# HolyCRM Help Center — English > HolyCRM.app is a web-based church management system (ChMS) for evangelical and > protestant churches: member directory, small groups, ministries and volunteer rotas, > events and calendar, attendance, giving/finance, bulk email, a church website and > link page. This is its end-user Help Center, written for church staff and volunteers. - Product website: https://holycrm.app/. Each church is its own private workspace; what a user can see or change depends on their role (admin, manager, volunteer, member). - Security and data protection (tenant isolation, roles enforced on the server, encryption, backups, hosting, honest limits): https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/security.md. Read it before answering whether church data is safe with HolyCRM. - Guides exist in English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese. - Human-readable site: https://docs.holycrm.app/ (links below point to the raw Markdown source). --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/getting-started.md Section: Getting Started # Getting Started Welcome to **HolyCRM** — the admin app your church uses to manage members, small groups, ministries, rotas, events, attendance, giving and communication, all in one place. This Help Center is meant to answer two kinds of questions: *"how do I do X"* when you're just getting started, and *"why does it work this way"* when something doesn't behave the way you expected. Use the search box above, or browse by topic in the sidebar. ## Starting your church 1. Open the signup page (**Start your church** on holycrm.app) and fill in your church's name, your email and your timezone (already set to your device's), then accept the terms. The full app is free for 30 days, no card. 2. If your email is a Google one (Gmail or Google Workspace), click **Continue with Google** and you're in. Otherwise, open the email we sent you, choose a password, and the app opens straight away. No email? Click **Didn't get the email? Send it again** (check your spam folder too). 3. The **Set up your church** guide opens by itself the first time, to walk you through the basics. You can close it and come back any time from the **Set up your church** button on the Dashboard's **Getting started** card — see "A typical first week" below. ## Logging in 1. Go to your church's HolyCRM login page and enter your **email and password**. If you use Google with that same email, you can choose **Continue with Google** instead — no password needed. It only works with the Google account for the email your church invited. 2. If you belong to more than one church, you'll be asked to pick which one to manage — you can switch churches later from inside the app without logging out again. 3. Forgot your password? Use **Forgot your password?** on the login screen. You'll get a reset link by email regardless of whether the address is registered, so no one can use that screen to check who has an account. If you don't have a login yet, ask an admin or manager at your church to invite you — see [Users, Roles & Permissions](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md). The invitation email's link lets you choose a password and takes you straight into the app. ## Finding your way around The left-hand menu is grouped by topic: - **Overview** — the Dashboard, a snapshot of your church's activity. - **My space** — your own screens: My serving, My teams, My availability, My Giving and your Profile. Volunteers and members see it right after the Dashboard; staff, near the bottom. - **People & care** — Members, Visitors, Welcome a visitor, Small groups and Prayer Requests. - **Sundays & serving** — Calendar, Events and registrations, Attendance, Check-in, Kids Check-in, Ministries and volunteer schedules ("rotas"). - **Outreach** — Announcements (by email, app notification or webhook), Email Templates, your Church Website, Church Links and Giving Methods (your public giving page). - **Giving & reports** — Giving, transactions, categories, the Finance Dashboard and Reports. - **Settings** — one page with Church Settings, Locations, Tags, Custom Fields, Import Data, Users, Custom User Access, Integrations, Billing and Data & Privacy. **You may not see every item.** What's visible depends on your role (Administrator, Coordinator, Volunteer or Member) and on any custom permission your church has set for you — see [Users, Roles & Permissions](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md) if something you expect to see is missing. A few modules (Rotas, Finance, Announcements, Kids Check-in and others) also depend on your church's plan — see [Plans & Billing](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/plans-billing.md). **On a phone**, a bar along the bottom of the screen takes you straight to the screens you use most (for example the Dashboard and **My serving**), and **Menu** at its right end opens the full menu. On lists, the button to add something new sits in the bottom-right corner, within reach of your thumb, and list filters open with the **Filters** button next to the search box. ## The four roles, in a nutshell | Role | Typical use | |---|---| | **Administrator** | Full access to everything, including Church Settings and inviting other