Bible Versions Change: Yesterday was an unnecessary disaster...

Dear Proclaim Presentation Software Team,

Yesterday I arrived at my church yesterday morning for worship. When I logged into Proclaim on our Media Presentation iMac, I allowed Proclaim to sync as usual. I then double checked my presentation (as I am in habit of doing ) only to discover that my Bible verses were not displaying correctly (only a red triangle with an "!" showed up next to my verses).

I'd never had this problem before, even when I beta tested Proclaim years ago before it's initial public release. Trying not to panic, I opened and closed Proclaim multiple times. When that didn't fix the problem, I restarted my iMac (and my DSL router/WiFi access points) to rule out any connectivity issues or other unknown OS X related issues. Still no Bible verses...

With only an hour before my worship service, I began feeling some stress. What could be wrong?, I thought. The On-Screen Bible verses items have never been a problem in the past (unless I had a connectivity issue). I've always had access to all the Bible versions that I "license" personally through Logos software with any of my Proclaim group users. I also hadn't received ANY notification from Proclaim of any changes, and I couldn't recall any sort of update to Proclaim (I generally only download an update to our Media iMac at the beginning of a week so I can work out any problems/bugs before worship.)

With no other ideas, I checked the Proclaim support forum and saw some recent posts from Friday 3/12 about a "bug" that had been "fixed" regarding Bible versions. Apparently my Bible versions from Logos were never supposed to be available to all users in a Proclaim Church User Group in the first place.

Now with only 45 min left before worship, my media support guy and I worked to log out our "media user" account through Proclaim and then re-login with my Logos account. After 25 min., we were able to log in, sync, and see our presentations for worship (it took 20 min. to re-sync after the change in login, and for the Bible versions to show up)

Now with 20 min. before worship, we thought we were finally in the clear. We clicked on each On Screen Bible item to double check, and found our hopes disappointed yet again. With worshippers beginning to walk into our worship space, we frantically continued to troubleshoot. We decided to delete and add back an On-Screen Bible item and discovered that this workaround was successful. Finally, we could see the Bible verses using the NIV! However, that also meant my media support guy had to re-enter all 20 Bible verses with less that 10 min.!!!

With 1 min. to spare, a stressed out media support guy and very embarrassed and anxious pastor were able to get Proclaim to work as it was supposed to in the first place.

Why am I writing all of this? I am honestly VERY UNHAPPY with Proclaim today. I have faithfully used and recommended this software to others from the start. But after yesterday, I am beginning to rethink my usage and support. I just don't know if it's worth the stress and troubleshooting anymore. I just need worship software that works. Period. I have enough on my plate as a pastor and don't need any anxiety about changes to Proclaim happening without my knowledge or advance notification.

I hope the Proclaim Team will receive this post as the constructive criticism it is meant to convey. As I understand it, some sort of "bug" was fixed and this change was made to comply with licensing restrictions for most Bible versions. Okay, fine. But what I can't understand is WHY I (and I assume all Proclaim users?) weren't notified IN ADVANCE, VIA EMAIL, that this change would inevitably lead to the sort of disaster I experienced yesterday. You have my email addresses. I use them to login to Proclaim, after all. Why not just send out a quick email and say, "We've fixed a bug. It may affect your Bible versions access. Here's what you need to do before worship this Sunday..."? This is what most other responsible software teams endeavor to do for mission critical apps. And yes, my worship software is a MISSION-CRITICAL app. If I can't show the word of God in worship as I always do, I'm not fulfilling my role as a messenger of the Good News.

Please, PLEASE review your current notification system for software updates, and consider changing this system to benefit Proclaim users. Posting info. about updates in this forum is one thing, but making changes to Proclaim in vital areas of functionality like Bible versions should REQUIRE NOTIFICATION to users in the future. And even today, I still don't know how the other users in my Proclaim group are going to add Bible verses if they aren't logged in with my Logos account...What a mess.

A longtime but UNHAPPY Proclaim user,

Marc Rickabaugh
Restoration Church

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Comments

Scott Alexander

Hello Marc, thanks for the feedback. First let me apologize for the stress Proclaim caused your group this weekend. I take full responsibility for the the lack of communication with our users when the Bibles were removed.

I hope this doesn't come off as an excuse but here is what happened - The API that Proclaim depends on for Bible content is managed by a different team. When regressions occur we work together to fix them as quickly as possible. When the copyright issue was raised it was fixed immediately, assuming it was a recent regression. It wasn't until Saturday night that I realized the regression had been present for so long. At this time I used the forums to communicate with users. In retrospect it would have been better to immediately send out an email to all users explaining the situation.

I am working with publisher relations today to determine what we can do here moving forward. When I know more I'll send out an email. Sorry again for the disruption.

