Ministry Scheduler Pro Version History

v6.0 (Build 3) (8/8/11)

• Speed gains of up to 50% from optimizations of the database engine.
• Support for multiple people (administrators) using MSP at the same time has been added.
• The Rosterizer now includes column headings.
• Emails CCed to an MSP administrator will now include a list volunteers to which the email was sent.
• The ability has been added to only show live roster / schedule posts to volunteers in the ministries they include.
• Volunteers can now cancel swap requests if they request a sub and then find that they can make their scheduled date.
• Preassignments may now have a starting date, but not an ending date, so it will be easy to assign somebody to "every other Monday, starting today", for example.
• Added the ability to flag volunteers' phone numbers, cell phone numbers, or email addresses as "unlisted", which will prevent them from being listed in rosters, etc.
• Added the ability to turn on or off automatic email or SMS reminders directly from a volunteer's profile.
• Added the ability to export Web Forms to an html or text document for archiving purposes.
• Ministries can now be removed from enrollment forms before the form is processed.
• Ministry subdivisions are now grouped in sub-menus of the "Add ministry" menu in the Edit Volunteer dialog.
• The Ministry Distribution Report can now be filtered for multiple ministries at one time.
• The Web Forms list may now be sorted by any column.
• When a schedule is made live, you will now automatically be prompted to create a live schedule post for that schedule, if one does not already exist.
• Days on which swaps have been requested will now be color coded in the interactive calendar view, just as days on which there are unfilled positions are.
• The new special tokens, {{SwapRequestedByEmail}} and {{SwapRequestedByPhone}}, are now available to use in the swap request email.
• Custom tokens will now be sorted alphabetically in the {{Tokens}} menu.
• The short date formats YYYY-MM-DD and YYYY/MM/DD are now supported.
• The error message in the case that a schedule post is not found now includes the name of the post that was not found.

v5.8 (4/11/11)

• Integration with all church management software is even easier to setup.
• Seamless, two-way integration has been added with Servant Keeper®
• Small changes and fixes.

v5.7 (Build 9) (1/18/11)

• Fixed a problem that would produce an "Exception thrown" when editing a family.
• Fixed a problem that would produce an "Execution error" when editing a ministry in some circumstances.

v5.7 (Build 8) (1/12/11)

• Automatic SMS reminders and PhoneHuddle™ technology have been added.
• Added the ability for family members to quickly switch between each others' profiles when using the Web Terminal.
• Added support for easily scheduling choir ministries.
• Added the ability to link directly to the current schedule from an external web site (e.g. the church website).
• Added the ability to limit email reminders to particular ministries.
• Added a warning when editing a volunteer that has a unprocessed profile change Web Form, to avoid lost changes.
• Added ability to override lack of ownership of shared files to save a shared database not checked out to the current user.
• Added ability to change label used for "Volunteer", for example, from "Volunteer" to "Minister".
• Fixed a problem that would allow volunteers to accept a swap after the "swap requested" flag on a position was cleared.
• Fixed a problem with live schedules not being auto backed-up correctly at times.
• Fixed a problem that could cause "Exception thrown" errors under some circumstances.
• Many other changes, fixes and improvements.

v5.6 (Build 5) (10/14/10)

• Fixed double "Repeats..." item in right click menu in schedules.
• Fixed bug introduced in 5.6 that could cause the wrong number of volunteers to be required for monthly services.
• Updated Quick Start Guide.
• Other small changes and fixes.

v5.6 (8/4/10)

• Added the ability to make and edit preassignments through the schedule window.
• Creating a live web post has been simplified.
• The "interactive calendar view" schedule layout no longer requires the installation of a browser plugin to function.
• Many other small changes and improvements.

v5.5.1 (Build 3) (6/24/10)

• Fixed a bug related to preferred serving frequencies specified in decimals (e.g. .33 times a month) introduced in 5.1.

v5.5.1 (6/10/10)

• Fixed a bug introduced in 5.5 that could cause the token settings in the Web Terminal to be reset when adding tokens to a new email.
• Fixed a bug introduced in 5.5 that would prevent teams from being automatically added to a service when adding a team member manually in the schedule skeleton.
• Fixed a bug that could cause block scheduled ministries on Saturday morning to be grouped with the follow Sunday's week, as opposed to the previous week.
• Other minor bug fixes.

v5.5 (5/5/10)

• Automatic email reminders can now be sent to volunteers before their scheduled dates.
• New volunteers can now enroll online, or submit their basic personal information and scheduling preferences, through the Web Terminal.
• It is now possible to link directly to full schedule posts from your church's web site, so that people can see these full schedules without having to log into the Web Terminal.
• The {{ScheduleServices}} token can now be filtered to list positions in more than one ministry or service.
• All Web Terminal settings are now accessed through a single "Web Terminal Settings" dialog.
• The calendar views in the Edit Schedule window have been updated for better performance.
• There are now two separate dialogs for saving a live schedule post and exporting a schedule.
• A new "coverage" report allows you to quickly see how many unfilled positions remain in each service.
• The Conflict Report has been optimized so that filters can be changed without the reporting having to re-generate.
• Full schedules can now be posted to the Web Terminal in an "interactive calendar view" format. (A browser plug-in needs to be installed to view schedules in this format).
• A special {{SwapAcceptedByEmail}} token is now available in the "swap requested" email so the two ministers involved in the swap can easily get in contact.
• A special {{WebTerminalMyProfilePage}} token is now available to link directly to the My Profile page in the Web Terminal.

v5.2.2 (12/15/09)