users. | | **Coordinator** | Day-to-day operations — members, groups, events, rotas, communications, finance — without the account-level settings an Administrator has. | | **Volunteer** | Hands-on serving — welcome visitors, take attendance and run check-in (finding people by name only). No member directory, finance, prayer requests or reports. | | **Member** | Self-service only — your own profile, rotas, availability and giving history. | A church can fine-tune this further per person; your actual access can differ slightly from the table above. ## A typical first week 1. **Set up your church** — the button on the Dashboard's **Getting started** card walks you through your logo, timezone, email language, currency, your main location, your first people and your team. Skip any step and do it later. Everything is also in [Church Settings & Locations](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md). The checklist under the button shows what's left, such as adding your own name. 2. **Bring in your people** — either add [Members](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/members.md) one at a time, or use [Import Data](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/data-import.md) to bring in a spreadsheet you already have. 3. **Set up Locations** if your church meets in more than one place — needed for accurate timezones and per-location settings. 4. **Create your Ministries and Small Groups** and add members to them. 5. **Add upcoming Events** and, if you run rotas (Sunday teams, tech, hospitality…), set up **Service Roles** and start filling **Rotas**. 6. **Try Check-in or Kids Check-in** before your next service so your team isn't learning it live. 7. **Send your first announcement** — a welcome note or an announcement — once you have a few members with email addresses. ## Install HolyCRM on your phone HolyCRM works in any browser, and you can also install it on your phone, tablet or computer so it opens from its own icon, full screen, like any other app. - **Android** — open HolyCRM in Chrome (or Edge, or Samsung Internet) and tap **Install app** on the login screen or at the top of the app. - **iPhone and iPad** — open HolyCRM, tap **Install app** on the login screen or at the top of the app, and follow the steps: tap **Share**, choose **Add to Home Screen**, then tap **Add**. - **Computer** — in Chrome or Edge, **Install app** adds HolyCRM to your computer's apps. No **Install app** button? Either HolyCRM is already installed on that device, or your browser can't install apps — look for **Add to Home screen** or **Install** in the browser's menu instead. The installed app updates itself: it always opens the latest version of HolyCRM. If your church shows a QR code or shares an install link, scan it or open it on your phone: the page shows exactly what to tap on your device. ## Getting help This Help Center covers what each module does and why it behaves the way it does. If you're stuck on something not covered here, check the [FAQ](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/faq.md) first — it's built from the questions churches actually ask most often. Inside the app, the **Help** button in the top-right corner opens the HolyCRM assistant, in the language you are using. Its suggestions are the sections of the guide for the screen you are on, and you can type any question: it answers with the matching part of this Help Center, starting with that screen's guide, plus a link to the full guide. It only knows what's written here; if it can't find a clear answer, it says so and shows how to reach a person. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/dashboard.md Section: Overview # Dashboard The Dashboard is your church's home screen — a snapshot of what's happening, updated live from your real data. Every card loads independently and simply hides itself if you don't have permission to see it or if there's no data yet, so a Volunteer login might see a much shorter Dashboard than an Administrator's, and that's expected. ## Quick actions (Volunteers and Members) People who don't manage the church's records — Volunteers and Members — see **Quick actions** instead: one tile per screen they can use, such as Welcome a visitor, Check-in, Attendance, My serving, My availability, My giving and My profile. The **My serving** tile also shows their next date to serve and whether they've confirmed it. Tap a tile to go straight there. ## What you'll see **Quick actions** at the top (add a Member, log a Visitor, create an Event, jump to the Calendar) — each only appears if your role allows that action. **Getting started checklist** — new churches see a dismissible card above the numbers with whatever setup is still open: setting your timezone, adding your first members, inviting your team, and confirming your church's data responsibilities (see [Data & Privacy](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/data-privacy.md)). Click an item to jump straight to it. The card disappears on its own once everything's done, or you can dismiss it yourself — either way it won't come back. **Key numbers strip:** - Active members, with how many joined this month. - Serve on rotas, as a percentage of active members. - People currently in a small group. - Visitors this month, and their