Q. WHAT IS CHANGING ON ENERGIZE?
From 25th June 2019...
You can carry on using Energize as normal, but we are adding the option to automatically suggest a session that matches your time available, the stages of faith in your group, the number of young people and room size.
We are calling this the 'Optimise' option. The idea is to save you from having to read up to three hours of material for each session. If you don’t like a particular item that Energize has suggested, click 'Replace' and Energize will suggest up to three alternatives for you to read and swap in and out.
The optimisation will improve month by month. So far, we have the time duration for every item in Energize and have tagged around a quarter of the items for the new optimisation. However, until we have tagged all 28,000 items, you may still find items that don’t match your criteria exactly.
By introducing optimisation now, you will benefit from around half of the time savings straight away. And month by month, you will gain from greater and greater time savings as we tag more and more items.
The way we optimise is based on a new 'Group Profile' that you can fill in on Energize. Here you set your Group’s normal age ranges, time available, stages of faith, number of young people and room size.
If your Group consists of only one age range, you can optimise based on your Group’s Profile, or you can amend the optimisation criteria for that week on screen.
If your Group consists of more than one age range, Energize will now allow you to automatically combine the session items of those age ranges for the same theme. From there, you can refine the items in your session using the 'Refine' button, or you can read and remove the items one by one.
We believe in having fun, but sometimes time is tight and some Leaders have asked to be able to exclude 'Just for Fun' items. So the last improvement is to offer this exclusion option in the new Group Profile.
Q. WHAT CHANGES WERE IMPLEMENTED IN APRIL 2019?
Q: ARE THERE FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS IN THE PIPELINE?
We have completed the first phase of the Energize redevelopment and will be fine tuning the improvements we have made and investing in tagging items to increase the power of the optimisation functionality. At the same time, we will be undertaking additional consultation to decide upon priorities for future developments.
Q. WHY HAS ENERGIZE CHANGED?
We wrote to our subscribers in April 2018 asking how we could improve Energize. We received many suggestions and the new version of Energize will provide the most common features you asked for. We have also modernised and refreshed the website, including the introduction of a brand new logo.
Q. DO I NEED A DIFFERENT LOG-IN?
Your log-in details remain the same.
Q. WILL I STILL BE ABLE TO ACCESS MY SAVED AND SHARED SESSIONS?
All the sessions that you have saved on Energize will be transferred to the new site. If you have sent URL links to your team these will still work for the new site.
Q: I CAN'T FIND SOME OF THE RESOURCES I PREVIOUSLY USED. WHERE HAVE THEY GONE?
Series: All existing series have been transferred to the new site with the exception of the Urban Saints series which is currently being redeveloped.
Energize @ the Movies and Energize in the News: These articles are currently in the process of being migrated into a standard session format so you will find that they are now included in the SERIES menu. Articles that are awaiting migration can still be found, for @ the Movies, via the LIBRARY link in the footer or, for In the News, via the NOW link, also in the footer.
Energize Plus: Information for Urban Saints Energize Plus groups and Camp Leaders can now be accessed via the PLUS GROUPS link in the footer.
Other resources: You can find other resources and articles such as Storyline, Projection and 7 Ways via either the NOW or LIBRARY link in the footer.
Training: The Insights training course is currently being updated and has been removed whilst this work takes place
Discipleship: livelife123.org are currently redeveloping their website. Once this is complete we will be including links to their resources in our Beyond section.
Q. WHAT TECHNOLOGY DO I NEED TO USE ENERGIZE?
The new Energize uses the latest technology to help you with your young people. Everything should work well if your computer, tablet or mobile phone’s operating system is at least Windows 7 for Microsoft, or at least OS9 for Apple, or at least Android 6 for Samsung, Huawei or similar.
Q: HOW DO I KNOW WHAT OPERATING SYSTEM VERSION I AM USING?
You can check your operating system and browser by selecting:
Q: WHAT SHOULD I DO IF I NEED HELP OR THINK THAT SOMETHING ISN'T WORKING CORRECTLY?
Get in touch! We're here to help and we would love to have your feedback (good or not so good).