• Integration for Access ACS™ finalized.
• A new "Rebuild database" option in the File menu can be used to correct minor database inconsistencies.
• Bug fixed relating to "Repeat every year" can't serve times.
• Bug fixed where inactive ministers were causing family members not to be scheduled when family members are set to always be scheduled together in a ministry.
• Bug fixed where family members could not be scheduled for the same service as pre-assigned family members in some cases.
• Bug fixed that could cause schedule corruption when processing trade forms under some rare circumstances.
• Bug fixed that caused problems when including "https" links in the Emailer.

v5.2.1 (11/05/09)

• Integration added for Access ACS™.
• The new Conflict Report now sorts by date when the appropriate column is clicked.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 5.2 that could cause one-time-only services to remain unfilled after scheduling.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 5.2 that was preventing Schedule Export settings from being loaded properly.
• Fixed a problem with including "/" in ministry names.
• Fixed a problem that could cause Sunday preassignments to appear before Saturday preassignments when sorting the preassignment list by date.
• Other minor bug fixes.

v5.2 (9/26/09)

• A new "Conflict Report" scans schedules for conflicts with can't serve dates, preferences, and more.
• MSP is now available for Mac OS X.
• Full drag and drop now supported in schedules.
• The Edit Minister window can now be resized.
• Email addresses in live roster posts will now be links that open an email to the appropriate volunteer.
• Many other small changes and fixes.

v5.1.1 Build 2 (6/8/09)

• Fixed a bug introduced in 5.1 that caused inactive ministers to receive swap request emails.

v5.1.1 (5/8/09)

• Added an interactive Web Terminal Demo accessible from within MSP.
• The "Treat as" ("Type") menu in the Edit Service dialog now displays all available services.
• "{{TradeRequestedByEmail}}" token has been added to the special tokens available in the "trade proposal" email.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 5.1 with the radio buttons for preassignment patterns in the Teams pane not highlighting correctly.
• Fixed a display problem introduced in 5.1 when auto-assigning an entire team to a service.
• Other minor fixes and improvements.

v5.1 (4/23/09)

• You may now run the auto-scheduler multiple times, each time for different ministries, services, or time periods.
• A new "minister list" allows dragging and dropping ministers into schedules and supports suggesting positions for ministers.
• The Web Terminal now allows ministers to propose and accept "trades" in addition to normal swap requests/accepts.
• Up to six months (instead of three) may now be displayed in the calendar on the left side of open schedules.
• Emails may now have different "From" names and addresses depending on the ministry to which they are being sent.
• Emails for swap accepts / accepts in the Web Terminal can now come from different email addresses based on their related ministry.
• For Catholic users, a new "Discussion" tab in the Web Terminal provides an open forum for discussion of liturgical ministries.
• By popular demand, the "Request swap" link in the Web Terminal is now shown as "Request Sub".
• One-click integration added for Servant Keeper® church management software.
• New option added for scheduling ministries in combination "Whenever possible" (as opposed to just "When needed", or "Always").
• Showing ministers' email and phone numbers in the {{SwapRequestedPositions}} token is now optional.
• It is now possible to change a service's type (weekly, monthly) in schedule and skeletons.
• It is now possible to include links to volunteer for swap requested positions in full schedules in the Web Terminal.
• Services in open schedules and schedule skeletons can now be copied and pasted between days.
• Unfilled positions in open schedules and schedule skeletons can now be copied and pasted between services.
• Teams can now be setup to automatically cycle through service times on a fixed rotation.
• Entries in rosters that include service time preferences are now more likely to fit on one line when viewed in the Web Terminal, improving readability.
• Title rules are now considered when listing unfilled positions or swap requested positions in the Web Terminal.
• Monthly services that replace coinciding weekly services will now retain their identity as monthly services for service preference purposes if their description is different then the weekly service they are replacing.
• Preassignments for Sunday services on the nth week of the month can now be calculated from the adjacent Saturday.
• "nth weekend of the month" can't serve times can now be set to consider "full" weekends only when calculating the weekend number.
• Multiple preassignments can be now be selected by holding down the control or shift keys (for quick mass deletion of preassignments).
• Fixed a problem that could cause an error message to appear while auto-saving the MSP database under some circumstances.

v5.0.2 (Build 6) (1/5/09)

• Added ability to list only first preference in {{ServicePreferences}} token.
• Added ability to hide days of the week in the {{ServicePreferences}} token.
• Added support for Online Trial Edition.
• Fixed an issue that could cause teams rotating in one month blocks to be preassigned incorrectly.
• Fixed an issue that could cause some ministers not to be scheduled when multiple ministries were tied with "Always schedule in combination" option.
• Fixed an issue with tokens not evaluating correctly in the "My Profile" tab of the Web Terminal.
• Fixed an issue with custom tokens not evaluating correctly in some cases when they had other tokens in their contents.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v5.0.2 (Build 4) (10/28/08)

• Added an option to hide inactive ministers to the Minister pane.
• Inactive ministers will no longer be sent swap request emails.
• Fixed a problem that could cause inactive members sharing an active minister's name to be imported during synchronization.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 5.0 that could cause some ministers not to be scheduled when the "Never split family members in this ministry" option was on.
• Fixed a bug that would insert "http://" in front of "mailto" and "https" links used in the Emailer or Web Terminal.
• All accented characters will now appear correctly in export html schedules and Live Schedule Posts.

v5.0.2 (Build 2) (10/20/08)

• BCCed emails for swap requests will now have token replacements made appropriately.
• Fixed a problem that could cause web forms to disappear in rare circumstances.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 5.0.2 that would prevent this display web form data from being updated correctly in the Web Forms pane.

v5.0.2 (10/14/08)