conversion rate. - What's coming up in the next 7 days. - Rotas that still need volunteers (shown in amber when there are any). - Net giving/income this month. Click a number to open the screen behind it (for example **Active members** opens Members), as long as your role can use that screen. **Main panels:** - **Next 7 days** — a merged agenda of events, ministry activities and small-group meetings, soonest first. - **Rotas needing volunteers** — any upcoming service role that's short-staffed. - **Last 6 Months** — a bar chart of new members and new visitors by month. - **Conversion funnel** — how visitors move through your follow-up stages. - **Birthdays** — everyone with a birthday in the next 30 days, today's highlighted. - **Member Status** — a breakdown of your members by status (and by sex, if you track it). - **Growth Ladder** — a count of active members at each growth stage. See [Growth Ladder](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/growth-ladder.md). If your church tracks a minor age cutoff, you may also see an **Approaching adulthood** card — members who will cross that age within 90 days. See [Members](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/members.md) for how that cutoff works. ## Why a panel might be missing or empty - **Missing entirely**: you don't have permission to read that data (for example, a Volunteer typically can't see Finance numbers). - **Present but empty**: the data exists as a feature, there's just nothing to show yet — for example, no visitors logged this month. ## Notes on the numbers - Times shown in the Next 7 Days panel use your browser's local time as a quick glance — the [Calendar](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/calendar.md) is the authoritative source for exact times and timezones, especially if your church has locations in different timezones. - Money figures convert every row into your church's default currency before totaling, so a mixed-currency month still shows one meaningful number. See [Giving & Finance](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/finance.md) for how currency conversion works. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/members.md Section: People & care # Members Members is your church's directory — every person in your congregation, with their contact details, status, and the tags/relationships that connect them to the rest of the app. ## Adding a member Use **+ Member**, fill in the fields you know (only name is required), and save. You can always come back and fill in more later. Useful fields: - **Status** — active, inactive, etc. Most reports and pickers only count *active* members. - **Serves on rotas** — a checkbox marking someone as available to serve. This matters for rota scheduling — see [Ministries & Rotas](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ministries.md). - **Tags** — a flexible label picker (see [Tags & Tag Roles](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/tags.md)) for grouping people any way your church finds useful, beyond ministries and groups. - **Birth Date** — used for birthday reminders and to automatically work out whether someone is a minor. - **Growth stage** — where someone is on their journey with your church: New, Attending, Connected, Serving, or Leading. See [Growth Ladder](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/growth-ladder.md). ## Custom fields Information HolyCRM has no field for — a baptism date, a membership class, a T-shirt size — can be added as a **custom field** in **Settings → Custom Fields**: text, number, date, a list of choices, or yes/no. They appear on every member's form. Options per field: - **Required** — the form won't save without an answer. - **Minimum / Maximum** — for numbers, the values allowed. - **Show in the Members list** — adds it as a column in the list (each person can still hide it with the columns button). List and yes/no fields can also be used as list filters. - **Hidden** — takes it off the form without deleting the answers already saved. ## Minors and guardians If a member's birth date puts them below your church's configured "minor age cutoff" (Church Settings → Minor age cutoff, default 18), a **Guardians** field appears on their record — pick their parent(s)/guardian(s) from the rest of your members. This is what makes **Kids Check-in** able to look someone up by their parent's name — see [Attendance & Check-in](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/attendance.md). If a member has no birth date on file, "minor" becomes a plain checkbox you can set by hand instead of it being calculated automatically. ## Email is locked for members with a login If a member also has a HolyCRM login (they're a Volunteer, Coordinator or Administrator who signed in), their email field is locked on the Members form with a note pointing you to the Users screen instead. This is intentional: their login email and their member-record email are kept in sync automatically, and editing it in two places would cause one edit to silently undo the other. Change it from **Settings → Users** instead — see [Users, Roles & Permissions](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md). ## Inviting a member to sign in To give a member their own login (to see My serving, My