Realm

Realm is extremely user-friendly. I love that they have teamed with Vanco for donations/payments and the payments are recorded directly into the person's record in Realm. The pastor likes to do analytics and uses that feature all the time. I work in the contribution section every week and it couldn't be easier. The "icing on the cake" is the world-class Customer Service. After two quick prompts, a real person answers the phone within seconds. I don't get transferred. The person is very knowledgeable, friendly, polite, and most of all can answer my questions. They will also log onto my computer - with my permission - if that is the best way to help me.

I can't get all the reports I used to get in ACS People. Also, I have not found a way to link different families together (i.e. showing one family is a mother and father to another family). I also wish that Realm Financials would stop pushing back their timeline to include Payroll so we can switch from ACS Financials to Realm for that part of business, also.

It is very user-friendly and easy to train new employees on it.
Being a new product, they are constantly updating and improving on the features.
It was developed from years of software experience, so it is very relevant in everyday church use.

Several of the newer releases address needs we've been asking for, but they are done in a somewhat complicated way. It addresses the need, but not as directly and simply as I would like.
I feel like they need to take a step back from some new features and refine and improve what they currently offer.

I most like the e-mail communication with Realm. It is easy to communicate with groups that have already been setup. I can send attachments which is a big deal. It also allows me to create customized groups and have options for different forms of communication with them.

Realm is not very intuitive and seems a big clunky. When trying to navigate through Realm (especially for the average member) it is hard for them to find what they need. The giving area can be hard to understand and the fact that the app doesn't allow admins from the usual access they need makes the app almost useless.

I've worked with many databases in the past, including helping to build them from the end user point of view, and Realm is the best I've used. It is very flexible and user friendly. The Help feature is really helpful and the rare times I've had to contact customer service, they've been super friendly and very knowledgeable. I love using Realm!

My biggest complaint is that I have some members in my groups that do not receive the Realm emails when I send them out. I've called customer service a couple of times and have been directed to look for the emails in Spam, but that is not always the problem. I don't understand why some emails don't get received.

Because we were previously on ACS, it was easy to import previous data. The online interface is much friendlier than the old version, and it generally has good features and capabilities, but as with any database/CRM, it's all in how you set it up and implement use. Overall, it's a solid choice.

Being a Planning Center Services user who's dabbled in other Planning Center products, I prefer the integration and user interface of planning center. Overall Realm feels more PC than Mac - sturdy, but not as pretty and at times a bit frustrating with the number of clicks you need to do to get to where you want to go. It's functional, but it feels like it'll take longer for people to learn how to set things up and do things properly, which will impede good rollout and ultimately depth of functionality because of that.