• Additional unfilled positions may now be directly added to services after the schedule has been generated.
• Added an option to display minister titles in exported schedules.
• Fixed a problem that could cause errors of the form "invalid title id" to appear in some cases.
• Fixed a problem that could prevent v4 data files from being copied over when upgrading from MSP 4.1 or earlier.
• Fixed a problem with the "Always schedule families together in this ministry option" not working correctly.
• Fixed a problem with the 'Always schedule these ministries together' option leaving unfilled positions in some cases.
• Fixed a problem with the "every nth month" setting for preassignments not working properly.
• Fixed a problem with the "Only include this service" option in the Scheduled Services token options not turning off.
• Fixed a problem with monthly and yearly services not appearing in the My Profile tab of the Web Terminal.
• Inactive services will now not appear in the My Profile tab of the Web Terminal by default.
• Accented characters will now appear correctly in export html schedules and Live Schedule Posts.
• The {{WebTerminalHomePageLink}} token will now properly evaluate to a hyper-link instead of plain text.

v5.0.1 (9/23/08)

• Fixed a problem with sending schedule related tokens in the Emailer with data sharing turned off.
• Fixed a problem that could cause errors of the form "Exception thrown: attempt to unserialize empty array".
• Fixed a problem with service preference divided rosters when ministers had ministry-bound service preferences.

v5.0 (9/21/08)

• The new Web Terminal allows ministers access and update their own schedules from anywhere.
• Title feature added to help deal with experienced / inexperienced or male / female ministers.
• MSP now checks for updates automatically and will auto-update itself if one is available.
• No shows that are replaced by walk-in ministers can now be tracked properly using the attendance flags.
• Lists of weekly and yearly service times may now be exported.
• The "Combine with coinciding weekly service" option in the Monthy Service dialog has been replaced by the "Replace coinciding weekly service" option.
• Ministers in teams are now assigned in a random order, as opposed to always in the order they appear in the team.
• The "Schedule this ministry in combo with" option will now always schedule a minister in two ministries at a time if he is qualified for both ministries.
• Area codes may be eliminated from phone numbers in exported schedules to save space.
• Mailing labels can now be properly sorted by 10 digit zip codes.
• Licensing scheme was changed to better reflect value of various features.

v4.2.3 (Build 6) (7/2/08)

• Fixed a problem with an "invalid record id" error appearing during scheduling in some rare cases.
• Fixed a problem with teams flagged to be preassigned in monthly rotations being scheduled incorrectly.

v4.2.3 (Build 4) (6/18/08)

• Fixed a problem introduced in 4.2.3 that could cause an "execution error" dialog to appear under some circumstances in the rosterizer.

v4.2.3 (Build 3) (6/13/08)

• Fixed a problem that could cause inaccurate numbers in the ministry distribution report in rare circumstances.
• Fixed a problem with specifying that two subdivisions of the same ministry could be scheduled in combination with each other.
• Fixed a problem with used the "Schedule in one month blocks" option together with the "Always" schedule in combination with option.
• Inactive and deceased members will no longer be synchronized with ParishSOFT.
• Family email addresses will now be brought over from ParishSOFT in the absence of a member email.
• Other minor fixes and improvements.

v4.2.3 (6/2/08)

• Email address validation is now done strictly according to the RFC2822 specification. Apostrophes and other special characters are now allowed.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 4.2.2 that could leave empty positions in schedules when the "Always schedule in combination" option was on for two ministries.
• Fixed a problem with the page setup dialog appearing when printing emails instead of the standard printer dialog.
• Fixed a problem that could cause a hang in rare cases when using conditional expansions for attendance tokens.
• Other minor fixes and improvements.

v4.2.2 (5/14/08)

• Synchronization added for ACS Church Management software.
• Synchronization added for PowerChurch management software.
• One click importation added for Schedule Maker v6.x.
• "Bad ministry load" notice that would appear from time to time has been removed.
• The Rosterizer will now deal properly with ministry-bound service preferences in rosters divided by service preference.
• Other minor fixes and improvements.

v4.2.1 (1/31/08)

• One-click import from LTP Schedule Maker and Harmony Media Schedule Maker added.
• <<LinkToMinistryResources>> added to Emailer.
• Other minor fixes and improvements.

v4.2 (11/30/07)

• When editing preassignments you now have the option to apply changes to corresponding assignments in the open schedule.
• Improved mechanism to deal with SPAM controls when sending mails through the Emailer.
• Restore database from auto-backup option added to file menu.
• More than two ministries may now be flagged to "Always" be scheduled together at one time.
• Minister lists may now be filtered by date created and last date modified, and those fields may also be included in rosters and emails.
• Added ability to import ministry qualifications during one-click synchronization.
• Family emails and phones will now be pulled over from Parish Data Systems™.
• Added ability to import information directly from ZLC Ministry Scheduler.
• Added ability to import information directly from LabOra Ministry Scheduler.
• Improved service distribution in cases where the "Always" schedule together with ministry option is turned on.
• Fixed problem with emails not being sent to ministers who were scheduled during time frame specified by the "ScheduledServices" token, even if the appropriate "don't send" option was switched off.
• Fixed problem with limiting the export schedule date range even though the corresponding preference was turned off.
• Fixed bug that would prevent the "don't include ministers with this token empty" option from working in the Rosterizer.
• Fixed a bug that would include ministers with no services in the "Minister List" schedule layout even though the corresponding preference was turned off.
• Fixed problem with "Execution error" dialogs occurring in some cases when dd/mm/yy date format was being used.
• Fixed a problem that would cause "Exception thrown" when including the "Swap Requested Positions" token in rosters.
• Fixed small problem that could cause a freeze when selecting a minister on the main screen (in extremely uncommon circumstances).

v4.1.4 (10/18/07)

