This year Awana notified their customers that they would no longer provide their record keeping product known as Mozo. This year’s update focuses on Mozo ending and is geared to help those who used Mozo to find another option to use in the new Awana year. Awana has seemed open to promote these third party products to help churches have a smooth transition and I believe that Awana will work to help transfer data as they are able.
The following questions were posed to the software developers:
1) I know that it is early and you may not know specifically, but how might you be able to help Mozo users transition to your database software?
2) Realizing that all of your products have the same basic features: allowing users to track attendance, handbook progress, and awards, what features of your product do you want to highlight that you think sets yours apart from the others?
3) How can a club try your software before purchasing it?
4) How long have you offered your product to the public, web, and/or desktop version?
5) How has your product improved over the last year, or will improvements may be made to prepare for the new Awana year? I know that how often software is updated various between each of you and that you all respond to customer requests for improvements.
6) Any last, brief, comments to share about your product (100 words or less) that you want people to know.
Below are their responses in the order that they were received.
The easiest way to add a large number of clubbers into our system is to allow parents to use the online registration system. A club secretary simply needs to add an email address to the system and then send out a customized message inviting parents to register their clubbers for the next club year. The system will only allow parents whose email address was previously entered to register and sign up. A church registration code (editable) is also required for security.
What sets you apart?
Unlimited leader logins included – $99 per club year!
Grand Prix Race can be run directly within the ClubberDB system. In the weeks leading up to the race, leaders and parents (from the parent menu) have the ability to assign and/or update car numbers from a range you set up.
People can request a Demo to try your software before purchasing it.
The web based system has been offered since 2013.
Over this past year we have continued to improve the mobile device experience.
Grand Prix Race has been updated.
Clubbers can now optionally be assigned to a “game time” team.
Leaders can easily move clubbers from one “game” team to another without making changes to their assigned “book” team.
ClubberDB is not limited to just AWANA clubs! Has your church created their own curriculum? If so, you can enter your own club names, books, sections (including section text) and awards. Parents can print out the next few sections (or you can go completely paperless by allowing clubbers to view and learn book sections on their mobile device).
Transferring Data: Assuming Mozo can output data to csv files, I should be able to import most of that data into ARK so you do not need to retype everything.
A.R.K. is not only usable on mobile devices like Mozo, but it uses a native iOS and Android app with many common functions.
There is a demo for the online version with a test database using the same servers so you can try it Wednesday evening to be comfortable that it can handle the load of everyone accessing at once.
A.R.K. has been offered as a desktop version for 20 years. Online version 7 years.
Updates for new books. Because the program is already feature rich, the changes reflect ways users feel they can make the software work even better.
What sets us apart? Lots of report options for data presentation, $40 for Desktop / $60 for Online – all aspects unlimited
Currently Shine has an import data feature that lets you import clubber information from a spreadsheet, which should help with some of the transition, assuming Mozo has a way to export data. I’m not sure at this time if anything more will be included in regards to transitioning from Mozo.
While it can certainly handle large clubs, Shine is targeted towards smaller clubs that need something simple that is easy to use and gets the job done. Shine is also designed to be mobile-friendly, and supports multiple users on the website at the same time.
How can a club try your software before purchasing it? By sending an email to support@shinerecordkeeping.org.
Shine has been available publicly since 2015 as a web application.
I have been working on a pretty large overhaul of the entire system since last spring that should be launched sometime this spring. The update will have the same basic look and feature set, but will be much easier to maintain and update in the future. It will also add some much-requested features like better group support that were not possible in the current version. Because of this, new features in the past year have been minimal, just updating for new books and small updates based on support requests.
If you are looking for a simple upgrade to your Awana record-keeping system that covers all the bases like attendance, handbook progress, and awards, give Shine a try! Screenshots and more details are available at shinerecordkeeping.org.
TTT is able to import clubber registration info exported from Mozo.
I have received feedback that TTT is intuitive to use, doesn’t require duplicative entries, and is customizable to the varying ways clubs run their meetings & handle awards.
How can a club try your software before purchasing it? I create a demo site for churches to try before purchase.
TTT was first offered to the public in 2014.
Improvements over last year
- The format of Clubber and Household inquiry pages are customizable & multiple custom views can be created
- New online support and discussion forum
- Optional parent signature box for sections
- Clubber & Household label updates
- Support for Canadian and International address formats
- Reports can be printed for previous years
- More calculation options for registration rates
Improvements for next year
- Clubber and Household registration forms will be made even more flexible & customizable
- Additional possible improvement projects will be nominated and voted on by churches in May
The goal of TwoTimTwo is to automate data collection & reporting as much as possible – so volunteers can spend more time with their clubbers.
We have a user-friendly Data Import utility with detailed field-mapping options. This feature is accessible under the Tools menu of our Windows Remote Client app and will handle importing all clubber, leader, household, address, and contact data from .csv files. We’ve been communicating with Awana HQ after they reached out to us to discuss the topic of exporting data from Mozo. We are ready to serve HQ and any clubs that want to transition to AWdb.
- We provide TWO different user interfaces.
