Open API, 10 New Courses, And More: TrainedUp Updates For February 2019

As a team focused on serving the local church, we’ve never been okay with something being good enough. Instead, we have always sought to turn good to great. In a world where church software largely remains stagnate, our goal is to continue to innovate based on the real time feedback that we are getting from ministry leaders.

Today, we’re excited to take a huge step forward with some exciting updates.

First and most excitingly, we’re releasing an Open API that allows TrainedUp to be connected to any software system. From the beginning, we have always strived to make getting people into TrainedUp simple, that’s why there’s nothing like messy codes that you have to share and can instead simply send a link to your team. We also created a simple reporting dashboard with powerful segmentation features as well as real time training completion notifications. The API is a natural step in a long line of innovations.

What is an API and what can I do with it?

API stands for Application Programming Interface. We know that’s a lot of developer talk that sounds boring, but in reality an API is ultimately a way that allows multiple pieces of software to talk to one another.

With our TrainedUp API, you can connect TrainedUp to any software that your church uses with a little help from a developer. Here are a couple of common ways that you may want to use the API:

#1: Update your Church Management System (ChMS) with who has completed a certain training course from inside of TrainedUp.

#2: Automatically add someone to your TrainedUp account and enroll them in a training track once they’ve joined a team in your volunteer scheduling tool.

10 New Training Courses!

We’re continuing to expand our library and with this update, we’re welcoming a few ministry experts to TrainedUp including Jessica Bealer, MaryAnn Sibley, and Rebecca Carlisle.

First up are five new courses for kids ministry from Jessica Bealer. Jessica currently serves as the Director of Family Ministry Services at Generis and has been leading children’s ministry for almost 20 years. Prior to joining Generis, she served for five years at Elevation Church where she helped launch multiple new campuses.

A total of 25 videos are split into the five courses and cover the topics of:

• Giving Parents What They Want
• Becoming a Part of the Team
• Preparing to Lead a Small Group
• When Things Don’t Go as Planned
• Navigating Interactions with Parents

Here’s a sample video:

Next up are four new courses for greeters and guest services from MaryAnn Sibley and Rebecca Carlisle.

A total of 22 videos are split into the the four courses and cover the topics of:

• Avoiding Burnout as a Volunteer
• Frequently Asked Questions About First Impressions
• First Impressions: Role Guides
• Guest Services: Values, Included, and Connected

Here’s a sample video:

Finally, we also released a seven video course all about spiritual gifts. Check out a sample video below:

Behind The Scenes Updates

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the huge behind the scenes update that this update brings. Our development team has been working for over six months to completely re-engineer TrainedUp from the ground up so that we can continue to serve churches for years to come. By rewriting the backend of our application we have been able to increase the response time of TrainedUp exponentially! We also introduced a new permissions manager to make managing your people easier and also launched some improvements to the user and course creation workflow.

As always, we’re honored to get the opportunity to do what we do. All of these updates are part of our mission to create the best software possible to help ministry leaders. You all do incredible work for the Church and it’s our honor to get to serve you!