Author: Josh Gowans

With each upgrade to Greenleaf ONE, we are more and more excited about its potential to empower nonprofit organizations around the world. Simply put, it is much more than CRM software for nonprofits; it is a rapidly evolving set of tools that make managing your online presence and your nonprofit operations a breeze. And we’re aiming to make it the absolute best tool on the market!

Our focus in July has been on some of the underlying systems as well as several upgrades specific to the page builder and its ability to connect to remote sources. The improvements to the page builder are significant. We encourage you to review the developer’s own release notes to get a comprehensive view of what is now possible. We’re starting to roll out videos specific to this upgrade that we believe target the key features that will be of interest to most organizations.

One of the big changes we’re slowly pushing out as well is the adoption of PHP 8. This is both for security and for performance reasons, the latter of which is quite significant and should be noticeable on instances that are running this version of PHP. This upgrade is still in progress for several sites as we’re thoroughly testing it on each site to ensure there are no issues. We hope to have this upgrade completed by the end of August.

There’s lots to cover, so let’s dive in and review where we’re at!

We’re a bit delayed in getting the monthly Greenleaf ONE update out the door, but for good reason. We’ve had several important updates hanging out there that are now starting to roll out, making both CiviCRM and WordPress more feature rich and user friendly. In addition, we are pushing out a long awaited update to the default page builder that greatly enhances the workflow around dynamic content.

So, why the mid-month update then? First, because we’re super excited about the improvements. And, second, because we want you to be aware that they’re coming online in case you notice any changes or experience any issues.

Unlike small updates or new plugins, the latest round involves updating some of the underlying software that powers both WordPress and CiviCRM, namely PHP. In addition, the upgrades to the Yootheme Page Builder represent what is considered a major step up, so we expect there to be some noticeable changes.

Several of these upgrades lay the groundwork for the next major upgrade to CiviCRM, version 5.63, which we’re actively testing. Key to this upgrade will be the realization of SearchKit Tables which will allow you to build complex searches in CiviCRM and map their results directly into the builder. This is a very exciting update as it will allow you to quickly display data that is related in a complex fashion. For example, displaying all donations from individuals belonging to a single household can be tricky. With SearchKit, these sorts of searches are possible. And with CiviCRM 5.63, you will be able to map the results directly into the page builder, thereby easily displaying complex data across your website.

At the same time, we hope to release the much anticipated content filters that allow you to filter WordPress content, including custom post types, based on any combination of standard fields, like the default WordPress taxonomies, and custom fields created in the Advanced Custom Fields plugin.

This is a very exciting time for users of Greenleaf ONE. Its combination of CiviCRM and WordPress into one cohesive software for nonprofit organizations has reached a new level of sophistication and ease of use.

Let’s dive in and review the major new updates that are rolling out now. But please, if you don’t immediately understand everything down below, don’t panic. While the more technical among you will understand much if not all of this, some of you may not be working this deeply on your system. Or perhaps you have just started diving into ONE. But either way, what you can most definitely take away is that we have chosen these tools and are making these updates because they without question provide even greater opportunity for you to maximize your impact and achieve your mission. That’s what we are focused on, and that’s what we’ll continue to focus on. And if you have questions, we are here.

Onward and upward!

We closed out Q1 with a range of new features and a continued focus on pushing forward several important, foundational pieces of functionality in Greenleaf ONE. Central to our current efforts is consolidating user permissioning such that users see exactly what they need to see in order to use the system easily and effectively. To support this, we’ve pushed out version 1 of the Greenleaf ONE Board along with several other new bits of related functionality.

We’ve also continued to build out a user dashboard for clients on https://greenleaf.one, where all changelog items, videos, and system documentation will be housed. We expect that this will not only help to tie the entire product together, it will serve as a valuable resource for both new and existing Greenleaf ONE users. Eventually, this dashboard will also contain tools for appropriate users to view and manage organization account information like authorized users, mailing lists, billing history, etc., but that’s all still a ways down the road. Right now we are focused on tools to make users as productive as possible as quickly as possible.

While not listed below in the update, we hosted several webinars in March to help showcase the power of Greenleaf ONE, in particular with the page builder and its ability to display data from remote sources, including from CiviCRM. There are several exciting developments underway around this functionality that will continue to make Greenleaf ONE an extremely cost effective and user friendly solution that we believe is superior to systems such as using Drupal with CiviCRM.

Finally, along with the client dashboard we mentioned above, we’re rolling out a referral program for current Greenleaf ONE users that offers potential for you to reduce the monthly subscription associated with your Greenleaf ONE account. There are more and more users coming to Greenleaf ONE, and we have capacity to grow significantly. If you love Greenleaf ONE and what we’re trying to achieve – to help as many nonprofits as we can to maximize their impact for a better world – then we think you’ll benefit from the Greenleaf Referral program. Stay tuned!

As always, if you have any questions or feedback, we’re an email away!

On to this month’s update!

February witnessed another security release, albeit one with less potential risk. As such, we’ve been slowly rolling it out and will continue to do so throughout the month of March. In conjunction, we’ve spent a lot of time cleaning up legacy systems and continuing our push toward a standard Greenleaf ONE system for both new and existing clients.

In addition to several ongoing initiatives such as building out a video library and implementing advanced user permissioning, we’ve undertaken several new projects that are intended to improve performance as well as add new features. For example, we’re actively reviewing adoption of a 3rd party email platform to better service bulk email and bounce processing. Likewise, we’re undertaking some work to develop advanced filtering capability in the page builder.

Cool improvements aside, we’ve also identified several performance related issues that are resulting from specific plugins, most notably Caldera Forms. We’re working aggressively to manage these as well as establish a plan with users to migrate off of these systems and on to more performant systems.

We have a lot in progress at the moment, and I expect we’re going to see big updates throughout March. As always, if you have any questions or feedback, we’re an email away!

On to this month’s update!

January was dominated largely by a CiviCRM security release, by several final migrations off of old infrastructure and by a weeklong sprint focused on product planning and development. While the completed list below may seem light, we believe the updates are meaningful and continue to set Greenleaf ONE apart from other systems.

Likewise, the time we invested in product planning should be reflected in both what we have in progress as well as what we have planned. We continue to push toward a fully unified system that truly empowers organizations while at the same time deepening its core feature set. The end result is a more stable, more performant system that tightly integrates your CMS and CRM along with powerful communication tools.

In addition, with new functionality like SearchKit and FormBuilder maturing rapidly, we’re in a better position to reevaluate legacy plugins like Caldera Forms and Ninja Forms and to remove them, resulting in greater stability and improved performance.

We’re very excited about the future of Greenleaf ONE. Each month, we’re releasing new features and updates that are intended to empower organizations to make the most of the system. In the coming months, we expect to shift heavily towards training and tutorials that will ultimately help support organizations interested in mastering the systems and getting the most out of them.

On to this month’s update!

We’re very excited to be kicking off 2023 with this important update. We’ve made a lot of progress over the past several months on Greenleaf ONE and want to share where we’re at, what new features you have access to as well as what’s in the works.

While our focus is on Greenleaf ONE (the standard distribution), some of these updates apply to non-standard sites managed by Greenleaf Advancement Partners as well.