Updated Formation Module in Camino: 

Building a Formation Class in Camino

Head to Formation > Classes in the left-hand navigation. This is your master list of every class in the system, active and inactive; with class size, catechist, and status at a glance. Click ADD NEW CLASS in the top right to start.

NOTE: Course Description and Notes are both optional but worth a sentence or two — the description can surface on public-facing registration pages, and notes are a good spot for anything staff-only, like a reminder to confirm a catechist's background check.

Schedule and Catechist

Save and You're Done

Hit SAVE and Camino assigns the class an ID number, and a full set of tabs appear: Formation Class, Online Registration, Class Schedule, Roster, and Attendance. Everything you'll manage from here on out.

Quick Reference

Scheduling Sessions and Building Your Class Roster

Once a Formation class is built, two tabs do most of the ongoing work: Class Schedule and Roster. Schedule generates every session for the term in one click and lets you adjust individual dates; Roster is where you see the students enrolled, or manually add them yourself. Here's how both work.


Set the Recurrence
Before we can edit the schedule it had to be created in the Formation Class Frequency Section. Once that was created and saved we get a Class Schedule Tab.

Every session can be adjusted on its own. Click Edit next to any date to change the Session Date itself, add a Topic, or leave Notes; handy for flagging a guest speaker or a special activity for that week. Need to cancel a session for a holiday? Edit brings up a Delete option too.

The recurrence pattern won't cover everything. A make-up class, a special event, whatever doesn't fit the regular weekly slot. Use Add New at the top of the Class Schedule tab to drop in a one-off session on any date, independent of the recurring pattern.

Enroll Students in the Roster

Search for a student by name, set their Status (Enrolled, Waitlisted, etc.), and their information will be brought over: Baptism, First Reconciliation, First Communion, or Confirmation date. Other information will be required to be entered by the user: Consents, Emergency Contact Information, notes, etc.

Note: If you have set up a custom registration form through online registration any custom fields will show up below to be filled in by the Camino User.

AT the bottom SAVE AND NEW commits the student and immediately clears the form for the next one;  handy for enrolling a whole family or class list back to back. Once saved, each student shows up in the Members list on the left with a running Present / Absent / Tardy count, which feeds directly into the Attendance tab.

NOTE: Need the roster outside of Camino — for a sign-in sheet or a mail merge? EXPORT TO CSV in the top right downloads the full class list in seconds.

Quick Reference:

Soft Credits Update

• Soft credits (contributions made by an organization or business on behalf of a household) are now listed on the parishioner's contribution screen with a special symbol.  When the soft credit donation is clicked, the name of the organization is displayed. 

  

For Dioceses, Added features to the Credit Parish field

• Added the capability to enter the Entity Number in the Credit Parish field for Pledges and Contributions.  This can help increase speed and accuracy when entering a large number of pledges or contributions for a diocesan campaign or appeal. 
• Added the capability to do a full-text search when entering the Credit Parish during Batch Contribution entry.

  

  

Sped up the time it takes to save a change to a household or member record

For Dioceses and Parishes, Added fields to different Report Types

• DETAILS > Donor Mailing Address Line 1
• DETAILS > Donor Mailing Address Line 2
• DETAILS > Donor Mailing City
• DETAILS > Donor Mailing State
• DETAILS > Donor Mailing Zip
• DETAILS > Donor Mailing City State Zip
• DETAILS > Credit Parish Formal

• Mailing Address City State Zip

• DETAILS > Credit Entity City

• DETAILS > Credit Entity City

• Household Formal Mailing Name
• Household Formal Salutation

• Household Formal Mailing Name
• Household Formal Salutation
• Mailing Address City State Zip
• Prim Assign City State Zip

• Household First Names 

During Pledge Batch Entry, show any existing pledges the household has made to the same fund

• This is done to help prevent the accidental entry of duplicate pledges. 

  

Added fields to Formation Report Types

• Student Cell Phone Number
• Home Email Address

• DETAILS > Student Cell Phone Number
• DETAILS > Home Email Address

• Student Cell Phone Number
• Home Email Address

Added the capability to search for a blank sacrament date

• It is helpful to search for members who don't have a particular sacrament (e.g. they haven't been baptized).  Previously it was not possible to search for a blank sacramental date.  Now it is possible for any of the sacraments.  It is also now possible to search for a blank celebrant.  

Add the Member Relation of "Ex-Spouse"

• We've had requests to add "Ex-Spouse" as a relationship for a household member when the Member Type is set to "Adult".  This is now possible. 

