We've always taken pride in how often we continue to add new features to Planning Center. We also love getting to use the latest technology to bring you innovative functionality. The main area where this can cause a problem is in making sure our new features continue to run on older internet browsers. At some point it becomes impractical to support old browsers, so we're giving you a heads up that we're about to discontinue support for Internet Explorer 6 & 7.
Planning Center's codebase is built using Ruby on Rails. We haven't updated our servers to the latest versions of Ruby or Rails in a long time, and to make sure we can continue to give you great new features efficiently and make sure we don't fall too far behind, we've decide it's time to update. We've struggled for a while trying to decide how long to support IE 6 & 7, and these framework updates made it clear that now is the time.
Right now we're in the final stages of testing the updates. In a week or two when we transition everyone, most users will have no idea anything has changed since there aren't really any new features in this update. Users of IE 6 & 7 will be prompted to install the free Chrome Frame plugin from Google that causes IE to behave like Chrome for that site. So if they install the plugin, they should still be able to use Planning Center normally. Obviously, a better option would be to just upgrade to the latest version of any browser, all of which are free, but we know that some corporations are very strict with their workstations and won't allow upgrades.
We'd also love as many users as possible to help us test our new servers before they go live. Though we've tested very thoroughly, there are bound to be a few minor things we've missed. If you are willing, just go to test.planningcenteronline.com when you want to use Planning Center. Most likely, it will be smooth sailing, but if you notice any bugs, just email support@planningcenteronline.com to let us know.
Thanks for allowing us to partner with you in streamlining your ministry, and for partnering with us in bringing great technological tools to churches around the world!