• Added searchable online knowledge base to Help menu.
• Improved Auto-Detect database feature for PDS and ParishSOFT databases.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 4.1.3 with "Schedule this ministry in one week blocks" option.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 4.1.3 with ministers being scheduled for one service more than their preferred serving frequency allowed.
• Fixed a problem sending emails based on scheduled services while filtering with for just a particular ministry.
• Fixed a problem with the Emailer's "Moreover, only send to ministers who pass this filter" option.
• Fixed a problem that caused the emailer to print emails without excluding ministers properly based on token option filters.
• Fixed a problem with excluding ministers when exporting schedules to mailing labels when the "Only include these ministries" option was turned on.
• Fixed a problem with the Emailer not interpreting space-aligned columns correctly.
• Fixed a problem with substitutes not appearing in parenthesis in the "select minister for service" dialog.
• Fixed a that could cause "Can't save this file" errors when not logged in as the administrator on Windows Vista.

v4.1.3 Build 2 (9/11/07)

• Fixed problem with nick name importation from church management software in some circumstances.
• Fixed problem that could cause errors of the form "invalid record id" to be displayed.
• Schedules may now be only 28 days long to allow for celebrations that span month barriers.
• Ministries will now be alphabetized when synchronizing with church management software.

v4.1.3 (9/01/07)

• Added option to automatically preassign teams in monthly rotations.
• Added option to sign in sheets for multiple services on a single per page.
• Added option to include blank lines for unfilled positions in sign in sheets.
• Added ability to synchronize nick names with PDS™ and ParishSOFT® software.
• Added option to filter lists of ministers for just those without internet access (without using inverse option).
• Added option to limit date range of exported sign in sheets on layout settings pane of Export Schedule dialog.
• Manually adding a minister to a ministry which should "always" be scheduled with another ministry will now automatically add the minister to the second ministry.
• The "add can't serve time" window will now remember its last location on the screen and open to that location. It will also remember the last month that a can't serve time was entered and open by default to that month.
• Fixed a problem with exporting rosters in plain text format.
• Auto-backup databases will now be placed in temporary folder instead of MSP folder.
• Fixed a problem with validating date ranges for email tokens on computers set to dd/mm/yy format.

v4.1.2 (7/31/07)

• Added ability to specify that two ministries "always" be scheduled together - especially useful for homebound EMs.
• Improved integration options in synchronize minister feature.
• Fixed a bug introduced in 4.0 that would prevent "inactive" or "manual scheduling only" tokens from being included in the rosterizer.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v4.1.1 (7/18/07)

• Added cell phone field to quick view options and filter minister dialog.
• Added 'clear on attendance flags' option in the Schedule menu.
• Fixed bug with Import Ministers feature introduced in 4.1.
• Fixed a bug that could cause problems with data sharing when not logged in as a computer administrator.
• Fixed several bugs with right click menu in schedule window.

v4.1 (7/10/07)

• Full support attendance tracking has been added. Sign in sheets may be exported, and no shows may be tracked as well as swaps made and extra services taken on. Attendance records can be exported or included in rosters and emails, and custom text may be merged into emails or schedule cover sheets based on past attendance records (e.g. "Also, we noticed that you recently did not show up at one of your scheduled times. Please know how important you are...").
• One-click synchronization of minister information with most popular church management programs has been added.
• The preassignment list can now be filtered by minister, service time, ministry, or preassignment pattern.
• Lists of preassignments and teams may now be exported or included in emails or rosters.
• All other minister information may also now be merged into emails and included in rosters, including phone and address fields and scheduled dates and times. The token option dialog has been expanded resulting in much greater control over the information merged (e.g. only include in this token those can't serve times over a particular date range).
• A Cell Phone field has been added to each ministers' profile.
• The NetServices protocol has again been optimized, halving the speed of many remote requests.
• All database data and remote communication is now automatically encrypted with the FIPS-approved Rigndael (AES) chiper algorithm. The Rijndael algorithm is approved for use by U.S. government departments and agencies to encrypt data up to the Top Secret level.
• The filter minister dialog has been expanded to include the option to build scheduling and attendance related filters. Among other benefits, these additions allow the listing of ministers that have been scheduled more than x number of times in a given time period.
• Ministers may now have multiple ministry preferences for a single service time.
• When changing the date of a yearly service, that service may now automatically be removed from ministers' can't serve times.
• "Don't ask me this again" option has been added to many alerts that automatically pop up throughout the program.
• Preferred serving frequency is now automatically bound in families with the "Never split up this family" option turned on.
• Deleting a minister will now leave any positions that were filled by that minister in schedules "Not Filled", as opposed to eliminating the position altogether.
• Fixed a problem with large attachments (> 3 MB) not being sent properly with the emailer has been resolved.
• Fixed a problem with ministry subdivisions at times appearing out of order in the ministry distribution dialog.
• Fixed a problem that could cause some text to be cut off when exporting a schedule to mailing labels.
• Fixed a problem that could cause apostrophes to be stripped when pasting text from MS Word to the Emailer.

v4.0.6 (2/08/07)

• Fixed a bug introduced in 4.0.4 that prevented numbers for numbered ministries appearing in email tokens and final schedules by service time.
• Fixed an alignment problem that would occur in rare cases with subdivisions in the "Ministry distribution" report.
• Changed the "Ministry distribution" report to only show ministers in the selected ministry when a ministry filter is selected.
• Fixed a bug that could cause ministers to be incorrectly scheduled for two services on the same weekend in rare cases.
• Fixed a problem that could cause severe slow downs when scheduling ministries with "2 week block" and "one month block" scheduling turned on.

v4.0.5 (1/12/07)

• Fixed a bug introduced in 4.0.4 that prevented numbers for numbered ministries appearing in final, exported schedules.
• Fixed a bug that could cause "nth weekend of the month" can't serve times to be interpreted incorrectly.
• Fixed a bug with the "Don't send to substitute ministers" option in the Emailer that would prevent an email from being sent.

v4.0.4 (1/05/07)

