Skip this part if you find it boring! We have upgraded ChurchInsight to the latest version of .NET. Our developers say it's like building your own house – until now it’s been building it out of trees using only a saw and a hammer, with the upgrade it will be like owning your own branch of Homebase. Or something like that.

Although this more modern framework won’t make anything appear different, it gives us a platform to introduce more releases with performance enhancements. The main work has been migrating our code to ASP.NET 4.0, then undertaking major testing to ensure that everything still works.

The update happened on 3 May 2012. Your site should be unaffected – but if it is behaving unusually, let us know.

Reskinning the web office

While we were updating the framework, we took the opportunity to improve the look of the web office. The new design will be released over the next few weeks but the mockup above gives you a sneak peek at what we were aiming for. It won’t look exactly like that as some things will change in implementation, but picture gives you a good idea about what to expect.

From a functionality point of view, everything will still be in the same place. You won’t have to learn anything new – just work with a slight design change.

Over time we are planning to implement more small alterations that make the system easier to use. We want to do this in short bursts, rather than one big overhaul, to make sure that we don't scare anyone.

We’ll let you know through this blog about the design change closer to the release time. Personally I can't wait – so don't worry, I'll hurry it along.

You can keep up with ChurchInsight blog posts by getting the RSS feed, or by requesting email updates in the right hand column. Let us know what you think of the redesign on Facebook or on Twitter.