 24 hours, the request should have escalated to other local connecting churches. This wasn't happening, but we fixed it and now it is!
• For some newly activated churches, their response teams were staying in the pending stage even though they should be activated when the church is. Good news, we've fixed this so when a church is activated, their response teams will be too!
• The Verify Participation action was never showing up. We gave it a stern talking to and now you'll find it under the Leader Actions tab when your church helped meet a request that is now closed or if your church took the lead on a request.
• Need and Request text notifications weren't including a link to the request. We've fixed this so now, you'll be able to view requests with ease!
• Anonymous responses to church entered needs were not displaying correctly and the emails that should have been sent along with the response weren't sending. We've fixed this so now they will display properly and everyone that should receive an email will!
• For some strange reason when a Primary Point Person who has agency roles responded to a request, it was coming through as a community response. We've fixed this!

  Community Champions & Responders

• Champion Settings got a facelift! Champion Admins can now add new Team Leaders here and we've added a link to their team's dashboard right on their contact card!
• Champion Response Team Settings also got a facelift! We've updated it to be more intuitive to use.
• Champions were receiving an error after clearing a search and then trying to load more requests or click on a badge. We've fixed this issue, woohoo!
• Responders were getting assigned to a random active community when submitting a community response if they weren't already associated with an active community in the system. Responders would obviously want to be assigned to their own local community and not a random one so we've fixed this!

   Agencies

• We've made some changes to the outcome questions we ask when a request is closed. We've also added a follow up form that will be sent when a request is closed with a response of "too soon to know" or "can't know" when asked "did meeting this need help speed up...?". This follow-up form will be sent after 45 days for the agency worker to answer this question again. These changes will help us improve the accuracy of our data! Learn more.
• Agency workers can now close partially met requests! When this new reason for closing a request is selected, you'll have the chance to update the impact data for that request. Learn more.
  
  
• We've cleaned up the "I Need to Cancel this Request" reason for closing. It now works as it always should have by not requiring any additional information after selecting this reason.
• When a request was submitted that included a "Custom Financial" need, you were likely getting a 500 error. We've fixed that error so now submitting a request with a "Custom Financial" need will be a breeze!

   Network Leaders

• Agency Settings now include Multi-Family Requests! This setting is defaulted to off, but is intended to help facilitate broad collection drives that keep impact data separate. We've also added a Special Instructions text box that will appear on requests marked as multi family. This text box will be under the request details so agency workers can add additional helpful information. Learn more.
  
• We've added our BETA Dashboard to the Reporting tab in your dashboard so you can start testing it out. If you have feedback on it, feel free to drop a comment!
• When certain Demo Environment users were trying to log in to the app, you'd get an error. We've fixed this so now you can use Demo logins for all your Demo-ing needs!
• The Demo Environment request catalog included an item called "Should crib be here?" We said, well yeah, crib should be here! And now it's all fixed up.
• We've made some improvements to our data reporting which means your dashboard should now reflect more accurate data.
• Some RMs were having trouble using the "View" button to view their IPs. We've fixed this!
• The search bar on the Ambassadors tab was making it impossible to search. We gave the search bar a stern talking to and now you can search for a specific ambassador!

 Other Updates

• We're cleaning up our internal systems, they now work more efficiently together.
• We found some ways to improve our platform's security.
• We're working hard behind the scenes to speed up our page load times. Hooray for less waiting and more serving children and families!

-----------------------

January 2022

   Church Leaders

• Filters on the Open Requests page were being ornery and not allowing the next ten requests to load. We gave them a stern talking to and now you can use filters AND load the next ten requests! See open requests here.
• When a Church Leader or Responder had their roles removed or moved to a new church, they were still tied to their previous church. Now you'll only receive notifications from the church you actually go to!
• Anyone with a previously deleted account was unable to donate. We've fixed this issue and now anyone can still help the kids and families they wanna help!
• On a Church Leader's Request page, if you were trying to click the "Help" tab before the page fully loaded, it would reload the page. That's time consuming, so now clicking "Help" will allow you to continue as you were.

   Community Champions & Responders

• Filters on the Open Requests page were being ornery and not allowing the next ten requests to load. We gave them a stern talking to and now you can use filters AND load the next ten requests! See open requests here.
• Community Champions were receiving emails when a request was submitted instead of after the community was engaged. We've fixed this, now they'll only receive the emails they're supposed to! Learn more.
• Anyone with a previously deleted account was unable to donate. We've fixed this issue and now anyone can still help the kids and families they wanna help!

   Agencies

• The updates that more directly impact other perspectives are improving your ability to serve more kids and families!
• We've got some new features cooking that we know you'll love. They'll be out in the coming months!

   Network Leaders

• We've improved church settings to be less confusing and easier to use. Learn more.
• Filters on the Open Requests page were being ornery and not allowing the next ten requests to load. We gave them a stern talking to and now you can use filters AND load the next ten requests! See open requests here.
• The church enrollment form had a spa day and is now as pretty and functional as ever.
• When a new church tried to enroll, the enrollment form wasn't allowing any inputs for a hot second. We've fixed that now!

 Other Updates

• We're cleaning up our internal systems, they now work more efficiently together.
• We found some ways to improve our platform's security.