  

Added the capability to print coupon books for pledges

• A new Report Type of "Contributions - Pledge Payment Books" was created.  This allows you to create payment books with Payment Date and Payment Number for contributions that are due in the future.

Changed report criteria to be smarter

• When entering selection criteria for reports, most fields that have a fixed number of choices now will show those choices as check boxes or as a list.  (e.g. The field "Marital Status" can only have 1 of 7 options.  Now the relation of "in" can be used and all 7 choices show as checkboxes.)

  

Warning message when possible duplicate contributions are entered

• When entering a batch contribution, if another contribution exists for the same household with the same envelope number, amount, date, fund, and fund activity, the message "This is a possible duplicate.  Do you wish to continue?" displays.  You can click "Yes" or "No" and continue. 

  

• Added "Pledge Type" and "Response Type" fields.  This will further identify information about the pledge.  
• Added a "No Remittance" checkbox next to the "Anonymous" checkbox to be able to identify donors that do not want to receive a remittance for the balance of their pledge.  
• Added a house icon at the end of the Household field.  Clicking this button takes the user to the Households screen so address and other contact information can be updated.  Clicking the "Batch Pledges" menu item when done brings the user back into the current pledge batch.
  
   
  

  

   
  
  
• When a Down Payment is entered during the Batch Pledges process, the "Is a contribution included" checkbox is automatically checked and the amount of the Down Payment is automatically copied to the Contribution Amount field.  

Other Enhancements:  

• Added the ability to change the Head of Household from the main member listing screen without having to open the member record.

  

   
• Added the ability to add personalized links to the online formation registration form by a user.

  

• Added the ability to search by Maiden Name on the household and member screens.  
• The 7-digit phone number (cell or home without area code) is now able to be searched as well.  
• Previously there were some issues with searching for people with special characters in their names (e.g. O'Connor).  That has been resolved.  

• Added the capability to store background check information at the parish level.  Previously, this was only available at the diocese level. 

  

   
• Students can now be added to a Formation class from the Formation tab on the Members screen. 

  

   
• A Reference Number field has been added next to the Fund Activity name on the Fund Detail screen.   

  

   
• When a household contribution is changed in a previous year, the field "Reason for changing an old contribution" appears and is required to be filled in.  That field now appears when changing current year contributions, but it is optional to be filled in. 

  

   
• When enrolling a student in a formation class, the list of names that is displayed now shows the person's birthdate as well as their Member ID to help differentiate students with the exact same name. 

  

   
• When entering batch sacraments, the Baptism date is now displayed as a reference. 

  

   
  
  Diocese and Parish additional features and corrections:
  • The information in Address Line 2 is now included when doing Household searches.
  • Household, member, and contribution searches have been sped up significantly at both the Diocese and Parish levels.  
  • When searching for a Credit Parish at the Diocese Level, a full text search is now enabled.  Previously, it was only starting the search with the first name of the parish. 
  • When entering a sacrament place for an individual and choosing "Find a Parish in Discover Mass", the heading "Please choose where this sacrament took place" will now continue to be displayed to avoid any confusion.  
  • For formation programs with many pages of classes, it was annoying if you were working on a class on page 15 and then were taken back to page 1 when you left the class.  Now, when done with a class, you are returned to the same page that you left. 
  • The length of the Comments field when importing online giving was increased to be able to handle multiple tributees.

• On Diocese and Parish Batch Contributions, if the Payment Type is Check, hitting the ENTER key will take the user directly from Amount to Check # when Check Number is enabled.  This will allow the user to only use the 10-key pad for entering batch contributions by envelope number. 
  

  

• Additional fields were added to the Diocese's Recurring and Non-Recurring Pledge Reports to better handle soft credits. 
  

  

• Additional links to webpages can now be added to the Formation Online Registration Confirmation Screen.  These links can be used to have the parishioner fill out a photo consent or a medical release or another document needed by the parish's faith formation department.  Currently, the parish will need to contact Diocesan to have this done.
• Profession of Faith can now be entered when Baptism Date is unknown
• Clicking the Ordination events on the Sacrament Summary tab now takes you to the Ordination tab.  
• The Virtual column now appears in the course description on the public-facing Catechesis page.
• The Member History tab now shows proper heads of household in both directions for members moving to new households.
• Users with only View Household Members rights can now see Members without an error requiring Sacrament rights.

• Student Names and Class Dates are now frozen on Formation Attendance Screen for better usability.  You can now scroll left to right or up and down without losing headers.

  

• For Dioceses, Catechesis Registration now freezes names and dates for attendance like formation
  

  

• The Sacraments tab is now clickable.  If you click one of the Summary Sacraments, it will take you to the proper tab.
  

