Faithlife Proclaim

Pros

Proclaim manages the data projection in our church. I love the way the software handles various types of media seamlessly. No third party software required. The ability to edit or insert service items on the fly without disturbing the live presentation in another great strength. We sometimes need a last minute person to run the software. Proclaim is so intuitive to use I can grab someone with basic computer skills and they can manage the service presentation.

Cons

There is nothing I really dislike about this software.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

The amount of features that come with Proclaim, how they update and send out new media each month, the option of creating things for other Proclaim users to use or for us to use other church's creations as well. Love that it is cloud based which allows Mac users and Windows users to work on it without having to purchase anything else.

Cons

That there are so many options to choose from with good media that have a monthly price.

Pros

When the program was running with ease. Although I have been working with this program for 2 year, although I still didn't know all of the ropes to it, I am able to quickly find information on my own in order to implement new jobs that are requested of me.

Cons

About a month ago, I have communicated with a CS regarding my inability to get any posts to actually load and post to my personal page as well as our Church page- I am a moderator and have access to do so. CS was able to assist me with the complications the first time finding that my account had been flagged as potential spam; I haven't done anything different recently; never encountered an issue in the past.
a CSR was able to troubleshoot the issue and I was granted access only to find that I was once again unable to post anything the following day. I reached out to a CSR once again and repeatedly through e-mails and only received a reply that they had received the second e-mail with the issue but never received assistance or a resolution. I also asked for some suggestions as to what I may have accidentally done wrong so that I might can fix it to no avail. It has been 21 days so far. (I am able to access and use all other features; the only issues are with the sharing of our information, daily verses, daily devotionals, links and church service reminder posts)
My pastor has full access to our main account as well as his account and IS able to post with no issues.
I have created another account and awaiting for my pastor to grant me permissions to our main account. I don't feel like repeatedly creating multiple accounts in order to use the site is something I should do.

Pros

Proclaim is web-based so everyone on the team has access to it wherever there are. It has proved the easiest Projection System that we have ever used. Even first time users have no trouble catching on and running the program.
Proclaim continues to improve with new features. It has a generous amount of images for backgrounds, it includes surveys, games, announcements, and it becomes a digital bulletin with a Connection Card.
Changes can be made while 'on air', videos are easy to import, the song database is easy to use. A light board can be connected to the songs themselves.

Cons

So far, after 2 years, we have not experienced any cons