Ministry Scheduler Pro

Pros: Makes my life so much easier to schedule the several hundred volunteers that we have. They can set their preferences for Mass times, vacation times and availability. It truly has been a huge timesaver for this busy parish! Also, the tech support is amazing! [sensitive content hidden] has been so informative and patient when guiding me through any questions I have. The whole tech support team is top notch!

Cons: I would say the only down side is that is does make it easier for volunteers to sub request, although we have asked that they do that within 24 hours of their service time so there is enough time for someone to pick up the vacant spot. Truly it is more about volunteers upholding their commitment than a fault of MSP.

Pros: It's very user friendly. Most of our volunteers were able to access their schedules and make updates to their profiles as soon as they received the announcement email. The tutorial videos are a great resource, too!

Cons: I did experience a couple of glitches over the weekend that had me contacting tech support and waiting until office hours was a bit annoying.

Pros: MSP does a really great job of scheduling our many ministries fairly and evenly across our services. MSP automatically takes a lot of the manually-intensive work out of our hands.

Cons: It's a bit of a learning curve but they provide a library of helpful videos and extensive online help.

Pros: I love the ease of use. I like that volunteers can request their own subs and put in when they will be gone so the scheduler can schedule around them.

Cons: I do not completely like the way announcement feature works.

Pros: I love the customer , and ease to find solutions to questions.

Cons: Nothing! Ministry Scheduler Pro is a great program to help churches organize volunteers!

Pros: It's barely better than spreadsheets. It gets the job done, I guess. Better than nothing. That's all I can say. Some volunteers can use it effectively since they've been doing it a while.

Cons: Almost everything. So much to dislike. Old and outdated interface and functionality. Unintuitive, bulky, difficult to figure out. Difficult to onboard new people, and it's always a chore to use. Frustrating to do even basic tasks. Can't email ministers for a certain weekend or Mass time from the schedule, even though their names are right there. Must go to "Announcements", then add a filter, to select "All those scheduled in a certain date range" on a certain team, but only one team at a time - or type in each name manually. Goodness gracious it's infuriating. I feel bad every time I have to add someone to it after being newly trained - I don't want to burden them with this old program.

Pros: Once you have your ministries and services set up, it is easy to schedule the volunteers. Volunteers can ask for SUBS, manage much of their schedule, along with automatic email of needing SUBS, open positions, commitments, and if you'd like text messages to notify your volunteers of their commitments.

Cons: It was confusing at first because the software must first be loaded on a computer before you can use the Web Version. All of the auto emails/texts are controlled from the computer that has the software loaded. Hope they can get to a point where the software is all web based.

Pros: Your customer service support is OUTSTANDING, most especially by way of [sensitive content hidden]. I'm the new Administrator of the Ministry Scheduler for Saint Rose Parish in Perrysburg, [sensitive content hidden] has been invaluable in assisting me with my new role.

Cons: Nothing I can think of at this time. I'm still new at the role of administrator, so as I continue in this role, I might then have more to say.

Pros: Some highlights are its ease of use, the ability to auto-schedule volunteers, and for ministers to take initiative of their ministry area by signing up for roles or requesting substitutes, cutting out myself as the middle man.

Cons: It's lack of bilingual support (Spanish).

Pros: Overall, the ability to schedule volunteers for our weekend Masses through autoscheduling makes all the difference. Additionally, using the app in Kisok-mode has streamlined our check-in process and reduced volumes of paper. Lastly, the service we have received is the best I have seen, and I was in IT for 40+ years. The support team is very knowledgeable, extremely helpful, and always very timely with their responses. Two thumbs way up for the tool and the team.

Cons: Nothing that I have run across to this point. Everything that we use is critical to our operation and the tool is easy to use and intuitive. No cons to note at this time.

Pros: I love that I do not have to manually create a schedule.

Cons: I wish the kiosk feature was not an add-on that you have to upgrade your subscription.

Pros: Volunteers being able to easily and intuitively edit and manage preferences, the ease of me creating initial mass templates and then simply creating detailed, correctly balanced schedules in seconds! And the ability for volunteers to easily go to their handheld device and request a sub for a Mass they cannot make is invaluable!