  

• First Communion Date Added to Formation Roster Screen
  

  

  
  
  
• Date of Birth added to Formation Roster page to help to identify the proper member
  

  

• Updates to Notifications
  • Notifications now show in large panels.
  • Notifications no longer are created when a Family is added to a parish.  Instead, notifications are triggered any time a household is added as a Parish Household, School Household, or Formation Household at another parish.
    • If Parish Household is checked at Parish A, and Household is a member of Parish B, Parish B is notified.
    • No notifications are sent if the household is just added as a donor (Household, School, and Formation are not checked)
    • The message was modified to show what kind of registration occurred (Parish, School, Formation, or a combination)
  • Household ID and Household First Names were added to the notification message for clarity.
    

    

• Virtual Option added for Catechesis classes at Diocese level.  Both fields are also available in the reports as well.

  

• Diocese and Parish additional features and corrections:
  • Vision 2 is now supported for online giving.  Vision 2 can be configured similarly to Vanco Autoconnect.
  • Query Name label Changed to Report Name
  • Confirmation Name is no longer required for batch Sacrament Posting
  • Date of Birth added to the Formation Online Registration processing (similar to that added to the Formation Roster page.)
  • Funds Page overlaps fields at certain resolutions.  This was corrected.
  • When no DOB is found, hyphen is removed from Formation Search list.  This was corrected. 
  • The Hamburger menu button was not working.  It has been corrected and now shows other Diocesan products.  
  • A date error was showing on the Assignments page if the assignment ended today.  That has been corrected.  
  • Several fields were added to the Report Type, "Formation - Class Roster"
    • Head Religion
    • Co Head Religion
    • Head Occupation
    • Co Head Occupation
    • Head Employer
    • Co Head Employer
  • Additional audit fields were added for tracking user changes to households
    • Phone Number
    • Email Address
  • Additional audit fields were added for tracking user changes to members
    • Cell phone
    • Email Address
    • Work Phone
    • Work Email
    • Occupation
    • Employer
  • When clicking "Save and Copy to Spouse" on the Marriage sacrament tab, the husband's middle name was not copied.  This has been corrected.  
  • Several fields were added to the Report Type, "Formation - Student Classes"
    • First Communion Place
    • Confirmation Place
    • Marriage Place
    • Marriage Date
  • The country "Northern Mariana Islands" was added to the sacrament country dropdown list.  

• Notification option moved to the bottom of the main menu.  
• New Report for Sacrament Only Members
  

  

• Any Documents added to the report above will also now show on the new Letters Tab of the Sacramental Only Non Member page

  

• For Dioceses that may need it, we added a new field to store the External Diocese.  It has also been added to all household reports.  We also added two new diocese parameters
  • SHOW_EXTERNAL_DATABASE_ID if true will show the External Database ID field at Diocese and Parish Level for Households.
  • PARISH_EDIT_EXTERNAL_DATABASE_ID if true will allow the parish to edit this value

    

•  Added Finance ID for Diocese Community Members.

  

• Changed label of Custom Mailing Name to Formal Mailing Name

• New Formation report type available - Formation - Attendance
  • This report type will be able to see if a student was Present, Absent, etc. on a certain session date

• Made-up and Excused have added as options when taking Attendance in a Formation class
• Multiple Dispensation types can now be chosen under the marriage sacrament. In addition to being able to choose multiple dispensations, a free text field has been added for any additional dispensation types

• When using the search bar on the reports listing page, the search will remain when you click into a report and then click back out of the report
• The Additional Fields under Formation classes can now be marked as required on the Formation Online Registration form

• Access level can now be changed after a report is created and saved. Either the report creator can change the access level or users with the right "Reports Administrator" can change access levels for any report
• Multiple roles can now be given access to reports when choosing the Access Level of "Role"

• The Headers have been changed to a light blue for better readability

• Formation Attendance sheets when downloaded will now display 'A' for a student who has been marked absent

• Household ID has been added to the search results when a duplicate household is found during the Add New Household process

• When copying a report, the user who copied the report can now choose a new access level for the copied report
• Sacrament dropdowns will now display middle names for fields such as Father' Name, Mother's Name, etc.