• Added ability to enumerate multiple positions in a ministry in a schedule using custom labels in addition to numbers.
• Minister Scheduler Pro may now be installed on multiple users on a single computer without licensing problems occurring.
• The preassignment feature may now be accessed in evaluation mode.
• The "weekly blocks" for ministries scheduled in weekly blocks now start on Saturday and end on Friday, instead of running Sunday to Saturday.
• Fixed a bug introduced in 4.0.3 that could cause can't serve times to appear in dd/mm format in summary boxes on some systems.
• Fixed bug that could cause services to "disappear" from the skeleton window after being edited on systems with dd/mm/yy date settings.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 4.0 that could cause ministry subdivisions to appear out of order in final schedule exports.
• Fixed a bug that could cause exceptions of the form "could not find ministry..." during scheduling in rare cases.
• Fixed a problem that could cause the dates of services to not appear in the "Minister list with services under each" schedule layout.
• Fixed a bug that could cause an error of the form "There is record xx in table ministries" to appear when using the email.
• Fixed a bug that could cause an error of the form "Invalid record id xx" to appear when exporting a schedule.
• Fixed a bug that could delay re-sorting of the minister list when toggling the "sort by last name" option.

v4.0.3 (11/27/06)

• Support added for short date formats of "YYYY-mm-dd" and "dd-MMM-yy".
• Fixed bug that could cause strange behavior when viewing and selecting April 2007 from calendar popups.
• Fixed problem that could affect preferred serving frequency targets when switched schedule skeletons.

v4.0.2 (11/19/06)

• Improved mechanism to detect and copy data from older versions of MSP.
• Fixed problem with "CC to me" feature in Emailer not working correctly.
• Service names will now only appear in the week header of all services in the week have the same (non-empty) name.
• Unfilled positions are now displayed in red in the HTML format for final schedules.
• Interface updated to reflect new maintenance contract licensing structure as opposed to license renewal.

v4.0.1 (11/14/06)

• Fixed a bug that could cause shared databases to remain checked out in some circumstances after Minister Scheduler Pro had been closed.
• Fixed a bug that prevented calendar date pickers from functioning in the Emailer's "token settings" dialog.

v4.0 (11/7/06)

• A new "Web Input" feature allows ministers to view and submit requests to change their service preferences, preferred serving frequency, and can't serve times using any web browser. Their requests may then be reviewed and integrated into their profiles inside MSP with a single click.
• Service times can now be automatically named according to any one of our online liturgical calendars.
• The "View ministry distribution" dialog may now show cumulative totals of services given to each minister across multiple schedules.
• Schedules may now by exported with rows as ministries and services as columns, as opposed to only the other way around. Many other options have been added to the Export Schedule dialog, including the ability to export just particular service times or date ranges, full table breaks between weeks, and also support for .csv (MS Excel) format for all layouts.
• Preferred serving frequency can now be specified on a per-ministry basis.
• You may now send attachments using the Emailer.
• The Emailer is now capable of merging minister's service preferences, can't serve times, and other data into its emails. You may even include in each email a list of unfilled positions in each minister's ministries.
• Emails may now be printed with the information for each minister already merged into the printed document. (This feature is very useful for creating schedule cover letters with customized information for each minister.)
• Support for multiple email addresses has been added.
• The Rosterizer has been completely reworked. Now any minister data may be included in the roster in any order, including service preferences and can't serve times. Also, among many other options, support has been added for listing inactive or substitute ministers separately at the end of the roster.
• Ministers may now be flagged as "Substitutes" in one or more of their ministries, which will prevent them from being scheduled in those ministries by the automatic scheduler. (This setting is equivalent to turning on the "Preassigned and manual scheduling only" option in just the flagged ministries.)
• An "Overload" option can now be used to indicate that particular services may "overload" ministers' schedules if necessary. This feature is particularly useful during times like Holy Week, when many services take place within a short time and the scheduler would otherwise leave empty positions to be manually filled.
• Can't serve times that affect a particular date range may now be flagged to repeat every year during that date range.
• It may now be specified that the date of a yearly service changes each year. Reminders are generated if the date of such a service is not updated each year.
• Weekly services at 12:00 AM are now interpreted to not have a precise time. Just the day or date of such a service will appear in MSP and in final, exported schedules.
• Can't serve times, monthly services, and preassignments can all now be applied to the "last" week of a month.
• The NetServices communication protocol has been streamlined for a 50% or more performance gain.
• It may now be specified that a given computer does not have permission to save changes to a shared database. Such computers may only view the database.
• All files generated by MSP are now externally associated with the program so double clicking on the file in Windows Explorer will now open the file with MSP.
• A new option has been added to the Rosterizer and Export Schedule dialog to web post an exported HTML schedule or roster immediately after it has been generated.
• Imported ministers can now be automatically added to existing families that share their last name.
• A warning dialog is now displayed if yearly services are scheduled to be created on the same dates as weekly services. You may now choose to automatically omit the weekly services scheduled on the days on which yearly services are also scheduled to be created so duplicate or extra services will not be created by accident.
• The ability has been added to change the "Church web identifier" for a license, or the part of the web posting URL that used to be dependent on the NetServices username.
• Opening an old saved schedule and making changes to that schedule will now update the historical scheduling information on file accordingly.
• A new filter "Only show ministers that are active and available to serve at this time" has been added to the "add a minister to this service time" dialog.
• The Data Sharing pane has been reworked to be much clearer and easier to use.
• The re-write of a shared database will now be skipped if no changes have been made to the database since the last save.
• The Edit Ministry dialog has been rearranged. Ministry "Head" information has been condensed to a single field.
• The "Rookie" minister option has been removed. (In most cases it is possible to duplicate the functionality this feature provided using ministry subdivisions.)
• The "Abbreviate ministers' first names to a single initial" option in the export schedule dialog will now automatically not take effect for a given minister if the minister shares the same first name and last initial as another minister in the database.
• Can't serve date filter for fixed date range can't serve times will now return all ministers with ANY can't serve date within the specified date range, as opposed to only those ministers who can not serve for the entire range.
• A progress bar will now appear when saving or loading a remote database or uploading web posts.
• "nth week of the month" preassignments that fall on Saturday now have their week number tied to the adjacent Sunday.
• Services will now only be expanded for oversized teams and families if there is no weekly service that can hold the entire team or family.
• Inactive status and can't serve times will now take priority over preassignments (and rotating team assignments).
• Duplicate entries in imported minister lists will now be automatically eliminated.
• Fixed a quirk in the scheduler that could allow some ministers to be given slightly more than their preferred number of services when the "Never exceed a minister's preferred serving frequency" setting was turned on in some circumstances.
• Improved fairness of ministry distribution in configurations with many low demand ministries.
• Many, many other minor changes and improvements.