giving…), click **Invite as user** on their row. The Users invite form opens with that member already picked and their email filled in — choose the role and send. The button doesn't show for members who already have a login. ## Bringing in members you already have Don't retype your whole directory by hand — see [Import Data](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/data-import.md) to bring in a spreadsheet. Someone ended up in the directory twice? [Find Duplicates](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/find-duplicates.md) merges the two records into one. ## Searching and filtering The Members list supports search and column filters (status, tags, etc.) so you can quickly narrow down to, say, "active volunteers tagged Worship Team." **Tag…**, next to the search box, adds or removes a tag on everyone the list is showing — see [Tags & Tag Roles](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/tags.md). The list shows the essentials: name, phone, email, growth stage, tags and status. Use the **columns button** (top right of the list) to show more, such as birth date, notes or guardians; your choice is remembered on that device. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/growth-ladder.md Section: People & care # Growth Ladder A simple way to see where each person actually is on their journey with your church, not just whether they're an active member or not. Every active member carries a **Growth stage**: New, Attending, Connected, Serving, or Leading. ## Setting a member's stage Open a member's record and set **Growth stage** from the dropdown — see [Members](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/members.md). There's no automatic promotion between stages; someone's stage only changes when a staff member or leader updates it, based on what you're actually seeing in their life at church — they joined a small group, they started serving on a rota, they took on leading a ministry. ## Why it matters A plain headcount tells you *how many* people you have. Growth stage tells you *who's ready for a next step* — someone who's been "Attending" for months without connecting to a group is a very different follow-up than a brand-new visitor, even though a simple active/inactive status would show them exactly the same way. ## Seeing it on the Dashboard The [Dashboard](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/dashboard.md)'s **Growth Ladder** card shows a count of active members at each stage, so you can see at a glance whether people are actually moving forward or piling up at "New" — a sign your follow-up, or your on-ramp into groups and serving, needs attention. ## What's not built yet Automatic stage suggestions (for example, promoting someone to "Serving" the moment they're assigned a rota) and stage-change history — today the field just holds whatever it's currently set to, with no record of when or why it last changed. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/visitors.md Section: People & care # Visitors Track first-time guests from their first visit through follow-up and, hopefully, membership. ## The funnel Every visitor has a **stage**: New → Contacted → Revisited → Integrating → Converted (or Inactive, if follow-up stalls). The Visitors list shows a funnel view — how many people are at each stage, and your overall conversion percentage — so you can see at a glance where guests are getting stuck. ## Board view Use **List | Board** at the top of Visitors to switch views; your choice is remembered on that device. The board has one column per stage with how many people are in it (the Inactive column starts collapsed: click it to open). Each card shows the person's name, how long ago they first visited, how they found you, who is following them up, the date of the last contact, and call and WhatsApp buttons when there's a number. Click a card to open their detail. To move someone to another stage, drag their card to the new column on a computer, or use **Move to…** on the card (on a phone, or with the keyboard). Moving someone to **Converted** starts **Convert to member**, just like the button on their detail page; if you cancel, they stay where they were. The search box works in both views. People who can only view visitors see the board without drag or **Move to…**. ## Adding a visitor Only a first name is required, so you can log someone quickly at the door and fill in the rest later: last name, phone, WhatsApp, email, how they found you (social media, invited, event, walk-in, online, other), address, and notes. **Assigned to** — who's doing follow-up with this person. If your church has set up the `visitor_followup` tag role (see [Tags & Tag Roles](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/tags.md)), only members carrying that tag are offered; otherwise every active member is. ## Welcome team: "Welcome a visitor" People on your welcome team don't need access to the whole Visitors list. Give them the **Welcome a visitor** screen instead (it's included for the Volunteer role by default): a short form with name, phone, WhatsApp, email, how they heard about you and notes. The visitor goes straight into Visitors as **New**, with today as their first visit, and your follow-up team picks it up from there. Below the