As a part of our ongoing product roadmap, we have redeveloped InMemory to make it faster, easier to use and to add new features to enhance the service you provide to your families.
Although this is a complete rewrite from the ground up and the user interface is completely new, the fundamental way InMemory works remains unchanged.
Faster, even more secure and new features
- It’s faster – saving you time
- Payments are even more secure – it meets the new EU card processing rules and will allow us to add more payment options such as Apple Pay and Google Pay
- It’s more customisable – you have more flexibility when embedding InMemory in your website
- It’s more informative – InMemory now provides real time management information instead of just at the end of the year!
- It offers more features to enable you to offer the best in donation services
Main changes at a glance
- InMemory now shows a dashboard when users log in, which provides an overview of all the key metrics of your donation system. Read more.
Dashboard
The dashboard provides you with an overview of the key metrics of the donations system. The dashboard today shows five key metrics and this will be expanded in subsequent releases.
Outstanding open donation profiles
At the top of the dashboard an alert will be show if any donation profiles are open which are 8 weeks or more after the first service date – acting as a visual reminder that you have profiles that should be closed!
Metrics
For all the metrics you can choose the period you wish to review. Above each chart are options to view data for the last 12 months (the default), the current month to date, the current calendar year to date, the last 4 weeks last week or the last 7 days.
At a Glance
The key metrics are show in list form:
- Total raised (excluding gift aid)
- Total gift aid raised
- Donation volume
- Average donation value
- Gift aid attachment rate as a percentage
- Condolence message attachment rate as a percentage
Top Charities
This shows in pie chart form the top 10 charities for which donations have been received (by total donation value).
Donation History
This bar chart visually allows you to see how much you are processing on a month by month basis
Payment Method
A key metric, this shows the percentage volume of transaction by each payment type, so you can see how effective you are being at converting donors to electronic payment methods.
- Donations and arrangements are now combined, so it’s no longer necessary to set up an arrangement before adding a donation profile. Read more.
Donation & collection profiles
We have combined the arrangement details and donation profile into one screen to save time.
The top three sections of the new donation profile replace the old arrangement:
- Arrangement – Deceased’s details, dates of birth and death, your reference and arranger
- Next of Kin – Contact details and relationship
- Services – Details of the funeral services and if you choose the post funeral reception.
The fields themselves have not changed from earlier versions.
Donation Profile
One important new feature is the View Public Profile link. Clicking on this opens a new browser window showing exactly how that profile will appear in your web pages – allowing the creator to instantly view the webpage to check for layout and issues.
There is also another new field for “Ad Reference”, which is automatically completed if the donation profile is linked to an obituary notice in a Reach publication. The Ad reference is Reach’s master reference number for the placed notice. Clicking on this link will open the notice on funeral-notices.co.uk in a new tab / window.
Please note: These fields are only available when viewing a profile, not while editing it.
Charities
In view mode, the charities section shows running totals to date for each charity so that if a family call for an update you can instantly provide it.
Donations
As with charities, we have added a total to the list of donations for the profile made to date. We have also added a feature to acknowledge receipt of a donation by email as well as letter (assuming you have the donor’s email address).
Collection Profiles
This works as before allowing you to have one fundraising page open. The only changes are that in the charity section it shows a running total collected (as per the donation profile) and you can preview how the page looks by clicking “View Public Collection Page” button (top right)
- We have updated the user interface to make better use of the screen area and to improve the filtering function. Read more.
User interface updates
InMemory V2.0 uses a completely new layout, designed to make information clearer and speed up data entry.
We have improved the filtering system to enable complex filters to be set up very easily. By moving the filter options to a separate button, you can now filter records by attributes not included in the list view.
You can still sort the list by clicking on the appropriate blue column header label, once for A-Z/lower to higher twice for the reverse.
From each list view, to View, Edit or Delete (if you have that permission) a record, hover over the three vertical dots on the right end of each row and select the action you wish to take.
To add a new record the button remains top right.
We also now break down the data into separate logical sections, each section can be opened and closed independently, enabling us to get the maximum data onto any one screen.
- Throughout the application, mutiple images can now be added in one go using ‘drag & drop’. Read more.
Image updates
The way InMemory V2.0 uses images is totally new. The new method allows multiple images to be uploaded in one single action, which will save significant time and shortly add the capability to add videos for the first time.
Images are used in several places; they are always added, moved or deleted in edit mode and the process is the same wherever images are used (except galleries).
