Faithlife Proclaim

Avantages

Proclaim is multi-platform and has a cloud-based component, such that it's easy to create service presentations at home and then use them at church. All that's required is that the Proclaim software is installed both places and logged into the same group.

Overall, it's pretty easy to use and many things are obvious to find and use. It has enough customizability that it should be usable by both small and large churches alike.

Service content is editable in a freeform editor, with changes instantly previewed on slides to the right. It's super easy to see how changes affect what will be displayed to the audience.

Inconvénients

The biggest drawback is the song database and organization. You can't organize songs into different collections, nor can you see all of the songs in your database in one place in order to do organization, cleanup, etc. When you pull in a song to your service order, you are editing that song everywhere it might be used, so you have to be careful about changing verse orders, words, attribution, etc. Additionally, song titles must be globally unique within the church group. In other words, you can't have two songs named identically where one is a congregational version and the other is a choral version. You have to differentiate somehow via the name.

Faithlife has indicated they are working on a major upgrade to the song organization features, so I am hoping that this gets much better in the near future.

Editing backgrounds, adding images, and editing smartmedia is a little confusing at first, so it really takes some getting used to. This aspect of the product could be made better.

Avantages

What I love most about Proclaim is that it is so intuitive with the layout and how things are put together. It doesn't take a computer genius to be able to lay out a presentation. Also, the person left to run the presentation during the service needs to know nothing more than how to Progressive slide forward or backward. It's really that simple!
Proclaim is even made it super simple by integrating our work subscriptions, Bible versions in scripture, along with song lyrics within the software. It is literally a one-stop-shop. What used to take me over 2 hours to do in illustrator, Photoshop, and PowerPoint, I can now get done in about 30 minutes and Proclaim.

The customer service is also outstanding! Each time that I have emailed them, I've gotten a reply back usually the same day with a personalized email addressing my specific question. No Scripts or faceless reply to

Inconvénients

One of the things I like least about this software is the dependability of the sinking upload feature. I can work on a presentation at home, and press the sync feature leave my laptop open for a couple hours, and it still won't show up on the church computer several days later. We end up having to share the actual presentation file through Google Drive in order to make sure that everyone has access to the file that they need.
I wish that there was a way that I could actually see the progress of a file being synced and know what it is 100% uploaded and ready to collaborate with.

The other thing that I don't like about the software is that all the art, song lyrics, and in-depth Bible study stuff are all extra subscription cost. Period. In addition to the money that is spent each month on Proclaim itself. For a small church, this can be quite an expense and not everyone is able to pay it.
The church that I attend is about 30 to 40 people on a good Sunday, and they do pay for the Proclaim software, but I end up having to pay for all the artwork subscriptions myself just so that I don't pull my hair out trying to put presentations together. The basic artwork included with Proclaim is lackluster at best.

Avantages

I currently use Proclaim and it has been very helpful for my organization (religious institution) in planning our services. I use another, similar software as well and so it is interesting to see the similarities and differences with each. What I like MOST about Proclaim is its MOBILITY... I can literally download the software onto my laptop and work on it anywhere I go. If I have a last-minute adjustment to make, I just open my computer, make the change, and it shows up on all other devices logged into my Proclaim account, including the main computer at my organization. That is definitely my favorite part of the software!

Inconvénients

I don't really have anything negative to say about Proclaim, but if there was one thing to pick on, it would be the lack of media options. I expected the software to come pre-loaded with default media like still/moving backgrounds, wallpapers, audio files, etc, but there hasn't been much selection. HOWEVER, there is available media for purchase... which has ended up working out when needed in a pinch.

Avantages

I really like how much the software team is updating the product every release. The software itself is much better than many alternatives in this space. I really like how it saves the edits you've made to certain song lyrics and allows you to reuse old slides just with a quick search.

Inconvénients

It would be great to have a master template for the look / feel / design of the slides and then build off from it. For now we just named one of the days "Master..." and if you need to pull a song or a sermon slide you just search for that and reuse it. The sermon slides are cumbersome but when you get to know how it works it's not too bad. They finally allowed for lists of words to appear like PowerPoint presentations show them (one line at a time) and that was my biggest beef before. There's still a learning curve.

Avantages

I love the ability to record the audio of the sermon matched with the slides on the ​screen. It gives our congregation the ability to connect on multiple levels each time they access.

Inconvénients

Sometimes we lose "connection to the audio settings", for whatever reason, and the recording fails to happen.