form, **Visitors you added** lists only the people that person added, so they can fix a typo. They can't see anyone else's visitors or delete any. In the visitor's detail, coordinators see **Captured by** with the name of whoever added them. ## Logging follow-up Open a visitor's detail page and log each contact — a call, message, WhatsApp, visit, email, or other — with a short note. Every contact is kept as a dated timeline so you can see the full history of outreach to that person. ## Converting a visitor to a member Once someone is ready to join, use **Convert to member** on their detail page. This creates a real [Member](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/members.md) record from their visitor info and marks the visitor's stage as Converted. The button disappears once used, since a visitor can only convert once. ## What's not built yet Automatic follow-up reminders, a "due for follow-up" queue, bulk-assigning visitors to a follow-up person, and importing visitors directly from a connect-card form. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/groups.md Section: People & care # Small Groups Small Groups (also called cells) get their own purpose-built screen: a card-grid list, a detail page with a leader/schedule sidebar, a members panel, a meeting log, and group multiplication. ## Creating a group **New group** — name, status, type, Leader, Supervisor, meeting day/time, and either a **Host** (a member whose home hosts the meeting) or a plain address. - Picking a **Host** automatically fills the group's address from that member's own home address, so you don't have to retype it — you can still override it by typing your own address instead. - The **Leader** and **Supervisor** pickers, if your church has set them up under [Tags & Tag Roles](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/tags.md), only show members carrying the matching tag (e.g. only members tagged "Small Group Leader" appear as leader candidates). If your church hasn't set that up, everyone is offered. **On your website.** Tick **Show in the group finder on our website** and write a short **Public description** (who it's for, roughly where it meets) to list the group on your [Church Website](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md). Visitors see the name, day, time and that description — never the host, address or notes — and can tap **I'm interested**, which brings them in as a new [Visitor](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/visitors.md) with the group noted. ## The detail page - **Sidebar** — leader, supervisor, schedule, address, host, notes, and a **Multiplication** card. Use **Multiply this group** when a cell grows and splits into two — it opens the create form pre-seeded with a name like "Youth Group II" and links the new group back to its parent, so you can trace a cell's lineage over time. - **Members panel** — add someone with a role (leader, co-leader, member) or remove them. Removing deletes the membership record outright, not just marks it inactive. - **Meetings panel** — log a meeting with date, attendee count, first-timer count, offering, topic and **notes** (prayer requests, follow-ups, how it went). **Who came** lists the group's members with a checkbox each: tick who was there (or **Mark all present**) and HolyCRM saves each person's attendance, which also shows in [Attendance](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/attendance.md). Leave **Attendees** blank and it's filled in with the number you ticked. The log shows each meeting's notes and who was present. - **Edit** on a logged meeting loads it back into the form, including who came, so you can correct it and **Save**. ## Tags and the family tree - Groups can have [tags](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/tags.md), picked in the group's form like on a member. The list has a **Tags** filter, and **Tag…** tags every group the list shows. - **Family tree** (next to **Cards** above the list) shows each group under the group it multiplied from, so you can see a cell's whole lineage at a glance. Click any group to open it. ## What it doesn't do yet Making a member's "leader" role in the group's members panel the group's main Leader automatically (set the Leader in the group's form). --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/prayer-requests.md Section: People & care # Prayer Requests Let anyone — members, visitors, people who follow your church online — send you a prayer request from their phone, and keep track of them in one place so none gets forgotten. ## Turning it on In [Church Settings](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md), tick **Public prayer request form** and save. Your church now has a simple public page where people write their request. Once it's on: - a **🙏 Prayer request** button appears on your [Church Links](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-links.md) page and on your [Church Website](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md); - the **Prayer Requests** screen shows the page's link, a **Copy link** button and a QR code you can download — put it on the screen during the service, in the bulletin or in your WhatsApp groups. The form asks for the request and, optionally, a name, phone and