v3.9.2 (4/26/06)

• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.9.1 that could cause service times to "disappear" after editing them on some systems.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a fatal error to occur after exporting schedules or rosters.
• Schedules exported in HTML format now use line breaks between ministers instead of back slashes.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v3.9.1 (4/20/06)

• Added "Schedule this ministry autonomously" as an option in the Edit Ministry dialog.
• Added autosave feature which can be used to restore work in the event of an unexpected quit.
• Added "Save as shared" option to the File menu in the Edit Schedule window to share open schedule as a shared file.
• Added "Open Recent Schedule" option in the File menu.
• Added "Use Recent Database" option in the File menu.
• Fixed a bug that could cause service times to "disappear" after editing in systems using DD/MM/YY date foramt.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v3.9 (3/1/06)

• Can't serve dates may now be specified on a per-ministry basis.
• Added additional address formats, title and "filler" field options to Import Ministers feature.
• Added Next and Previous buttons to Edit Minister dialog to jump to next and previous ministers.
• Added option to ensure that no minister is scheduled two weekends in a row to Scheduler Settings dialog.
• Added "Bcc to me" option to Emailer.
• Changed licensing scheme and added distributed installation verification system (DIVS).
• Fixed a problem that could leave shared databases checked out improperly or changes lost when quitting MSP from the Schedule Skeleton window.
• Fixed a bug that could cause service times to be displayed incorrectly in some time zones under daylight savings time.

v3.8.3 (12/22/05)

• Added ability to explicitly specify which ministers with the same last name are grouped into a family on import.
• The Rosterizer now includes monthly services when sub-dividing rosters by first service preference.
• Fixed a problem with importing two column addresses introduced in 3.8.2.
• Fixed a problem introduced in v3.8 that would cause schedules to be one day shorter than the specified end date.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v3.8.2 (12/1/05)

• The Import Ministers feature now accepts .csv files along with .txt files.
• Added "Address (Street only)" and "Address (City, State, Zip)" only to Import Ministers available fields.
• Added "Clear settings" option to Emailer.
• Fixed a bug introduced in version 3.8 that would cause adding family members to fail when control-clicking to add a minister manually to a schedule.
• Fixed a bug that would cause problems if a service was deleted in between a skeleton being generated and a schedule being run.
• Fixed a problem that would cause "exception thrown" errors when adding "Any special service" to a minister's can't serve time list.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v3.8.1 (10/24/05)

• Fixed a bug introduced in version 3.8 that was preventing service times with locations / descriptions from being added to ministers' preferences lists.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v3.8 (10/19/05)

• Added option to always keep families together in a specific ministry.
• Service preferences may now be different for different members of the same family.
• Teams may now be made up of ministers from different subdivisions of the same ministry.
• Explicit control added for abbreviating minister first names in final schedules.
• The subdivisions in each ministry may now be displayed in the list of ministries on the Ministries pane.
• The ministries required for each service may now be displayed in the list of services on the Service Times pane.
• A team or a family that is too big for a service may now automatically expand the number of required ministers for that service in order for the team or family to be scheduled.
• Added scheduler option to exceed preferred serving frequencies when necessary in order to complete a schedule.
• You may now right click on a minister in a schedule to show all the services given to that minister.
• You may now hold down the Control key when clicking the OK button in the new minister dialog to create an additional minister.
• "nth weekend of the month" can't serve times are now interpreted as corresponding to the "nth SUNDAY" of the month as opposed to the "nth SATURDAY".
• Fixed a bug that was causing the "save" to fail to appear when the last schedule or roster was saved to a network or removable drive.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a shared database to remain checked out after an error during the database load.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v3.7.2 (9/7/05)

• Changed the way ministry specific service preferences affect scheduling when the "Schedule only at these times" setting is turned on. Now when this setting in on a minister will only be scheduled in a ministry at the service preference declared for that ministry.
• Fixed a problem introduced in v3.6 with the "schedule in one month block" setting in the Edit Ministry dialog not holding to its setting.

v3.7.1 (9/2/05)

• Fixed a problem introduced in v3.7 with using the return key in the Edit Minister dialog.
• Fixed a problem introduced in v3.7 with the "Send data files to tech support" feature.

v3.7 (8/29/05)

• Support for "teams" added to ensure groups of ministers are always scheduled together in a particular ministry.
• Scheduler option added to ignore service preference order.
• The global "Schedule any minister for any special service" setting now takes priority over the "Only schedule for these times" minister setting.
• Comments field added to list of importable fields.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a hang on the "Calculating Scheduling Parameters" phase of schedule generation.
• Fixed a bug that would cause a crash in some cases when choosing "View subscription pricing" from the NetServices menu.
• Fixed a problem with extra line breaks appearing in some email messages.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v3.6 (7/22/05)

• The scheduler will now attempt to schedule family members together in the same ministry whenever possible.
• Extra positions in particular services in a ministry that is scheduled in "one week blocks" will now be filled with single ministers.
• Dates will now appear in dd/mm/yy form when specified to appear as such by system preferences.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v3.5.1 (6/10/05)