- The first is our excellent web browser app that is very clean, simple, customizable, and touch-friendly, thus making it the perfect interface for smart phones and tablets. This web browser app also runs on a Mac or Windows PC.
- The second interface is our Windows Remote Client app which looks and feels like our legacy Desktop app. This app is for power users who need to go beyond the basic tasks of tracking attendance, sections, awards, etc. This Windows app goes beyond the basics and provides access to more functionality like our Ledger (for tracking Fees and Payments), Inventory management, and Reporting features. It also has awesome grids that allow users to customize their views, apply filters, group, sort, print, and export data and perform their own ad-hoc reports.
- Our web interface provides excellent granular permissions control. This enables the club administrator to limit access to certain data for certain users. For details on this topic, watch the “How to use DB User Permissions” video on our website.
- We reproduce the complete Awana Ministry Supply Catalog, including photos. Having the photos for each item makes for a very user-friendly experience when assigning books and triggering awards.
- We have robust features for managing inventory and orders. As books and uniforms are assigned, and awards are triggered, the relevant inventory item’s quantity in stock values are reduced accordingly, and when quantities drop to your specified re-order level, those items are automatically added to an order for you. When checking in supply orders, the quantities are increased.
- You have the options to automatically create Fees when registering a new clubber or assigning a book or uniform. Posting and tracking payments is easy through the Household Ledger where you can also print a Household Account Statement for each family.
- Photos! It’s easy to use a phone or tablet to get a member’s photo into the system. And, each user has the option of whether or not to display photos in their member list. (It’s remarkable how much faster it is to locate and select a clubber by their face when scrolling through a list, instead of reading text.)
- Reports: We have several formal reports to meet a wide-range of needs: For example, Check-in and Progress Report Worksheets, Achievement Reports, Club Rosters, Current Handbook Status, Member Profile, Mailing Labels, Name Tags, Blank and Pre-filled Registration forms, Household Account Statements, and much more. Most report dialogs allow the user to specify selection criteria and sorting options, and all reports may be printed to paper saved as PDF documents.
- Club Store: This provides a quick and easy interface where the club store clerk can enter points spent.
- We handle tracking multiple roles per person. For example, a person may be a clubber in Journey and a Student Leader for Sparks.
- SQL Workbench, very popular with tech-savvy users!
To try out the software, go to our website www.approvedworkman.com and click the “Free Trial” button and we’ll create a private demo database complete with sample data so that clubs can get some hands-on experience and try out all their different devices. With or without the demo, folks can watch our informative training videos under “Knowledge Base” link located at the bottom of our site.
Our legacy desktop edition has been available since 2005 and has been used by over a thousand churches across the country. Our cloud version was introduced in 2016 and we currently have 300 clubs using it.
In the past year, we’ve added various features to both interfaces. We also quickly addressed any reported defects. We also improved performance and stability by refining our code and upgrading the hardware of our cloud server. We will of course update our systems to support all new curriculum, awards, and catalog changes for the upcoming year. We are committed to continuous improvement in all areas.
Developing and supporting the Approved Workman Database is not a part-time project for us, it a full-time commitment. We provide outstanding support to our customers and they may reach us by phone, and our contact information is displayed on our website.
So there you have it. A quick overview of various record-keeping database products to help you. If you were a Mozo user, please do not make a hasty decision. Ask the developers above questions and try their products to see what is the best fit for the needs of your club. They are truly seek to assist you in your ministry. I hope this update has been beneficial to you.
When you do decide which software to use, or even if you contact them, please let them know that you heard about them from Commander Bill (commanderbill.net). I do not receive any compensation from the developers for “referrers”, but it helps them know how people hear about their product.
It is not surprising that Mozo is being discontinued. When it was first announced, we were surprised that Awana was choosing to enter an arena that already had robust offerings to handle recordkeeping. Now they can focus on what Awana does best: curriculum and program.
I am an AWdb user and worked in software development for over 20 years. A lot of work is needed to bring a robust software to the market, both with respect to stability and features. I agree with the previous comment on the withdrawal of Mozo. We use the online version now, but did not switch before we felt it had reached stability and had the required features. Commander Bob’s recommendation at the very end is also well noting.
The most import question is their handling of sensitive information. Have they had independent assessments performed on their applications to confirm that they are secure?
We clubs cannot afford a lawsuit from spilled data and neither can the developer.
I don’t see that addressed here.
That was addressed in last year’s update.
I think Mark raises an important point about security. Here is the information we provided for last year’s article when Commander Bill posed the question: “… What can you share about the measures you take to secure the data, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), stored by your users?”
Answer:
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 hostname 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.
@Rick – thanks for your response. My concern with one data center is the single point of failure. If that provider only has one ISP as their network provider and that network goes down clubs could be left hanging. There are many small to mid-sized cloud hosting companies that are very eager for customers and have very competitive rates.
I always encourage developers to have their system pen tested, especially when handling PII. I am not bashful about asserting that you don’t ever want to be told that you spilled data. I’m sure you see enough about that in the news already.
Thanks for your due diligence that you have outlined above. It’s very impressive!