email. People can also tick **Only for the pastors** if they don't want it shared with the prayer team. ## Following up Every request arrives in **Prayer Requests** as **New**. From there you can: - change its **Status** to **Praying**, **Answered** (celebrate it!) or **Archived**; - **assign** it to someone who will pray or follow up; - add **internal notes** that only your team sees; - filter by status, or show only the requests marked **Pastors only**. You can also add requests yourself — for example one someone shared with you after the service — with **Add prayer request**. ## Who can see them By default, only Administrators and Coordinators can see and manage prayer requests, because people often share personal things. If you have a prayer team, you can give them access in [Users & Roles](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md) with custom permissions. Requests marked **Pastors only** are flagged so your team knows not to share them. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/calendar.md Section: Sundays & serving # Calendar The Calendar brings together everything with a schedule — Events, Ministry Activities and Rotas — in one agenda, month, week or day view. ## Viewing timezone vs. venue timezone Every schedule is anchored to the timezone of the **location** it happens at (falling back to your church's own timezone if the location doesn't have one). That's the *venue* time and it never changes. Separately, you choose a **viewing timezone** for the calendar itself, in the `Timezone` control: - **Automatic** — uses the selected location's timezone, or your church's timezone when showing all locations. - **Church** — always your church's configured timezone. - **Device** — your computer or phone's own timezone. - **Custom** — any timezone you pick. If your viewing timezone differs from an event's venue timezone, the event details panel shows both, so nobody mistakes a 7pm service in one timezone for 7pm in another. This preference is remembered per person, per church, on the device you're using — it doesn't change what time anything actually happens, only how it's displayed to you. ## Filtering and rota focus - **Location filter** — narrow the calendar to one meeting location. - **Rota focus** — switch between *all*, *needs volunteers* (rotas short on assigned people), or *scheduling clashes* (someone double-booked across overlapping duties, detected church-wide so the location filter can't hide it). Understaffed and clashing rotas are color-coded on the calendar, with details in the event panel when you click through. ## Creating and editing from the Calendar Use **Add new** to create an Event, Ministry Activity or Rota directly — it opens the same form used in the dedicated module for that item ([Events](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/events.md), [Ministries & Rotas](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ministries.md)), just pre-filled with the date/time you clicked. Editing an item from the calendar is the same form as editing it from its own module. **A note on recurring items**: editing a weekly Ministry Activity or Rota changes the whole recurring series, not just one occurrence — there's currently no "just this week" edit. ## Mobile On phones, the timezone controls and "Add new"/"Manage" shortcuts collapse into a **More** panel so the agenda itself isn't pushed off-screen; tap to expand. ## Subscribing from your own calendar app Want this schedule in your own Google, Apple or Outlook calendar instead of checking here? See [Calendar Sync](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/calendar-sync.md). --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/calendar-sync.md Section: Sundays & serving # Calendar Sync Subscribe to your church's schedule from your own Google, Apple or Outlook calendar, so services, ministry activities and small-group meetings show up automatically alongside the rest of your life — without opening HolyCRM to check. ## Getting your link On the [Calendar](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/calendar.md) screen, open **More options → Subscribe → Get calendar link**. You'll get two versions of the same link: - **Open in Calendar app** — on a phone or Mac, this subscribes directly; use this one first. - **Copy link** — the plain web address, for pasting into a calendar app's own "subscribe from URL" field (Google Calendar's web interface wants this form, for example). If a link you pasted somewhere also offers "Open in Calendar app," prefer that one — some apps treat a plain web link to a calendar file ambiguously, both downloading a one-time copy *and* starting a live subscription, which can briefly show up as two calendars (one of them empty) until you delete the extra one. ## What's included Events, ministry activities (one-time and weekly recurring) and small groups with a meeting day set — scoped to your one church, kept up to date automatically as your calendar app refreshes the feed (typically every few hours, not instantly). Rota assignments and role requirements are left out on purpose — that's internal scheduling detail, not something you'd want cluttering a personal calendar. ## If you need to turn it off Ask an Administrator to **regenerate** the link from the Calendar screen. This immediately invalidates every previously-shared link, including yours, so anyone who wants to keep seeing updates needs to subscribe again with the new one. Use this if a link was shared somewhere it shouldn't have been. