Awana Record-Keeping Update for the 2018-19 Year

(Updated 4/27/2018)

Each year we contact the developers of record-keeping software for Awana, that we are aware of, for an update of their software. Our purpose in this is to help you be knowledgeable as you select a record-keeping product.This year we asked three questions:

1. What improvements have been made in the last year and to be made in preparation for the 2018-19 year? (note that I am making the assumption that you will include the new and updated materials from Awana for the new club year so you do not need to note that unless you are not adding them)
2. Data breaches seem to be ever-present in news headlines. What can you share about the measures you take to secure the data, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), stored by your users?
3. Write a brief paragraph, your “elevator sales pitch” per se, about your product to share what you’d like others to know that is not already covered by your response to the first two questions.

The following post contains the responses that I received from the developers in response to my questions. They are listed in the order that I received their responses. I encourage you to contact the developer directly if you have any questions regarding their response.

Visit the Record-Keeping Page for the Basics of each product. This post notes recent updates to the software. All products will accommodate the new handbooks and all of the developers base what is updated/revised based off of their user feedback.

Click on the logo for each product to visit their website for more information, to get a demo, and to order.

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IMPROVEMENTS

• Add descriptions to Calendar to document theme nights
• Allow jumping around of students names in sections screen
• Add/Remove required sections in setup to tailor to your church’s needs

(They work on enhancements this time of year and they are just starting enhancements. So there may be more depending on how long it takes to do these.)

 

SECURITY

Browser version and remote desktop version both use SSL to transfer data to your device.  Authentication requires 3 pieces of information.

 

“ELEVATOR SALES PITCH”

The desktop version of ARK is available on PC, Mac or Linux.  The Online ARK can be used on your desktop with remote data access, on any device with a browser & internet, and Android or Apple smart phones.

Low cost ($40 or $60/year) for unlimited access.

 

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IMPROVEMENTS

New options for mobile device users:

•  Clubber Check-In
  • Checking in clubbers can now be completed in as few as two taps.
  • Change or assign color teams on the check-in screen.
  • View charges & payments on the clubber family account.
  • Visitors can now be added/edited easily from small devices.
• Recording book sections:
  • When all sections are completed, you are now given the option to add a new book and link the book sections.
  • Sections in new books can be checked as complete on the same night a clubber finishes their previous book.
• Improved viewing of weekly totals and awards.
• Grand Prix race was completely re-written
  • Faster page loads.
  • Heat winners can now be selected with one tap – no need to “save”.
• New upgrades coming up this summer:
  • We will be moving the database server to a new machine that will handle more simultaneous requests.

 

SECURITY

• All pages are encrypted with SSL (https://)
• All passwords are stored using one-way encryption.
• Limited number of login attempts before account is blocked (blocked accounts can be re-set by church admin user).
• Production servers do not contain any 3rd party scripts that are sometimes easily “hacked” (we write all of our login routines in house).
• All website access from outside the US and Canada is blocked by default.
• Administrative access is limited by IP address.

 

“ELEVATOR SALES PITCH”

ClubberDB is a web based record keeping system for Awana clubs.  All clubs through 12^th grade are supported.  This past year, our focus has been on improving mobile device support.  Clubber check-in via the mobile screen is as simple as tapping on a clubber, and then tapping “Present”.

Grant leaders the access they need through a variety of pre-set access levels.  Users can be assigned to specific clubs and teams where necessary.  Over two dozen reports are available as well as an award “certificate” generator.  Attendance graphs show how your club is growing from week to week and includes yearly comparisons.  Other features include online registration (electronic signatures supported), linking to a church “giving” site to pay club fees, grand prix race, lesson tracker, incident tracking, kiosk check-in, kiosk registration, club emails, and much more!  One flat fee ($99.00 per year) covers ALL of your leader logins.

ClubberDB is routinely updated to bring new and improved features.  Demo logins are available – just ask!

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IMPROVEMENTS

• Additional data entry flexibility
• Additional reporting & download options
• Ability to add custom Clubber & Household fields
• Option to check-in by CSV import file

 

SECURITY

• The (3rd party) hosting data center infrastructure is routinely inspected, and is fully audited and SSAE 18 SOC 1 SOC 2 (formerly SSAE 16) certified.
• All access to sites is encrypted via SSL
• Each church has a separate site & database – so if a church has lax security policies it does not endanger another church’s data.

 

“ELEVATOR SALES PITCH”

TwoTimTwo reduces time spent on Awana accounting – allowing your volunteers to spend more time with the clubbers.  The site is affordable, user-friendly and intuitive – and supports phones, tablets & computers.   The flexible setup allows it to be used by small (less than 50 clubbers) up to very large clubs (more than 400 clubbers).

 

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IMPROVEMENTS

This past year we were focused on continually improving both the Web and Windows interfaces to our cloud version of AWdb. We added the following enhancements:

