7.0.1

🎊 ChurchCRM 7.0.1 — A Decade of Service (Maintenance Release)

Ten years. Thousands of churches. One mission.

Released: March 2026 · Built on trust since 2015

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ChurchCRM turned 10 this year. What started in 2015 as a community-driven project to give churches a free, open-source management tool has grown into a platform serving congregations in 44 languages across six continents.

Version 7.0.1 builds on the ambitious 7.0.0 milestone, providing critical hotfixes and refined stability to ensure the "Decade of Service" release is our most reliable yet.

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⚠️ IMPORTANT: PHP 8.4 IS REQUIRED

ChurchCRM 7.x will not run on PHP 8.3 or earlier.

7.0.1 Improvement: We have added "Pre-flight" checks to the upgrade process. The system now uses a cURL fallback to download updates even if your server has allow_url_fopen disabled, making the transition to 7.x smoother for shared hosting users.

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🛠️ New in the 7.0.1 Hotfix

While 7.0.0 introduced the major features, 7.0.1 polishes the experience:

• Reliable Upgrades: Fixed a bug where the upgrade process would fail on certain server configurations.
• Calendar & Finance Fixes: Resolved a crash occurring on MySQL 8.0 during anniversary queries and fixed a visual glitch where the text editor (Quill) toolbar would duplicate.
• Smarter Demo Data: For those testing ChurchCRM, we’ve added financial giving data and map coordinates to our demo seeds.
• Map Enhancements: Added a new tool for developers (/api/map/neighbors) to help visualize congregation density more effectively.
• Infrastructure: Support for DDEV local development environments and a migration to .env configuration for more modern server management.

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🧩 The Headline: The New Plugin System

The core of the 7.x series is a brand-new WordPress-style plugin architecture. Previously, integrations were "baked in"—now they are flexible modules:

• MailChimp, Vonage SMS, & OpenLP: Now live as high-performance plugins.
• Test Connections: Validate your API keys live before saving.
• Security First: All password and API key fields are now masked in the settings UI to prevent accidental exposure during screen sharing.

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🗺️ Maps Without Google — Private & Free

ChurchCRM has replaced Google Maps with Leaflet.js.

• No API Keys: Maps work instantly out of the box.
• Zero Cost: No more worrying about Google Cloud billing or API limits.
• Privacy: Your congregation's location data is no longer sent to Google for rendering.

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🛡️ Security — Hardened for 2026

This release patches several vulnerabilities and introduces automated security testing:

• XSS Protection: Fixed vulnerabilities in Person Property Management and Calendar descriptions.
• **7.0.1

What's Changed

🎉 Exciting New Features

• refactor: consolidate Slim middleware to reduce code duplication by @DawoudIO in #8166

🪲 Bugs

• Fix forced password change not redirecting on MVC pages by @DawoudIO in #8101
• Fix fatal error in PDF reports when PHP iconv extension is missing by @Copilot in #8126
• Fix calendar: MySQL 8.0 anniversary query crash and Quill toolbar duplication by @Copilot in #8128

💬 Localization

• chore: migrate BuildConfig to dotenv by @DawoudIO in #8111
• Update locale strings by @github-actions[bot] in #8135

Inner Beauty

• Add DDEV local development environment support by @Copilot in #8089
• chore(deps): bump i18next-conv from 15.1.2 to 16.0.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #8080
• chore(ci): bump the actions group with 2 updates by @dependabot[bot] in #8107
• fix: resolve PHP compilation errors across codebase by @DawoudIO in #8068
• fix: make PHP syntax validation work standalone and add to build:php by @Copilot in #8130
• docs: add PHP 8.4+ build prerequisites to Docker and Contributing docs by @Copilot in #8129

👒 Dependencies

• chore(deps): bump mysql2 from 3.17.4 to 3.18.2 in the npm-minor-patch group by @dependabot[bot] in #8119
• chore(deps): bump webpack from 5.105.2 to 5.105.3 in the build-tools group by @dependabot[bot] in #8121
• chore(deps): bump cypress from 15.10.0 to 15.11.0 in the testing group by @dependabot[bot] in #8120

Other Changes

• Start 7.0.1 release by @github-actions[bot] in #8097
• Fix sidebar showing blank when church name not configured by @DawoudIO in #8100
• Add finance giving demo data by @DawoudIO in #8102
• Rename demoSqlPath to seedSqlPath in backup-restore Cypress test by @Copilot in #8109
• Move the demo db dump user cypress as that is where it is used by @DawoudIO in #8108
• chore: migrate BuildConfig to dotenv by @DawoudIO in #8112
• chore(cypress): reorganize fixtures, add README & npm scripts by @DawoudIO in #8110
• feat: OpenAPI documentation for all Slim API routes by @DawoudIO in #8113
• feat(demo): import family lat/lng and demo data update by @DawoudIO in #8133
• Fix release download failure when allow_url_fopen is disabled by @Copilot in #8127
• feat: add /api/map/neighbors/{familyId} endpoint by @DawoudIO in #8134

Full Changelog: 7.0.0...7.0.1