I have to admit to being frustrated by the way Proclaim seems to handle the song library. My understanding was that if you make any changes to a song, it gets saved in the library under the My Content section. Adding a song from the My Content selection should then bring up the song with all the formatting, order, and other changes that had been made. Maybe I'm not understanding how this is supposed to work, but each week I have issues with the formatting of songs I've used previously and I can't figure out if it's something I'm doing wrong, or some annoying bug in Proclaim, so I'm turning to you guys for help.
Here's how I normally go about it, so maybe you can tell me if I'm doing something wrong.
I open up the previous week's presentation and simply change the date and title of the presentation. Then I go about changing whatever is different from the week before. The songs are one item that almost always changes. I select one of the songs already in the presentation, delete the title, and begin typing until the name of the song I want appears in the My Content section, at which point, I click on it. My understanding is that this should bring up the song exactly as I last used it...but it doesn't. The verse order I have previously set is ignored. Often, any customized line or page breaks I have input are removed. Frequently, instead of displaying the title and credits on the title slide as I have previously selected, no title is shown and the credits are shown on the first lyric slide.
Anyway, I have to think that everyone isn't having this problem, or else there would be a lot more complaints. If you can help me figure out what's causing Proclaim to behave like this, I would really appreciate it. It will save me a lot of frustration each week!
i have the same issue. i thought I was doing it wrong. So I started just deleting those those songs in the service order and going up top to "Add Item" "Song" and under "Reuse Items" I start typing the previously used song there, but I get the same result. Nothing. I have to continuously go back to adding a song, typing in the name, when the database finds it, even if it's under "my songs" I still have to reformat the verses, chorus, etc as well as the backgrounds. Why? Oh Why???
Currently Proclaim only stores the lyrics, not the song settings. The the custom verse order sequence and title/credits settings are not saved and must be recreated each time. I can see how this is frustrating. It is on our list of future enhancements but I don't have a date at this time.
One method that we recommend is to make a "song catalog" presentation and call it "My Songs" or something like that. Whenever you need to add a new song, add it first to this presentation and format it how you like. Then, when you want to use that song go to the Add Item menu, search for the song and select it in the Reuse Items section. This way will preserve any changes you made to the song. As long as you do not delete your songs from the "My Songs" presentation, they will always be available in reuse items.
If you would like to see some screenshots and examples on how you can do this, check out a recent blog post we put up that describes the process: http://blog.proclaimonline.com/2013/05/02/proclaim-ninja-build-a-songs-archive/.
We're constantly adding more ways to "become a Proclaim ninja" on our blog, so be sure to subscribe and check it out!
Hey guys, I appreciate the feedback. I'm not sure whether it's comforting to know that I'm not crazy, or annoying to find out that Proclaim functions in this way by design! I think maybe I'll try your suggestion Travis. Hopefully that will alleviate some frustration for us until the feature to save the whole song (not just the lyrics) gets added--whenever that may be.