LOGOS: Training planned in Sioux City

By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
June 2, 2005

The Diocese of Sioux City will hold Logos training sessions from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on June 14 and 15 in the library at the Central Catholic Offices.

According to Joyce Kizzier, director of information services for the diocese, all current users, people in the process of converting and anyone interested in going to Logos are invited to attend the training sessions.

People from Logos Church Management Software are coming in to do the training.

"We are not doing the training ourselves this time because we are too new at it and don't know enough about it," said Kizzier. "We are having them come in, and we are all going to be learning at the same time."

Currently there are 16 parishes who are using or committed to using Logos, one parish is in the process of deciding whether to use it and another that will be switching to the software the next month or so.

During the first day, those attending will learn several things about the Logos II program. The main functions of the software will be described including entering people, their families, children, grades, skills or ministries they can offer and how to do mailings and print labels to send things out to parishioners.

Another part of the first day will be training the attendees about quick updates, which is a way to update everyone in the parish or a group of people in the parish, and about the maintenance of the system.

The second day they will work on the sacramental register that keeps track of baptisms, marriages, holy orders and any information regarding any sacraments.

"It actually will print out the baptismal certificate and any annotations that are added to it," said Kizzier. "If you get married, confirmed or you make your First Communion, all that is annotated on your original parish's records. All that information is kept where you were baptized."

The other part of the second day will be on the ministry scheduler that schedules people to perform ministries at Masses such as Communion ministers, lectors, altar servers, ushers and gift bearers. They will learn how they can schedule those out for a period of time.

"They learn how that part of the software works - how far to out you have to schedule to get everybody covered, how to set up each individual person," said Kizzier.

According to Kizzier, the Logos program has little issues, but the trainers will give the attendees hints and tips on how to make the software work better than what they already know, since they have just learned by using it.

"This particular program does pledging better than Servant Keeper had done," said Kizzier. "They are able to make a pledge, make payments against a pledge and then be able to report out that information better than Servant Keeper. Logos does better reporting."

The training sessions are free to those attending unless they have to pay for lodging since it is two days long.

The price of the software ranges depending on the version the parish purchases. The stand-alone version is $1,400. The network version is $1,650 including the sacramental registry and ministry scheduler.

"The price will depend on what they are getting," said Kizzier. "If they are just getting Logos, the church management part without sacramental registry and church ministry scheduler, it is $975. It varies what they add in there."