• Batch Contribution Enhancement
  • Previously, when entering batch contributions, the household could not be changed after entering a contribution. The Household can now be changed before or after posting the batch

• Online Giving Enhancement
  • On both the Import File and Successful Lines pages, the headings can now be sorted by clicking them and a search bar has also been added

• The Sacrament Summary page now shows Death and Funeral information

• When running the Grade Promotion Procedure, if a grade promotion was run in the last 9 months, a message will appear saying that a grade promotion was run recently

• Camino now has the ability to track Soft Credits. These are used when, for example, a household donates to the parish through a business they own

• A new report type has been added. The report type 'Household - Potential Duplicates' will allow for duplicates to be quickly identified
• A new Camino Updates and Feedback page has been created. This page can be found by clicking on "What's New" on the main menu
  • The Updates tab will show all of the Camino Release Notes
  • The Feedback tab is a public forum where new features can be requested, discussed and voted on by Camino users
• The Update Tab:
  • You're here!
• The Feedback Tab:

•  Batch Pledge enhancement
  • When entering a pledge batch and a contribution is included, the Payment Type, Activity, and Contribution Date will be remembered after entering the first contribution

• The formation attendance page has been updated to be mobile friendly
  • Catechists can now easily take attendance directly from any smart device, tablet, or computer

    

    

     
• Tags can now be added and removed in batches
  • The new feature is found by navigating to ADMINSTRATION > PROCEDURES > BATCH TAGS
    • If you don't see batch tags under PROCEDURES, you will need to have the right of batch tags added to your role
  • Once the Tag Type and Tag are chosen, the left side is where you will remove the tags, and the right side is where you will add tags

    

    

     
• In Batch Pledges, when entering a contribution along with a pledge, the Activity, Payment Type, and Date will be remembered for the next contribution being added. The same way that Batch Contributions remembers those fields.

• New dropdown lists have been added to the criteria section of reports. This will allow for easier and more accurate reporting. Examples:
  • Member Type
  • Baptism Month

    

• More Camino video tutorials are being created. If you have a suggestion of a video that you think should be created, please let us know!

• The reports listing now shows who created and who last modified a report. This will allow for a search to be conducted for reports created or modified by a specific user

  

• The option to include comments in the PDF versions of the Batch Contribution reports is now available
• The Batch Contribution screen now has a search bar. Searches can be conducted by batch number, description, or date (m/d/yyyy)
• The default activity under a fund will now appear first in the activity list when entering contributions
• Two new report types are now available:
  • Contributions - Monthly Fund Totals
  • Contributions - Monthly Fund/Activity Totals

• Some video walk-throughs are now available with more to come in the future. Here is the link to the videos: https://video.diocesan.com/page/camino-tutorials
• The Diocesan side menu is now accessible from Camino. This will allow you to navigate between all Diocesan products with ease
  • The three bars or the "hamburger button" is how you will access the Diocesan side menu
  • To hide the side menu in Camino, click the arrow to the left of the Camino logo
• Check number can now be made optional when entering contributions. Please contact Diocesan and submit a support ticket in order to enable this feature
• Three custom fields can now be added to the Formation Online Registration form. You can add 1, none, or all of the fields to the form

• A major change has been made in how sacrament places are entered. We have integrated with Discover Mass which will allow for a quick search of any parish in the United States to be added as a sacrament place. For your convenience, a video overview of the new feature is at the bottom of this message.
• A phone number mask has been added. This will automatically format a phone number as you type it in. The mask has also been added to the Formation Online Registration form.
• 3 new sections have been added under Administration>Lists
  • Common Cities – This list will create a dropdown to choose from when entering addresses (City name only, do not include State) ex. Chicago.
  • Common Places of Birth – This list will create a dropdown to choose from on the Baptism screen (City and State for this list) ex. Chicago, IL.
  • Non-Member Clergy – This list will create a dropdown for the celebrant field for any sacrament (Intended for clergy that do not belong to the parish or the diocese).
• Camino now remembers the last envelope number assigned by your parish. This means when entering a new envelope number the first option in the dropdown list will be the next available number after the last number assigned. For example, if the last envelope number assigned was 301, the dropdown list would be 302, 1, 2, 3.
• When searching for a household, you can now search for the preferred name of the Co-Head and Head of Household.
• When adding a new member to a household the last name of the household will auto-fill into the member’s last name. This can be changed if need be.
• When adding a new household, Camino will now find partial matches in the first name field if the last name is an exact match.
• Do not forget about the Camino Knowledge Base. The Knowledge Base contains articles that can help answer questions you may have about Camino https://diocesan.com/knowledge-base/

