After a lot of discussion and careful consideration, we will be extending the deadline to migrate from the old NE1 Website Builder to our new WP-EZ Website Builder.
Allow me to explain why and provide additional details…
Three months ago I explained 4 Reasons Continuing NE1 is Impossible. Of those 4 reasons, the most critical was security…
Originally, we thought for security reasons we had to upgrade software on all of our servers, and doing that upgrade would break NE1. Therefore we needed everyone to migrate to WP-EZ before could do the security upgrade because we didn’t want organizations with broken websites.
At the end of May we migrated all free sites from NE1 to WP-EZ, and then we replaced that server with one that is now running the latest, secure software. During this time we figured out a way to continue running the old software on the servers that host Gold, Silver and Bronze accounts with minimal security risk.
NE1 Cannot be Updated
One of the other 4 reasons explained is that we can’t update NE1. This is still true. NE1 was developed by another company and they are no longer updating it. So, if something in NE1 stops working, there is no way to fix it. We did not want to take that chance, so we thought it’d be better to end all support for NE1 and require everyone to migrate before problems developed with NE1.
What we’ve seen, however, is that requiring migration has resulted in some anxiety, frustration and resistance among our loyal NE1 users. 🙂
- Some of you expressed anger that you were being forced to change.
- Some of you rushed to meet the deadline, didn’t edit the site to make it look good with its new WP-EZ theme, and activated a WP-EZ website that wasn’t ready and looks poor
- Some of you decided to shut down your OCC site and build a new one elsewhere.
Our mission is to help you live out your mission online…
…frustrating you or rushing you into launching a new website that’s not ready, does not help you live out your mission online. We see ourselves as partners in ministry with you, and we want to walk through this transition with you at your own pace.
So, here’s how we’re going to move forward…
1) We will continue support for NE1 beyond June 30. If you’re still using NE1 after that and you have a question, you can email, call, chat or create a help desk ticket. We’ll do our best to help. Problems with the NE1 software itself, we won’t be able to fix, but everything else we can and will.
2) We will continue to operate NE1 beyond August 31. We still strongly encourage everyone to migrate to WP-EZ as soon as possible, but we’ll leave the timing up to you. Eventually circumstances will force us to shut down NE1 (nothing lasts forever, right?) but we’ll continue to run NE1 as long as we can.
3) We’ll do whatever it takes to help you with the migration to WP-EZ. Don’t wait until your totally frustrated. And whatever you do, don’t quit! Let us know early on if something doesn’t seem to be working the way you expected. We’ll walk you through editing your WP-EZ website, we’ll even make changes to your website for you if it will help you live out your mission online.
If you already migrated your website…
…first of all, kudos to you! You made the right choice! WP-EZ is 10x better than NE1! Your site is mobile-friendly! It does dozens of things your NE1 site never could! If there’s anything at all that you’re not happy with, let us know how we can help address your concerns so the end result is a website you’re proud of, excited about and is helping you live out your mission online.
Yesterday, we completed our mid-year strategic planning, and I am super-excited about what we have in the works for WP-EZ. In the coming months, we’ll be adding more themes, new functionality, more video tutorials and some other really exciting things I can’t wait to tell you more about (but I’ll have to because this post is already too long 🙂
We’ve updated the info in the WP-EZ Migration FAQs post to reflect this update.
As always we want to hear from you. Post your questions and comments below.
29 Comments
I hated NE1 when you switched to it several years ago. I was forced to migrate my church's site, but I left my several personal sites abandoned in the old format (whatever that was; I forget now what it was called).
Hi Ross, hopefully WP-EZ will be more to your liking.
Have tried multiple times to migrate my site, this is the message I get,
Site Name is invalid and is be too long (including special characters). Please change your NE1 Site Name first before proceeding with the migration.. Please go to your OurChurch.Com Client Area Page and try again.
Everytime I get the few extra minutes in my day to try to migrate and begin tweeking, this is the wall I hit, I have no clue what they are asking for or for me to do.
Hi Deb, sorry for the difficulty you're having. I've created a help desk ticket for this issue so our support team can look into it and respond back to you.
I do not understand but I will NEEEEEEEEEEED you to help with this new fangled move and still have a website that will be visited by many as they have done for so long. Please hurry and help make this less painful and anxious.
Thanks,
Carmen
abcministries.net
Hi Carmen, we are happy to help. We have an extensive set of video tutorials available – https://www.ourchurch.com/support/index.php?/Knowledgebase/List/Index/89/wp-ez-web-builder If you have additional questions, please call, chat or email us and let us know specifically what you are having difficulty with so we can help.
I have a lot to learn yet. That said, I am very disappointed with the "new" site. To me it is not user friendly. Is there a tutorial I can use to bring myself up to speed on the requirements of the new program. I'm sure that once I am familiar with how it works, I will be comfortable. Right now I am just frustrated!!!!!
Hi Esther, I'm disappointed to hear about your disappointment. 🙂 We do have an extensive set of video tutorials – https://www.ourchurch.com/support/index.php?/Knowledgebase/List/Index/89/wp-ez-web-builder Please let us know if there's anything else we can do to help you become familiar with WP-EZ