Common Questions (FAQs)
What is CCB? - CCB is a web-based, Software as a Service solution designed to help your church build a better connected, more committed church community. Communicating and connecting with people is a challenging task today. Reducing “dropped balls” and making sure people don’t fall through the cracks is vital to the health and growth of your ministry. It is a challenging task these days to stay well connected with the members of your church and with those you are trying to reach outside of your church. There are many tools available to assist you with these and other church management needs but trying to work with multiple software products can easily create even more confusion and inefficiency. You need a solid church management system to keep accurate records and report on key church measurables, communication tools to keep people informed, calendaring tools to organize all of the church events, social media tools to help build community and connectedness, web integration tools that turn your church website into a community portal. CCB has incorporated all of these elements, plus many more, and put them into a single, fully integrated solution that makes everyone’s job much easier and increased your effectiveness in fulfilling "The Great Commission".
- Do you provide training? - Absolutely! We want to do everything we can to ensure effective use of CCB. If no one can use it, what good is it? Click here to learn more.
- Do you provide support? - Yes and it is included at no additional cost with your CCB software license. 24x7 online help, email support and unlimited call-back phone support are all included. Live Chat is an available option. Click here to learn more.
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Is CCB secure? - Data Security is priority number one when offering a web-based church solution for any organization's information tracking needs. CCB is not only easy to use, it's extremely safe and secure.
- Data Security - The Security of YOUR data is taken very seriously. Our servers, running RedHat Linux, have the latest stable versions and security updates installed. We use IPTables firewall software on our servers to keep them locked down as much as possible. Behind the scenes, our servers are ONLY accessed securely via SSH and all FTP uploads/downloads of critical information are done via Secure FTP (SFTP). In addition, we use strong password and login schemes to prevent unauthorized login attempts. On the user end, all church individual logins require at least one numeric and one alpha character in their password and must be at least 6 characters long to further insure security of the data. Also, after 5 unsuccessful attempts at login, the user's account is locked for a 60 minute period and an email is sent to CCB so the incident can be investigated. Appropriate measures can be taken if necessary. The data center is protected with keycard access and 24/7 video surveillance of the entire facility. It is also protected by a separate dry pipe fire suppression system.
- Data Backups - All customer data is "snapshotted" hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly to local network storage. Offsite backups are done nightly to a secure location in the unlikely event that a catastrophic scenario prevents data access or recovery from the data center.
- Power Backup Systems - A 60KW UPS and an 80KW natural gas powered generator provide continuous power to the servers and communications equipment. All of the facility equipment is operating while the UPS and generator are standing by. In case of a power emergency, the UPS takes over. The generator then starts up to provide uninterrupted power flow until the Utilities Company fixes the outage.
- Network Features - Our data center is connected to the internet via redundant OC-12 fiber lines. We feature fully burstable 100MB access to the internet and to your location. Only Cisco equipment is used for networking to ensure the best quality and reliability in the industry. In the unlikely event of a router failure, an extra Cisco 3600 router is on hand for immediate roll-over. The entire N.O.C. also features all fiber and 100mbps Cat5 wiring and 100MB NIC cards for the fastest transfer rates.
- Why do I need a database? - It is the mission of the church to expand the Kingdom of God, disciple its members and extend its community. CCB collects, stores and directs information to help people get involved in the life and mission of your local church.
- Why web-based? - Web-based software, commonly referred to as Software as a Service (SaaS) isn’t for everyone but it does have distinct advantages versus a locally hosted application. For one, there are no equipment requirements outside of your existing computers. All you need is access to the Internet. The software itself runs in your web browser and CCB supports Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer versions 7 and later. Locally hosted applications require that you either install the software on each individual computer or run it on a local server that you access through your network. Upgrades require installation on each computer and/or the server, adding to your support needs and decreasing the productivity of your technical staff. SaaS allows you to access your software on-demand and when CCB releases new features and functionality for our various solutions, you get them without having to pay for the upgrade or lose productivity installing it and fixing bugs. Most importantly, SaaS makes your software accessible from anywhere you can access the Internet and it doesn’t matter whether you use a PC or a Mac computer. With CCB, we take web-based church management to a whole new level by providing unlimited user access to your account. This allows you to get EVERYONE involved, not just those in the church office!
- Can our church afford CCB? - When you consider new operational efficiencies alone, you will likely find that CCB will more than pay for itself. If you take it a step further and calculate the value of a more connected, more committed church body, you may then ask yourself the question: “Can we afford NOT to do this?”
- Will Enhancements Cost Me? - No. There are no costs for enhancements as they are included with your annual CCB license. The application is continually improving and being upgraded. So, as new features are added, you will automatically get them!
- Do I need special equipment or software? - Because CCB is 100% web-based ,all you need is a web browser on your Mac or PC computers. A high speed connection to the internet is highly recommended for your church offices—but is not required.
- How many users can access CCB at the same time? - There is no limit on the number of users who can use CCB at any one time.
- What’s the difference between an internet and an intranet? - Your public website is where people go to learn about your church and quickly determine what’s happening and what opportunities exist for community. It contains the basic information about your church like location, service times, contact details, mission and vision statements, etc. Anybody can access the information required to make a decision about whether to attend your church or not. Your private intranet is also technically a "website" but you can only access it if you have the appropriate privileges. It contains all the relationship building information that connects your members with your church and with each other. Very often, the main reason why people stay at a church is that they've found a sense of belonging to something greater than themselves. CCB not only offers an extensive system for your church to keep track of members and visitors, but a way to get connected into the life of your church, as well. This helps to develop that greater sense of belonging which leads to higher involvement within the church and greater commitment to it.