• Cloud Version: Web app and Windows app
  • Added the new curriculum, including the Essentials books, and the related award triggering.
  • Added the ability to create/edit multiple roles for each person (e.g. a person may be a Clubber and a Student Leader)
  • We enabled the option of setting up award triggering for cumulative book awards for Sparks.
  • PDF “books” and Bible readings now have images.
• Cloud Version: Web app:
  • Now using auto-complete components instead of dropdown menus when there are many items to choose from.
  • Solved problem that required firewall access to port 3030.
  • Updated the filter options to allow greater flexibility and improved searches.
  • Added a new view under Club > Year > Attendance to see list of filtered members along with the date they last attended and the number of weeks they’ve attended
  • Added a new view to Club > Year > Handbooks to show total counts for any book awards that were earned or could be earned for handbooks matched by the current filter and display settings.
  • Added new display options under Club > Today > Birthdays to show birthdays for the entire month. New option to sort by Club Name or Birth dates.
  • Added a new display option under Club > Today > Awards to show/not show Section-level awards
  • Added the ability to add a note for a member on the Check-in page that is associated to the current club date.
  • Improvements to the Check-in page to show more info for each clubber.
  • Member List: Added Role Position to the display and sort options.
• Cloud Version: Windows app:
  • We enabled full editing on the Member form, Check-in module, and the Photo List.
  • We enhanced the Current Handbook Status Report to include projection of Journey Awards.
  • We improved the performance of some reports.
  • We added features to the Home page such as: Calendar, Club Calendar, Birthday List, Visitor Lists, Club Attendance graph, Notes, and the What’s New tab.
• Legacy Desktop Version
  • In addition to the curriculum and award triggering mentioned above we added a new Citation Award Progress report.
  • We enhanced the Current Handbook Status Report to include projection of Journey Awards.

  … and to be made in preparation for the 2018-19 year?

Beyond confirming that all versions of AWdb will be updated to accommodate the new catalog, curriculum and award triggering, it is too early right now for me to commit to specific new features for 2018-2019 as our team will be making those decisions in the next couple of weeks. Rest assured that we will be continuing our efforts to make all versions of AWdb the most comprehensive recordkeeping system for Awana clubs and we will be prioritizing the new features according to user requests.

 

SECURITY

The legacy desktop version of AWdb uses a local database that has tables with PII data encrypted, so even if a club loses the USB flash drive or their laptop is stolen or hacked, the data files are inaccessible without their user name and password.

The cloud version of AWdb is hosted on commercial grade servers located in a data center in Wisconsin.  I asked them about their security measures and they said “We employ a firewall in front of each of our clouds which will broadly block known vulnerabilities and networks known to originate attacks.  Also, when repeated failed attempts are made to login to the server, the IP addresses are blocked and the server is no longer reachable for these networks or IP addresses.”

Regarding our software design, we have taken measures to mitigate risk of unauthorized access to each club’s data, and we follow established best practices:

• To prevent JSON vulnerabilities: we only return objects, not arrays
• To prevent Cross Site Request Forgery: we use Token Based Authentication
• To prevent Cross Site Scripting: we use AngularJS which sanitizes untrusted data and we do not directly manipulate the DOM
• To prevent SQL Injection: we use prepared statements and parameters in our SQL queries and escape all user input.
• Our headers use the actual host name and port of the client, we do not use wildcards
• The communication between a user’s computer and our server is secured by employing the HTTPS protocol to encrypt the connection.
• We require users to enter a unique Customer ID as well as a unique name and password consisting of at least 8 characters that must contain a number and a symbol.
• We do not store all club data a single large database, instead we create and maintain a separate physical database for each church.
• We pay our hosting provider to run regular managed backups and have a plan in place for recovering data in an emergency.

 

“ELEVATOR SALES PITCH”

With over a dozen years of experience and a thousand clubs using our software, we believe that we have the most robust, full-featured, and professional database application available for Awana record-keeping. Users of our cloud version may access their club data through a touch-friendly web app on their smartphone, tablet, Mac, or Windows PC. We also have our Windows Remote Client app that has the same look and feel as our legacy desktop version, so there is no learning curve for those clubs that migrate to the cloud version.  We enjoy interacting with our customers and will continue our efforts to provide them with excellent support and to deliver ever-improving software solutions to assist them in their ministry operations.  I encourage anyone who is evaluating software for their club to sign up for our free hands-on demo and see for themselves how AWdb can meet their needs.

 

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IMPROVEMENTS

• We made the change mid-year to have our T&T awards function properly in awarding an emblem after any four sections.
• Currently in testing, for deployment within the next couple weeks are a number of highly anticipated features:
  • We will be implementing the ability to sort clubbers on the attendance page by first name or last name so it will make the check in process for larger clubs in particular much easier when families come.
  • Under Manage Children, we are improving the view of our Award History section. Now, instead of being one long list, the awards will be divided by handbook under collapsible/expandable headers.
  • Pending the release, users will be able to add a new child, assign the clubber to an existing group, and add contact information from the same add child button.
  • Pending the release also will be the long awaited Child Contact Info Report. This will be able to be run as an excel file with all contact information listed for clubbers including email addresses, addresses, contact names, etc.

 

SECURITY

From our website:

Privacy and the Information We Collect
Personal information that may be required or requested includes: name (first and last), full address, country, e-mail address, date of birth, gender, church name (where you attend/attended Awana), home phone number and credit card information (card type, number, expiration date). Awana requests only the personal information needed to facilitate an appropriate response.
The information that is collected is used only for and by Awana. Awana holds all such information as confidential and will never sell, lease or rent your personal information. Awana will always take appropriate security measures with the information you provide to us.
Protecting your personal information is critical to Awana. Therefore, Awana has contracted with a company that provides credit card processing for online transactions. The company uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts the information you input and stores it on secure computers.

 

“ELEVATOR SALES PITCH”

Mozo is a web-based ministry management software made for Awana ministries. Mozo gives leaders mobile and desktop access to club management tools and a learning/resource library. From tracking attendance, awards and points, to handbook progression — Mozo makes administrative tasks a snap. Mozo is for every program from Puggles to Journey and includes all program updates and new releases. Being designed and maintained within the Awana organization, it allows our Customer Care department to aid in any questions you may have directly.