• Vietnamese and Korean characters are now supported in name, place, address and notes fields.
• A sacrament summary page has been added. This page shows the sacrament name, date and place.
• Parent names have been added to the Confirmation Sacraments page.
• On the baptism or confirmation screen, when mother's name is chosen from the dropdown list, the mother’s maiden name will populate from the mother’s member screen.
• When entering father and mother on the baptism or confirmation page, the Head and Co-head of the household will appear first in the dropdown list.
• Next of Kin has been added to the Funeral Sacraments page.
• Occupation and Employer have been added to the member screen. These fields are free text fields and we still recommend using talents to keep track of common occupations.
• Work email address has been added to the member screen.
• The relation of Spouse was limited to the member type of Co-Head. Spouse is now also available for the member types of Adult and Other.
• A new right has been added that allows users to edit contributions over a year old. This right is not automatically assigned to any role, so if needed make sure to add this new right to roles where it is needed.
• Do not forget about the Camino Knowledge Base. The knowledge base contains articles that can help answer questions you may have about Camino https://diocesan.com/knowledge-base/

• A new right is now available to be assigned to roles. This right allows a role to view and input pledges toward Formation only funds.
• Improvements have been made to the criteria section of reports. Now when you select a field, for example, Fund Number, a dropdown list of your funds is now available to be chosen.
• For parishes who use pledges: A summary of the Total Paid and Balance remaining towards a pledge is now available under a Household. To find this new feature go into a household. Go to the pledges tab for the household. Click on the pledge you wish to view. You will see a recap on the right side of your screen.
• New fields have been added to the “Members” report type. Sacrament Place Names formal (ex. Baptism Place Formal) These fields are intended for Certificates and letters so that instead of St Mary, Boston it will say St Mary Catholic Parish.
• When attempting to add a Catechist to a class in Formation and that member is not in the dropdown list, an error appears. The error message has been changed to include what action must be taken to fix the error.
• Do not forget about the Camino Knowledge Base. The knowledge base contains articles that can help answer questions you may have about Camino https://diocesan.com/knowledge-base/

• New Household and Member Audit Report types are now available. These report types allow administrators to see what changes have been made and by whom
• Formation Online Registration
  • Mobile responsiveness has been improved
  • Spanish translation is now available on the online registration form
  • New fields have been added to the form including household information. These fields do not overwrite what is in Camino. The fields can be found when using the report type “Formation – Online Registrations”
• Preferred name is now used on the Formation Attendance sheet if the member record contains a preferred name
• A new field has been added to the household screen. The new field “Custom Mailing Name” allows you to customize the mailing name for a household. The field will automatically populate with the Formal Mailing Name. From there is can be changed if desired. The fields that pull the “Custom Mailing Name” in the reporting section are “Formal Mailing Name” and “Donor Name Formal”
• The Camino Knowledge Base has been completed. This contains articles that give little tips on how to do various things in Camino. The link is below https://diocesan.com/knowledge-base/

• We switched over to a new login which will allow for seamless transition to other Diocesan products in the future
• A new report type has been added called “Formation – Student Classes.” This report is intended for, but not limited to, the creation of Formation certificates as well as emailing from Camino to Formation households
• Under Import Online Giving – The download report button now gives you the option to choose the report with or without comments
• When you change the name of a report and save it, the name now updates in the blue area of the screen without having to refresh the screen
• Improvements to the Formation Online Registration form have been made, including making the form mobile friendly, with more improvements to come
• Fields overlapping on the household and member screens have been corrected
• When in the Reports section and then searching for a report on page 3, for example, no results would appear. This issue has been fixed
• A fund activity can now be marked to not count towards the total paid of a pledge

• Formation Online Registration is now available, contact support to get the link to the registration form
• When a member is marked deceased incorrectly, you can now "Resurrect" them. You will see the "Resurrect" button on the member screen of deceased members. NOTE: To have this ability, add the right of "Resurrect Members marked Deceased" to a role. The Member Type and Relation to Head of Household will be made "Other" and will need to be updated by the user to the appropriate fields
• Ability to post Sacraments as a Batch. Location: Administration > Procedures > Sacrament Batch   Note: This is also a right that must be added. “Ability to bulk load Sacrament data for large groups” is the name of the right
• New ‘Listed’ fields for Addresses and Phone numbers have been added
  • Examples include ‘Mailing Address 1 Listed’ or ‘Head Cell Phone Number Listed’
  • These fields are intended for Directories or Guide Books
  • The field pulls, for example, Head Cell Phones that do not have the checkbox ‘Cell Phone is unlisted’ checked on the member screen
• Formation Attendance Report Enhancement
  • The “Download Attendance Report” button now allows you to choose a blank or filled out version of the report
• Zip code is no longer required for most countries when adding sacraments. The only two that will require a zip code are the United States and Canada
• Suffixes have been added to the Member Listing page
• An Emergency Contact Tab has been added to Formation
• The members on the Household Members screen are now ordered. The order goes Head, Co-Head, then by age. Deceased members will appear at the bottom