Emojis not supported in Announcements

[Joshua Chandra]

So I put an emoji in an Announcement and it got converted to a "?" so that didn't end up looking that good. Could these get full support? That would be great.

[pho...@rotundasoftware.com]

Hi Josh,

Thanks for the feedback! I’ve submitted a feature request to our developers on your behalf about adding support for emojis.

[Jeff Thomas]

Just did this today, and the same ? result. Made my message look bad and no doubt confused a good number of volunteers. This is such a common element of text communication today that it didn't even occur to me that it wouldn't work. If it's going to remain not available, I suggest some kind of error message warning us away from using them. Thank you.

[Krista Kutz]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for reaching out about emojis not being supported in the MSP Announcements. On your behalf, I've upvoted the feature request for supporting emojis. I have also submitted your feedback to make it more clear they are currently not supported directly in the Announcements pane.

Thank you!
Krista Kutz
Rotunda Software

[Molly Iversen]

Hello! I'm curious as to how often upgrades are released? Thanks!

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[Krista Kutz]

Hi Molly,

Thanks for your question about MSP updates! Happy to share some context.

We regularly release minor updates to the program to ensure the software stays up-to-date and runs smoothly. The timing of new features depends on the scale of the change—larger updates take more time than smaller ones. Right now, we're focused on transitioning MSP to be fully web-based, so many of the recent updates have centered around adding functionality to Web Admins.

It's great to hear from you and others in the MSP community—we really appreciate your questions and feedback!

Warmly,
Krista Kutz
Rotunda Software

[sophie6965]

Krista, 

What do you mean by "fully web-based"?

Thank you,

Sophie

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[Krista Kutz]

Hi Sophie!

Great question, happy to clarify.

Transitioning to being fully web-based means that we want to make Ministry Scheduler Pro fully accessible from any device connected to the internet for churches using the program. Right now, as you know, a copy of the MSP software is first downloaded and installed onto a primary user's computer. Then, you can designate Web Admins (including yourself) to manage MSP online even when you're away from that computer. Having web-based access is helpful because you can still use MSP on the go!

There are still a few functionalities not yet available to Web Admins (i.e., running the Auto-scheduler and modifying Web Terminal settings), but we're actively working on this development and will keep you and this group in the loop! 

For anyone not yet using Web Admin access, remember that it's included in everyone's MSP subscription! Feel free to check out these resources to help you turn on this feature:

-Creating and Using Web Admins (help article)

-Web Admin Tutorial (2-minute video)

Thanks as always,
Krista

[Josh Chandra]

Hi everyone, apparently special characters have been failing entirely; I put "quinceañera" to reference an event that was held here, and MSP emailed "quincea�era." How is that possible? That shouldn't even be considered all that exotic of a character like Arabic or something...

[Raina Hanson]

Hi Josh, 

MSP does support spanish characters. We highly recommend using the alt codes for those because sometimes copy/pasting can pull in alternate characters that are not currently supported. 

Accented letter: Alt code
á: Alt + 0225
é: Alt + 0233
í: Alt + 0237
ó: Alt + 0243
ú: Alt + 0250
ñ: Alt + 0241
ü: Alt + 0252
¡: Alt + 0161
¿: Alt + 0191

If you have done this and are still having trouble, please send in your data files (Help - Send Data Files to Tech Support) to support and we can take a look! 

---

Raina Hanson

Director of Technical Support

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[lr...@allsaintsva.org]

About using ALT and number codes to enter letters with diacritical marks (accents such as in Spanish, French, or German), the ALT technique is primarily a Windows OS technique and does not account for the fact that diacriticals are used frequently in typing in other languages. On the macOS, there is a much easier method which uses the OPTION key and utilizes symbolic letters, such as Option-n followed by "n" to generate a "ñ" (an "n" with a tilde). This allows for much more effective typing.

In this day and age, I still cannot understand Microsoft using ALT keys and number codes for something that is so necessary for typing.

I would hope that MSP could better support input and display of diacritical marks in names, searching, and other actions involving event, ministry, or volunteer names. I realize that it is not a trivial coding change to support diactriticals, but it will certainly benefit bilingual or multi-lingual parishes.

Msgr. Lee Roos

All Saints Catholic Church, Manassas, VA

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[Katie Anderson Kuo]

Hi Everyone! 

I have also always had trouble using a Windows device to get alt + 0225 to actually produce a diacritical mark. If you want to do it this way, I just researched it now, and this only works if you activate Number Lock and use the numeric number pad on the right side of the keyboard. If you don't have a numeric keypad on your laptop, then you need to hold down Function (Fn) as well. But it seems to only work in Microsoft Word and not in other applications like Gmail, Google docs, or the MSP web editor. I'm not able to produce a diacritical mark there despite following the recommended steps. 

I just found a solution that I think works better: I downloaded the Spanish (Mexico) keyboard from Windows. (The option for adding and switching between keyboards is in the taskbar. Once you have the keyboard installed, you can press WIndows Key + spacebar to switch between the Spanish and US keyboards.)

I can select the Spanish keyboard in order to get a tilde, which is the semicolon on a US keyboard. If I press the button that would be the apostrophe on the US keyboard followed by the vowel, I can get the accent mark on the vowel.  For the umlaut, you can press shift, apostrophe, U. 

ñ á é í ó ú ü 

Keyboards are also available in other languages for other special characters and diacritical marks.

I hope this is helpful!

Katie

Kathryn Anderson Kuo (she/her)

Director of Catholic Life
Office of Campus Ministry

Fordham University

kande...@fordham.edu

O 718-817-0588 

University Church 01

441 E. Fordham Rd., Bronx NY 10458

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[Krista Kutz]

Hi everyone!

Thank you all for the thoughtful feedback here—and for sharing helpful context and workarounds across macOS and Windows. We really appreciate how clearly you’ve described both the challenges and what does work in practice for special characters.

We wanted to share a brief update after some additional testing on our end:

• Katie’s suggestion to use a Spanish keyboard on Windows is a great one—thank you, Katie! Our Support team tested this too, and found it works well for entering accented characters and performs at least as reliably as ALT codes on Windows.
• We’ve noticed that the display of these characters can vary a bit depending on the email client. In many cases across our testing, everything looks great in web-based email, like Gmail in Chrome, but some desktop clients (such as Thunderbird) handle special characters differently. We’re monitoring this and tracking the issue. 
• Hearing from affected MSP users helps us better understand where and when this occurs, so if you’re seeing characters break, we encourage you to reach out to our Support team directly (Help → Send Data Files to Tech Support) and share details about your operating system, how the characters were entered, and where the issue appears.

Thanks again for raising this and for the practical suggestions shared with this community! 🙏

Supporting bilingual and multilingual communities matters deeply to us, and conversations like this are genuinely impactful in improving MSP for all those we serve.

Warmly,
Krista