John Carney

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/707430#Comment_707430

When did this "regression" occur? As a user from beta i have always been able to use all the different bible translations. So your telling me a "bug" since beta has gone unnoticed?

John

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/707438#Comment_707438

When did this "regression" occur? As a user from beta i have always been able to use all the different bible translations. So your telling me a "bug" since beta has gone unnoticed? It all comes off as a money grab to me.

I trust that this wasn't a money grab but was indeed a licensing issue. But if this "bug" was detected so recently, it was a poor decision to "fix" it on a Saturday night. Couldn't it have waited until Monday when it wasn't so likely to disrupt people's morning services? And I strongly agree with the OP that posting updates about something that is going to affect everyone to the forums (where such a small percentage of users check in) is bad communication. Email!

Scott Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/707441#Comment_707441

All, we have restored the Bibles (to all users) while we work towards a more permanent solution that will work for Proclaim. You can expect email notification before any future changes in this area. I sincerely apologize for the disruption we caused this past weekend.

Stephen Cagle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/707454#Comment_707454

I am still showing no Bibles available when I try to add scripture to my presentation. Did it go down again?

Timothy Martinez

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/708199#Comment_708199

I was just looking at that myself. I have people trying to put presentation together and we have absolutely no access. And now the online link doesn't even work.

Scott Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/708202#Comment_708202

I was just looking at that myself. I have people trying to put presentation together and we have absolutely no access. And now the online link doesn't even work.

I can reproduce the issue. This is not related to the copyright issue addressed by this thread. Will update momentarily.

Stephen Cagle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/708199#Comment_708199

Oh nevermind, I read the other forum posting. That is completely ridiculous. What the crap am I paying you a monthly fee for? To make your product WORSE!? Now I have to shell out an extra $40 for the NLT that I have been using all along? Simony -- "defined to be a deliberate act or a premeditated will and desire of selling such things as are spiritual, or of anything annexed unto spirituals, by giving something of a temporal nature for the purchase thereof; or in other terms it is defined to be a commutation of a thing spiritual or annexed unto spirituals by giving something that is temporal." Good luck with that.

David Housholder

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/708202#Comment_708202

Found my way to the forum, Tim. Thanks for helping out

David Housholder

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/708206#Comment_708206

Please let me know, Scott; I'm on a deadline for midweek service

Scott Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/708206#Comment_708206

I was just looking at that myself. I have people trying to put presentation together and we have absolutely no access. And now the online link doesn't even work.

I can reproduce the issue. This is not related to the copyright issue addressed by this thread. Will update momentarily.

We're back. Thanks for the report.

Timothy Martinez

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/708213#Comment_708213

Thank you Scott for the quick attention. We are up and running. God bless you and your team.

Scott Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/708209#Comment_708209

Oh nevermind, I read the other forum posting. That is completely ridiculous. What the crap am I paying you a monthly fee for? To make your product WORSE!? Now I have to shell out an extra $40 for the NLT that I have been using all along? Simony -- "defined to be a deliberate act or a premeditated will and desire of selling such things as are spiritual, or of anything annexed unto spirituals, by giving something of a temporal nature for the purchase thereof; or in other terms it is defined to be a commutation of a thing spiritual or annexed unto spirituals by giving something that is temporal." Good luck with that.

Last weekend was an unfortunate error on our part and I apologize. However, I can assure you that it was never our intent to mislead our users as a mechanism for future profits.

The current plan is as follows

We have temporarily restored access to all Bibles for all users.
We are working on changing our Bible licensing model to support group licenses. If I own a Bible then all members of my group will have access to said Bible.
We will follow up with groups impacted by the licensing change and make sure we give them a license for the Bible(s) they use. In other words you will be grandfathered in to owning the Bible. Proclaim will eat the royalty cost required to make this happen.
Once we've made sure everyone is taken care of we'll again remove free access to non public domain Bibles (with a few exceptions ESV, HCSB, LEB...), as we originally intended.

Richard Bonjour

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/708221#Comment_708221

Thanks Scott for all your hard work!!!![:D]

Pastor Jesse Briles

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/708221#Comment_708221

So if I purchased 3 Bible's now I "wasted" my church's money (not in budget) that i used on these Bibles as I would have gotten grandfathered into the one's I have used?
Is there a plan to reimburse/refund those who only bought a logos bible version (or more than one) for proclaim in response to the removal? I had no other choice that week but now it seems like i should have just waited it out.

Scott Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/709392#Comment_709392

So if I purchased 3 Bible's now I "wasted" my church's money (not in budget) that i used on these Bibles as I would have gotten grandfathered into the one's I have used?
Is there a plan to reimburse/refund those who only bought a logos bible version (or more than one) for proclaim in response to the removal? I had no other choice that week but now it seems like i should have just waited it out.

Sorry about that. I'll see that your purchase is refunded.