• Fixed a problem with MSP NetServices communications in high latency environments.
• Speed and memory optimizations made to many interface elements.
• Location of saved rosters and schedules is now remembered between sessions.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v3.5 (5/24/05)

• Support added for automatic data sharing and synchronization between non-networked computers!
• Option to schedule ministries in two week blocks added.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 3.2 with converting old databases from MSP version 2.6 or earlier.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v3.2.1 (5/4/05)

• Fixed a problem with saving schedules and schedule skeletons introduced in v3.2.

v3.2 (5/3/05)

• The main MSP window may now be maximized to cover the entire screen.
• Added ability to schedule ministries in one week blocks.
• Added ability to make service times temporarily "inactive".
• The scheduler will now leave empty positions in the schedule instead of exceeding a minister's preferred serving frequency when there are not enough ministers to complete the schedule.
• The selected minister's preferred serving frequency is now shown in the dialog used to manually assign a minister to a service.
• Added feature to automatically send database, preferences, and schedule files to MSP tech support.
• Fixed a problem with opening old scheduler settings files from MSP v2.x with MSP v3.1.
• Fixed a problem that could cause errors of the form "Exception thrown" during scheduling under some circumstances.
• Inactive ministers will now appear in grey in minister lists throughout the program.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v3.1 (4/12/05)

• Added ability to automatically schedule specified ministries together with other ministries.
• Added ability to schedule ministries in one month blocks.
• Added can't serve time display to minister quick view in the "add minister to service" dialog.
• The Edit Schedule window and distribution report windows may now be resized or maximized.
• Ministers' titles will now print out on mailing labels.
• Fixed a problem with creating families via the "New" button in the "Edit Minister" dialog.
• Other minor changes and improvements.

v3.0.2 (3/23/05)

• Fixed problem with import ministers feature introduced in 3.0 that would cause some fields to be ignored.
• Hyperlinks will now correctly be added to emails for strings of the form "http://www..."

v3.0.1 (3/23/05)

• Added "Never split up this family" option to the Edit Family dialog to control family splitting on an individual basis.
• Service locations will now appear after their names in lists of service times throughout the progarm.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 3.0 with scheduling some ministers belonging to families with their "Only declared preferences" option turned on.

v3.0 (3/20/05)

• Ministers may now have unlimited service preferences.
• Each service preference may now optionally be tied to a certain ministry. For example, you can specify that a minister be scheduled only as a Eucharistic Minister at the Sunday, 7:30 AM service, or only as a Greeter on Saturday, 5:00 PM.
• A new "Schedule Skeleton" window allows you to make changes to a schedule before the automated scheduling begins (e.g. create special services or manually schedule specific ministers for certain services) using the same calendar interface that is used after the automated scheduling has been completed. Control-click may now be used to fill in an empty position without having to open the Edit Service dialog. Schedule Skeletons may also be saved just like completed schedules.
• Greater control is now offered over who can be scheduled for yearly and one-time-only services. You can now hand pick which ministers may and may not be scheduled for these services on a per-service or "in general" basis.
• Repeating can't serve times may now be limited to a particular date range. For example, you may specify that a minister can not serve the first weekend of the month from May to July. Date ranges can also now be specified for "service" can't service times.
• With a subscription to MSP NetServices, you can send customizable email messages to your ministers that may include individualized content, such as the list of services for which they have been scheduled. The emails are sent using our servers, so you don't need to worry about configuring the program to use an outside SMTP account or about exceeding the account's send mail quota and having it shut down without notice.
• Using MSP NetServices, you can also post your schedules directly onto the internet. We provide the web space and make posting schedules and keeping them updated incredibly easy. No technical knowledge is required whatsoever.
• You can now require users to enter a password when MSP is launched before they can access the program.
• A new compression technique cuts down on the size of MSP databases by 50% or more!
• The new Export Minister Data feature allows you to export any information about your ministers to a text file or MS Excel spreadsheet.
• The minister summary fields on MSP's main screen can now be custom configured to show any information about a minister, including service preferences and can't serve dates.
• Family can't serve times will now appear in the records of individual family members.
• Gray parentheses now appear around ministers who have their "Preassigned and manual scheduling only" option turned on in minister lists throughout the program.
• An option has been added to omit services from the default tabular schedule layout for which nobody is scheduled in the ministries included in the export.
• Many other minor additions and enhancements.

v2.7.1 (1/25/04)

• Bug fix release. A problem introduced in v2.7 could cause error messages of the form "Exception thrown..." to appear.
• Under some circumstances data corruption because of this problem could occur. Upgrade to v2.7.1 to fix the issue.

v2.7 (1/21/04)

• Option added to prevent members of same family being scheduled at different services in the same weekend (on by default).
• Preferred serving frequency is no longer automatically bound between members of the same family.
• Other minor fixes and enhancements.

v2.6.3 (1/6/04)

• Bug fix release to address emailing problems on some machines introduced in 2.6.2.

v2.6.2 (12/29/04)

• Fixed bug introduced in 2.6 which caused preference filter in Add Minister To Mass dialog to be disabled.
• Fixed problem with using arrow keys in preassignment list.

v2.6.1 (11/24/04)

• Added ability to send a bulk email to just some select ministers.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 2.6 with preassigning ministers with repeating can't serve times.
• Fixed a problem introduced in 2.6 which was causing rookies to be scheduled together in some cases where they shouldn't have been.

v2.6 (11/18/04)

