The CRA has been working for years on the Charities IT Modernization Project or CHAMP.  CHAMP is going to affect charity applications in that they will need to be filed electronically, as of November 2018.  CHAMP will also allow charities to file their T3010 online, although charities can continue to file their T3010 manually if they so choose.   

Here is some more information from CRA on the CHAMP project.