Life.Church Rock RMS Deployment

Rock RMS is an open source church management system with an incredibly active and strong community. It’s designed to power the mission of every church while promoting collaboration. Here at Life.Church, we’re implementing Rock RMS as another tool to help us manage our attendee data. We are excited about its flexibility and scalability, not only for our use in-house but for its accessibility to the “capital C” Church.

We took a phased approach to our deployment of Rock RMS. Our initial phases were possible because of our existing model of how we use church management tools. At Life.Church, we believe in a “best of breed” approach and over the years have decentralized our church management in favor of custom-built tools for LifeGroups, volunteers, and giving platforms. As we moved into later phases, our work more closely resembled a typical move from one management system to another. Here’s what we’ve done at Life.Church to implement a great tool from a great partner of Open Digerati.

Phase 1: Build the Infrastructure

First, we needed an environment that would match our needs. Something scalable, redundant, and in the cloud were requirements for us. We chose Google Cloud as a platform and have a full write up of our environment. It was a great collaboration between our Data Engineers, SREs, and Networking teams to establish all the components necessary for success.

Phase 2: LifeGroups Search Tool

Our first live product using Rock RMS was a search tool for Life.Church small groups, which we call LifeGroups. This tool gives attendees the ability to find a LifeGroup based off of their location, interest, and availability. Previously this was accomplished through custom code. This tool also includes an admin panel where LifeGroup leaders can manage incoming group requests and communicate directly with interested individuals. The attendee experience for finding a LifeGroup is clear and simple.

During this phase, we learned about the true application configuration. Since we were setting the baseline for further development, we tackled the UI/UX design for the backend at this time. One of our Digerati LeadershipXP interns did all the design work for the product! Additionally, we began using a custom built sync to transfer data in and out of the system and keep our system of record centralized throughout our process.

Phase 3: Build the Full System!

At Life.Church, our digital teams work in sprints. Our goal during this phase was to build system parity with our current primary Church Management System. Our sprints included everything from app integrations to campus configurations and a new check-in system that Rock RMS built specifically for first-time interactions with new attendees called guest services.

At the close of Phase 3, we had a fully functioning and tested product ready to roll into beta testing.

Phase 4: Beta Testing

We began beta testing roughly five months after releasing our LifeGroups search tool. During this time, we had an established track record of a great product, and many teams were interested in beginning their journey with Rock RMS. We worked with five Life.Church locations and our Central Ministry Teams that oversee our different ministries at each Life.Church location to beta test a very specific list of core functions for two weeks. These core functions (see below) ensured that our internal testing matched practical application and that we caught any design quirks or changes.

Core functions we tested during our beta:

• People Management
• Adding & Editing People Information
• Attributes
• Notes
• Connection Requests
• Communication & Email Templates
• Serving Groups
• Roles & Serving Requirements
• Check-in Groups
• Classrooms
• Check-in
• Kiosk Devices
• Schedules
• New Family Registration

Phase 5: Deployment

After gathering feedback, making changes, and allowing time for communication, we began a phased deployment strategy for all of our 33 locations. Our goal was to have an in-person experience for every staff user in our organization. Additionally, we wanted to provide on-site support for the first weekend the product was being used at each location. Since every volunteer would interact with the system, we knew this would serve them the best. Here’s how we structured the deployment:

Deployment Schedule

Week 1:

• The day before training: Send email to the Campus Pastor with vision and details so it can be brought up in staff meetings.
• Campus staff trained on-site, either at their campus or another.

Week 2: Selected campuses begin using Rock RMS which includes:

• Go-Live (Tuesday)
• Begin using Rock RMS for all data input, office check-in, and any other tasks done in our previous Church Management System.
• A kick-off video training session will start the day with vision, expectations, and support.
• Switch (Wednesday)
• Begin using check-in for Wednesday night youth ministry experience called Switch. IT provides on-site support.
• The Weekend
• Check-in used within Rock RMS. IT provides on-site support through Saturday and Sunday experiences.

We scheduled as the following:

Through the process of deployment, we had a team on call watching servers and ensuring that feedback was immediately heard. Our campus teams led through the change with excellence and received opportunities for feedback channels at all points of the deployment — from training to going “live” in the system.

We’re just getting started in the Rock RMS community, but we look forward to seeing how this partnership will help us in our ministry efforts as we continue to grow.

We’ll be releasing more articles about how we’re continuing to use this technology and build our own tools for the Rock RMS community. Feel free to let us know if there’s a specific topic you’d like us to address, and be sure to check back often for updates!