- Click on the icon to add a new image:
- A popup showing the Media Library for the record opens
- You can upload files by ‘dragging& dropping‘ them from Windows Explorer or Mac Finder anywhere within the media library window
- Alternatively, you can click on ‘upload files from your computer’ and select multiple files in the traditional manner
- Details of files to be uploaded are shown in the media library window above a button labelled ‘Start upload’. Files will not be uploaded until this button is clicked but once the process is underway, a progress bar will be shown as each file is uploaded. Please note that the maximum upload size permitted is 2MB; if you are not sure how to resize images please contact us and we can send you a crib sheet.
- Once the files have been uploaded, select the image(s) you want to use and click on ‘OK’ or cancel. If you click on cancel once you have uploaded images, the images you have uploaded will remain in the image library.
- To delete files from the media library, click on ‘Manage attachments’, select the file(s) to be deleted and click on ‘Delete selected’
Each record has its own media library, so if you add an image into the biography, you can use the same image as the notice photo and in the gallery. You can add images whenever the media library is shown.
The media library is used in the following:
Charity Logo
In edit mode, go to the images & media section and click on the photo + icon and select a single image from the media library.
Funeral Notice / Announcement
In edit mode go to the images & media section and click on the notice photo photo+ icon and select a single image from the media library. The selected image is used as the funeral notice photo, which will show in any notice / announcement page. If no image is added InMemory will use a default image..
Image Gallery
The gallery now shows as a “wallpaper” at the bottom of the donation profile page, with functionality to include videos coming soon.
In edit mode go to the images & media section and click on the gallery photo photo+ icon and select as many images as required from the media library, then click on OK.
Biography
To add an image into a biography, click once where you want to insert the image, then click on the add image icon: .
Choose the image you want to insert (after uploading it, if necessary) and click on OK. Once the image appears in the biography you can choose the resize it by clicking on the add image icon again and choosing large, medium or small from the options below the image.
You can align the image to the left, centre or right of the text using the alignment buttons in the toolbar: 
- We have completed our link with all three UK charity databases, with enhanced support for charities known by multiple names and non-registered organisations that can claim gift aid. Read more.
Charities
We have since May linked directly to the registered charity database of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to speed up record creation. All former records for registered charities added before the update have been replaced with new records that are linked to the registered charity databases.
An issue we found by taking the data from the charity commission is that the name by which many charities are known is not the same as the name under which they are registered! For example, many people know the RNLI is registered as “The Royal National Lifeboat Institution” but fewer are probably aware that the registered charity name of “St John Ambulance” is actually “The priory of England and the islands of the most venerable order of the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem”! To overcome this issue, we have added an aliases function, so you can add as many alternative names for registered charities as you wish.
Another issue is that not only registered charities can claim gift aid; registered community amateur sports clubs, churches, and other establishments such as some universities can claim gift aid even though they aren’t registered charities. To remedy this we have added a new checkbox when adding a non-registered charity / group which allows the donor to add gift aid if this is ticked. It is important that this is ticked only after you are certain that the charity or group is eligible or this could cause you subsequent problems.
The view screen for each charity now also shows all profiles using that charity, as well as a running total of funds raised by those profiles for that charity to date.
- The payment process has been redesigned and is now embedded in your site by default. Read more.
New payment process
In the current version when you click on the donate button this opens a donation form in a new window.
The new donation payment pages display in the same window as the notice, so donors remain on your site for the duration of their visit.
The layout has also been redesigned, to split the process into 3 consecutive steps; address, donation / gift aid and payment.
We have also implemented support for the new Strong Customer Authentication standards in order to provide donors with greater protection against fraudulent transactions.
Support for Apple Pay and Google Pay will be added shortly.
- The settings section has been restructured and enhanced to provide easier access and additional options for embedding InMemory into your website. Read more.
Settings update
We have reorganised how the customisation process works when setting up InMemory and integrating it into your website. These are areas that primarily we use, however we can now:
- Edit any standard letter to your personal preference
- Edit any emails sent to online donors. We can also now make these rich text emails and so replicate your exact email format with logos etc.
- Determine if you want all donation pages hidden behind a search box (as now) or all to appear in list form as per announcements / notices and the same for funeral notices.
- Create lists of notices or profiles in single or deal format.
This provides us with more control over the look and feel. If you have a particular wish, please ask us and we’ll try to accommodate it.
Your feedback is important!
Many of the updates in this release have been developed as a result of feedback from our customers. This is the first release of a completely new platform and we intend to continue releasing new versions several times a year; the next release will be around the end of 2019 and will include enhancements to the dashboard, visitor statistics, more payment methods and an entirely new approach to linking donation profiles to social media platforms. So please keep the feedback coming!