Welcome to Switchboard 1.0! We are excited to introduce new features that will help connect Great Commission organizations (GCOs) with Kingdom Consultants around the world.
With this initial beta release, we are taking our first major step towards creating a global platform for Global missions. In these release notes, you'll find an overview of the newly developed features, known issues, and additional resources.
Key features:
Kingdom Consultant Profile Builder: Switchboard's new profile builder makes it easy for everyday believers to articulate their passions and skills and make them available for conversations with GCOs around the world.
The Connection Catalog: While it can be very difficult to translate field needs into the diverse gifts in the global Body of Christ, our Living Connection Catalog creates a common language for everyday believers across the world to connect for one-hour conversations.
Kingdom Consultant Discovery: Our new directory view allows GCOs to explore Switchboard and filter to find the right person who can help them move their mission forward.
The Switchboard Operator: Our automated email service helps facilitate connections between Kingdom Consultants and GCOs after a GCO creates a request. This includes introducing the two parties and helping both find a good time to meet.
Known issues:
- Some users have experienced difficulty when dragging on the scroll bar in our request conversation form. The best workaround for this currently is to use two finger gestures on your trackpad, by tapping and dragging on a touch screen, or by using the scroll wheel on your mouse.
- While the app functions on a smartphone or tablet, there are some screens and displays in the app as well as in our email service that do not appear properly when rendered on those smaller devices.
- Users who contain special characters in their email address, such as a “+” sign (not including periods and underscores) will struggle to create profiles on the platform.
- At present, GCO users who create requests can inadvertently request conversations where the start time is after the end time for their meeting time slot. We will release a validation fix for this shortly.
How to get started:
For our GCOs:
- Browse our Specialties Catalog for a topic.
- Launch the Switchboard App.
- Request a connection!
For our KCs:
- Launch the Switchboard App.
- Create your Kingdom Consultant Profile
- Prioritize our messages in your inbox (see below)
Invite your friends, colleagues, and church family! Send them here to get them signed up and serving the Great Commission.
Fun Fact!
You can prioritize messages easily by creating contacts in your address book for operator@globalswitchboard.io which will be your through-line to Great Commission requests, and/or by dragging our most recent messages to the prioritized list of emails in your inbox!
Resources:
Provide links to any relevant documentation or resources that users may find helpful.
Need a refresher? Here are a few resources that might be helpful:
- Here is a GRAPHIC of the steps above that you can print and keep handy
- Here is a SHORT VIDEO walking you through the graphic
Here is the PRESENTATION we walked through with most of you explaining our current strategy: Connecting You with Kingdom Consultants around a Specialty for a Virtual One-Hour Call.
As always, you can reach out to our team at hello@globalswitchboard.io if you have more questions.
Thank you for choosing Switchboard! We hope these new features will help connect Kingdom Consultants with Great Commission organizations around the world. Please feel free to share any feedback or suggestions with our team.
The (almost) last word
O God, whose Son Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd of your people: Grant that, when we hear his voice, we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The last Word
John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