Cons: I still struggle with yearly/ seasonal Mass schedule templates before creating schedule.

Pros: MSP organizes all the data about my volunteers across all the ministries and I don't have to keep track of it myself. Most volunteers are tech-savvy and can update their information each time I send a request for updates. For those who can't, it is easy for me to quickly input the information and the system does the rest!

Cons: Our parish has used the program for so long that some of the initial setup is outdated and it is not intuitive to figure out what I can delete without harming what does work.

Pros: I am still learning the full capabilities of the system , the overall comment from the individual ministers (volunteers) are positive . Am slowly changing the culture and getting the use users to appreciate the full self service capability ( of the mobile and home computer applications)

Cons: I worked at a two companies , the latter was for 8 years (2014-2022) and we used Zendesk . This system is lacking in many ways + can not attach screen shots to a ticket submission + lack of a remote access ( even for a single session) to enable the helpdesk to see the end user screen + Some helpdesk support personnel have told me they have time limits to help resolve my issue + One of my tickets was deemed unsolvable /unable to resolve

Pros: The ease of set up of new volunteers and how they themselves can edit their profile. Sub requests makes finding other volunteers to help so much easier than having the sacristan scrambling to fill the empty positions.

Cons: Least favorite is trying to figure out how to customize fields and positions within the church structure.

Pros: Hands-down the support team!!! They are always willing to help, friendly, and patient.

Cons: Not always intuitive where to find how to do something.

Pros: The biggest reason I recommended this software was to help with sub requests. The software lives up to it's name! This one option has streamlined my life so much!

Cons: Some options could be more global for the live schedule post.

Pros: ease of communication with and between ministers; empowerment of ministers to be their own schedulers; good access to the schedule on a variety of platforms; doesn't leave those who are not internet-connected out of the equation,

Cons: sometimes ministers get confused by the 'positions assigned' emails and they click on sub req thinking they are confirming their schedule... issue goes away over time.

Pros: Scheduling with Ministry Scheduler Pro has saved a lot of time that I am able to dedicate elsewhere. Our volunteers love that they can set up their service times and black out dates that they may be away from their home parish, as well as automatically scheduling with their families. It has also made finding subs and making trades more convenient - just click a button and the operation handles itself.

Cons: I wish the app was more comparable to the web terminal as far as features go. Most of our volunteers solely use the mobile app and things like having the roster available in the app or having the parish FAQ I posted on the web terminal landing page would be helpful.

Pros: The developers of this software clearly know church and volunteer behavior. The tech support is superb - beyond superb.

Cons: Quite frankly, the fact that I had not known about it sooner. I spent over a year hand-scheduling volunteers and creating spreadsheets based on volunteer availability and preferences. Emailing people each week and then learning their plans had changed - and I had to then email a group to determine who might be able to fill in was time-consuming and frustrating.

Pros: Easy to use, highly intuitive. Tech team great!!

Cons: More flexibility in Mass Preference. Add "sub only" to Mass time time that is not preferred. Only ONE preferred time required, additional times should automatically be sub only.

Pros: This software is easy to use, easy to teach, allows for flexibility in how people are scheduled (auto or manual or a combination of them) and getting subs is as easy as a click. There is so much to love about this software.

Cons: Some of the rosterizing/reporting pieces are not as easy or intuitive. I cannot always get the information I really want in a straightforward manner.

Pros: The automatic reminders and the ease of use are critical. MSP offers an integrated solution where you can either auto schedule or use the simple to use phone app. Most people use the phone app since it was designed to be easy to use for even the computer challenged users. As an administrator, it offers all the features I need under one roof. I can set up schedules, assign volunteers, send reminders, use the built in email function to send out reminders. Do statistics to see who volunteers the most, etc. I honestly can't think of anything else I need to run the volunteer scheduling at our parish.

Cons: I don't have any complaints. It functions as described and is always available, i.e. I have never had an occurrence where the software was not available for use nor have I ever had a crash.