MassTime™, another free theme, and two new hires

May 29, 2020 by

Diane Kern

What we're excited about: MassTime™ feature for all church sites

Eliminate the frustration of visitors having to endlessly search for Mass times on the parish website with this new free feature for eCatholic church website users. It is now easier than ever for people to locate your Mass, Adoration and Confession schedules as well as be alerted upon visiting your website when weekend Mass is imminent.

• Make Mass & Confession Schedules visible with a floating button on your parish website so visitors can immediately click to find Mass, Adoration, and Confession schedules as well as directions and parish contact information.
• Activate homepage alerts that use your Mass schedule to intelligently display imminent Mass times.

Learn more: Get started by activating MassTime™ alerts and floating button

Updates to eCatholic Services & Products

There's always something new happening! Keep an eye out for these updates the next time you log into your website.

1

New free theme - Cascia

Free theme Cascia (navy color palette)

Looking to easily refresh your website’s appearance? Cascia, the newest free theme for eCatholic websites, encompasses sleekness and sophistication with design accents that will elevate your content and imagery.

Discover unique design with Cascia:

• Flexible homepage feature region options offer the popular full-screen layout, as well as a unique theme-specific design featuring colorful overlays and geometric shapes to showcase your slideshow images.
• Stunning sections and content modules incorporate geometric design, colorful overlays, and fun animation to complete the theme’s attractive look.

Looking for a substantial update? Here are two ways to begin:

1. DIY Homepage Makeover - Get full instructions on how to redesign your homepage yourself. With eCatholic, it's fun and easy!
2. Homepage Makeover Package - Short on time? Feel like you don't have the assets you need? Let our team do the work for you with a quick homepage makeover.

Try it out today: Make the switch to the new theme Cascia

2

Add Holy Days to the Mass Times module

Design example: Twin column section with grey-scale crucifix background image, Cascia free theme

With MassTime™ (introduced above) and the Mass Times module, eCatholic provides different ways to communicate your community's Mass and liturgy schedules. With the latest update, you can now add a schedule for Holy Days and Special Masses. 

All sacrament times are now managed within a special Sacraments and MassTime™ interface of your admin settings. Any times added will appear in both the sacrament times modules as well as the new MassTime™ Display. 

Learn more: Update your Mass Times module today!

3

Test linked pages within the site map editor

 The preview button is displayed as a magnifying glass on linked pages within the Site Map Editor

eCatholic’s Site Map Editor is a versatile tool for building your site from a high-level perspective. Check out how you can test your site’s linked pages from the site map by selecting the preview link (magnifying glass icon). Previously, testing linked pages in the site map editor was a bit of a headache that involved too many steps. Now, you can double-check all your linked pages, directly from your Site Map Editor with a single click!

Learn more: How to add a link in the Site Map Editor

Developer's Roundup

Here are a few improvements we've made to existing features and functionality.

1

Infrastructure updates for traffic management

Many of our customers have been experiencing record amounts of traffic lately. Rest easy knowing that our engineers have put the finishing touches on some permanent infrastructure updates that allow eCatholic-powered websites to continue to perform optimally. In short, eCatholic sites are handling the increased traffic load without a sweat.

This new configuration allowed eCatholic websites to perform strongly each weekend as over thousands of Masses were live-streamed and server traffic soared to nearly five times its previously recorded highs! 

2

eCatholic Payments: Recurring gift history for donors more accessible

eCatholic Payments admins can now more easily view recurring gift history for individual donors. Go to your Transactions List and click on the details icon for a recurring transaction. The Transaction Details dialog (pictured below) has been updated to include the complete transaction history for the recurring gift, instead of just the individual recurring charge. 

3

Increased feature region size for video

The Full XL Video feature region is now fuller. Previously set to a width of 1440 pixels, the Full Video feature region is now 1920 pixels wide. As the latest models of computer monitors continually become wider, this update will prevent portions of full-width videos from being cut off at certain monitor sizes.

Learn more: Managing your homepage feature region

Inside eCatholic

Needless to say, this year presented quite a storm of events that no one anticipated. We are not sure if there are even words to express our gratitude for our eCatholic family of staff and customers who worked together, at all hours, to keep Mass and ministry alive - online.

Through all the craziness we were still able to welcome two additional eCatholic staff members who, despite the state of the world and life in general, joined the team with their sleeves rolled up and ready to dive in.

In early 2020, Katie Cerni stepped in as Digital Marketing Evangelist from Central New Jersey, and focusing on custom design and free theme coding, our CSS department welcomed Kristen Kalinoski (another Texan!).

Together with them, and with you, we were able to overcome challenges and focus on providing solutions as well as opportunities that helped serve all our missions.

We couldn’t imagine the last four months without all our team members. We couldn't imagine the last four months without you. And we especially couldn’t imagine the last four months without the efforts of all the Church’s clergy and lay people who came together and immediately used creative means and resources so that everyone could still experience the Holy Mass, community prayer, and Adoration ... even if it is from within our own homes.

From all of us at eCatholic, thank you.