Features and Projects We're Considering
As we look at the next phase of our response to the COVID-19 event, we’ve been
ideating on new features and services to help support the Rock Community. Below is
a listing of some of the features we are considering. If you’re interested in any
of them, please let us know.
- Ticketing: Many localities are considering limiting the size of gatherings
as we work our way back into our normal lives. This means church services may need
to have a limited capacity. We have some ideas about how tickets could be given
out from your website. These tickets would not be tied to an individual but
would be individually numbered. If this is something you’re interested in having us
help with please contact us at info@sparkabilitygroup.com.
- TV Apps: As we extend our digital strategies, we need to reach people on
many types of devices. We have been researching how to extend Rock to power TV
Apps like Roku, Fire TV and Apple TV. If you would like help getting these apps
created and published, reach out to us at info@sparkabilitygroup.com.
- Church Online Platform Check-in: The Church On-line Platform has recently
added a new Moments feature to their v4 version. This is a very exciting feature
as it allows a person to connect with your organization in rich ways. While you
can get started with this feature now using features like Connections
and Workflows, we’re working on a new block to allow a person to log in
to Rock and rapidly note who is watching with them. If you think this block
could be of interest to you, please let us know by emailing
info@sparkdevnetwork.org.
- Contactless Check-in: There has been interest in how people will respond
to check-in once church starts back up. There are some parallels we can look to
in the industry like self-check-out at stores. While there may be some
regional differences, self-check-out is still happening without significant
changes or reduced use. We have two viable options here, which we'll describe below.
Contactless Check-in Options
We have discussed options with many churches over the last two weeks. While there are many
different ideas, we wanted to discuss a couple that we feel like could be the best options.
You can find these below. Option #2 will require funding to get developed. If this is
something you’re able to help with, please email us at
info@sparkdevnetwork.org.
Option #1
The simplest option we've heard is to provide an attended check-in experience. This could be
for all kiosks, or just a set for people who would prefer it. This would require additional
volunteers, but it's likely that the number of occasional attendees will lag a bit as services start up.
To speed up this process we are considering creating a simple web, mobile-friendly block that
would allow attendees to enter their phone number, select their family and present a QR code
to be scanned at the kiosk. This block would remember the selected family in future weeks and
simply show the QR code. Luckily (or more likely by divine providence), Hillside Christian
Church had just engaged Sparkability to add barcode reading as a part of the iPad check-in using
the device's native camera. This project is complete and ready to be used.
With the addition of this block, the attended check-in should move fairly quickly. The attendance
would scan the QR code from the attendee's phone, select the kids/rooms and then hand over the printed labels.
This option would only require the addition of the one block. We could develop this block without
additional funding, and it could be available quickly.
Mine Pass
Instead of this block, one could also consider the Mine Pass plugin which allows you to create
mobile-friendly wallet passes. This has the advantage of being provisioned ahead of time, popping
up on the person's home screen as they get to the church and having an enhanced user experience.
For more information see: Minepass.
Option #2
A more extreme option would be to re-wire check-in further. This solution would:
- Move the check-in functionality from the current kiosks to the attendee's phone using a
geo-fence that would only allow the check-in within a limited range of the church. Changes
would be needed in the current check-in blocks to polish this user experience to feel tailored
to an individual's phone.
- Prevent the labels from printing from this device check-in. Printing is an issue in this
case as server-side printing is not available in cloud hosted solutions (currently).
- Present a single-use QR code that would be used to get their labels. With this we would
add a feature to the iPad check-in kiosk to scan this new barcode and the labels would print.
This option is obviously a lot more work. It would require additional funding to implement
and take a few weeks to have ready. We feel like the funding for this feature would be $36,500.
Important Note: Option #2 represents some additional capabilities for check-in. For several
months, we have been working on re-thinking how the check-in experience could improved for a
Check-in 2.0 feature. We still want to make that a reality, but there is not time before coming
back for services to make that a reality.