• Added support for preassigning ministers or teams of ministers in fixed patterns (e.g. Sunday, 9:00 AM, every third week)
• Extensive speed optimizations to the scheduling engine. (30% performance gain!)
• Changes made to the scheduling engine to improve ministry distribution in large families.
• Added "Bulk email" feature (found in File menu) to send out an email addressed to all ministers.
• Added ability to assign a minister to a service in two different ministries at once.
• Added "Preassigned and manual scheduling only" property to ministers.
• Added ability to clear specific ministers' historical scheduling information.
• Added feature to "Clean up" (automatically remove) old outdated can't serve times.
• Fixed problem with auto-email feature that cropped up again in v2.5.2.
• Fixed bug with specifying preferred serving frequencies in the times-per-year format.
• Numerous other minor fixes and enhancements.

v2.5.2 (10/23/04)

• Fixed bug which prevented the new monthly services from being completely integrated into the service distribution rotation.
• Other minor fixes.

v2.5.1 (10/10/04)

• Added feature to generate labels containing the name of every minister.
• Added ability to paste minister assignments into the selected mass without opening the Edit Mass dialog.
• Added ability to directly type the number of required ministers in Edit Service dialog.
• Fixed bug that was occasionally causing strange behavior when setting ministry qualifications.
• Fixed problem with jump-to-email feature that was introduced in v2.5.
• Other minor fixes and enhancements.

v2.5 (10/1/04)

• General interface overhaul and appearance manager support for Windows XP added.
• Support for monthly services added.
• Several interface changes to make rookie minister setting less prominent.
• Feature added to automatically bind subdivision qualifications.
• Drag support added to rearrange minister positions Edit Service dialog.
• Significant updates to documentation and quick start guide.
• License names and prices changed. Additional license type added.
• Bug fixed which would cause a hang in the first phase of scheduling under some circumstances.
• Other minor fixes and enhancements.

v2.4 (8/30/04)

• Features added to automate manual adding / removing of family groupings from services.
• New feature to copy / paste minister assignments between services.
• "Jump to family" button added in Edit Minister dialog.
• Speed enhancements to the scheduler.
• Bug fixed which caused problems with service distributions in some cases where inactive ministers were manually added to services.
• Other minor fixes and enhancements.

v2.3.3 (7/19/04)

• Change to scheduling engine to improve fairness of ministry/subministry distribution.
• Other minor fixes and enhancements.

v2.3.2 (7/15/04)

• Adjustment made to scheduling engine to reduce unfilled positions in low-minister situations.
• Problem fixed with changing service times due to daylight savings on Windows 98 machines.
• Other minor fixes and enhancements.

v2.3.1 (6/2/04)

• Fixed a problem with the database backend that would caused exceptions of the form "There is no record x in table y".

v2.3 (5/23/04)

• Added support for ministry subdivisions.
• Changed licensing scheme.
• Other minor fixes and enhancements.

v2.2.2 (5/19/04)

• Fixed minor problem with adding ministries to a minister during the schedule generation process.

v2.2.1 (5/18/04)

• Added support to add specific ministers to specific numbered positions.
• Fixed a problem with saving scheduler settings.
• Fixed a minor bug with saving rosterizer settings.

v2.2 (5/17/04)

• Added feature to specify individual weekly services at which a minister can not serve.
• Added feature to automatically number assigned positions in a schedule (on a per ministry basis).
• Added feature to save/load scheduler settings.
• Added feature to save/load rosterizer settings.
• Changes to database backend enable this version to run almost 50% faster than 2.1.
• Other minor changes / enhancements / fixes.

v2.1 (5/01/04)

• Added new scheduling setting which enables individual ministers in a family to be scheduled additional times without their family members in order to equalize service distribution.

v2.0.1 (4/12/04)

• Fixed minor problem with filtering ministers by preferred serving frequency.
• Other minor fixes and enhancements.

v2.0 (4/09/04)

• Added ability to sepcify preferred serving frequency for ministers in terms of times a week, month, or year.
• Support for multiple minister selection / editing at once added.
• Instructions for assigning service preferences added to Quick Start Guide.
• Other fixes and enhancements.

v1.7 (4/05/04)

• Improved minister 'Filtering' options greatly and expanded filtering to many different lists throughout the program.
• Added ability to change the order in which ministries appear in schedules and lists throughout the program.
• New roster features, included 'sub-divide by first service preference' option.
• Other minor fixes and enhancements.

v1.6 (3/29/04)

• Added "Quick Start Guide" to help with setup process.
• Added spiffy new tabular schedule format (*.rtf and .*html both supported).
• Other minor enhancements and fixes.

v1.5 (3/24/04)

• Added feature which enables a user to schedule specific ministers for certain services.
• Removed "Minimum days between services" scheduling setting. This value is now calculated automatically by the scheduling engine on a per-minister basis.
• Added "every other" and "week" options to repeating vacation dates.
• Other minor changes and fixes.

v1.1.3 (3/10/04)

• Minor changes to scheduling engine to expand time between scheduled services for each minister.
• Fixed problem with &nbsp appearing when editing HTML schedules with MS Word.
• Small changes to docs.

v1.1.2 (3/9/04)

• Fixed problem with calendar coloring of days containing unfilled services.

v1.1 (3/8/04)

• Added repeating vacation feature.
• Added family 'babysitting' feature.
• Import minister feature changed to combine qualified ministries for duplicate ministers.
• Fixed problem with adding some ministers to certain families.
• Minor improvements to the scheduling engine.

v1.0.2 (2/27/04)

• Fixed problem with would prevent launcher from working in low memory situations. This could cause generated schedules to fail to open or the Documentation to fail to open when choosing Help from the Help menu.
• Reduced installer size by 1 meg.

v1.0.1 (2/25/04)

• Added "Import ASP Database" feature to aid users of Altar Servers Pro in upgrading to Minister Scheduler Pro.
• Fixed problem with persistance of historic scheduling information.

v1.0 (2/22/04)

• First version! Please send any bug reports, suggestions, or comments to support@ministerschedulerpro.com.