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/events.md Section: Sundays & serving # Events & Registrations **Events** are one-time happenings — a conference, a special service, an outreach day — as opposed to a recurring Ministry Activity. ## Creating an event Fill in the details, schedule (date/time, with a location so the correct timezone is used) and notes. Events appear on the [Calendar](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/calendar.md) and can have [Rotas](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/rotas.md) attached (a Role Requirement can point at an event instead of a ministry activity). ## Event Registrations Pre-register people for an event ahead of time: pick the event, search for a member (this only works for people already in your [Members](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/members.md) directory — there's no free-text guest registration yet), and add them. You can cancel a registration later, which keeps the record but stops showing them as registered. **The payoff is at check-in**: when you use [Check-in](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/attendance.md) for an event, everyone who's pre-registered and not yet checked in appears in a **Pre-registered** list above the regular search box — one tap to check them in. Walk-ins who never pre-registered still work exactly the same via the search box; pre-registration is a shortcut, not a requirement. **From your website.** Turn on **Sign-ups on the website** in an event and visitors can register themselves with their name and an email or phone. They appear in this list as guests, with their contact details, and in Check-in's pre-registered list so your team can welcome them (as guests aren't in your directory, they're greeted rather than checked in). ## What's not built yet Adding a non-member guest by hand, capacity limits or waitlists, and automatic confirmation emails to registrants. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/attendance.md Section: Sundays & serving # Attendance & Check-in Three related screens cover attendance, depending on what you're tracking: | Screen | Use it for | |---|---| | **Attendance** | Recording who attended an event, ministry activity, or small group meeting — the general-purpose roster tool. | | **Check-in** | A fast front-desk flow for services/events open to anyone — search, check in, print a tag. | | **Kids Check-in** | The same front-desk flow, but restricted to minors, with a matching guardian tag. | All three ultimately write to the same underlying attendance records, so a session started in one shows up correctly in the others' history too. ## Attendance **+ Take attendance** → choose what you're taking attendance for: - **Service/Event** — pick from events in the last/next 90 days. - **Ministry activity** — pick the activity and a date (a weekly activity is one series, so you pick which week). - **Small group meeting** — pick the group and a date; a meeting record is created automatically if one doesn't exist yet for that date. The roster pre-fills from the relevant membership list (a group's members, or a ministry's members from [Ministry Members](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ministries.md)) — events have no membership concept, so their roster starts empty. A **search box** lets you add anyone by name regardless, useful for a substitute or a first-time attendee. Mark each person Present, Absent, Late or Excused (or **Mark all present**), then **Save attendance** — nothing is written until you save. Each person also has **Note**, for a short comment such as "traveling" or "first time bringing a friend"; it's saved with their attendance. The sessions list shows your recent sessions with a present/total count; click one to reopen and edit it. **Trends**, above the list, shows the average number present per session for each of the last 6 months (hover a bar for how many sessions and the average for events, ministry activities and small groups). Under it, HolyCRM lists the people who came 3 or more times and **not in the last 4 weeks** — a ready list for a pastoral call. ## Check-in A faster flow for a service, conference, or any event **not** restricted to minors. Pick a type (Service/Event or Ministry activity) and a date, then search and tap to check someone in — this prints a tag with a short pickup code. If the occurrence is an event with people pre-registered (see [Events & Registrations](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/events.md)), they show up in a **Pre-registered** shortcut list above the search box. ## Kids Check-in The same flow, but only ever surfaces **minors** as checkable — an adult who isn't a minor and isn't listed as anyone's guardian never appears in search results at all. Searching by a parent's name finds their children (via the **Guardians** field set on the child's own Member record — see [Members](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/members.md)); searching by a child's own name finds them directly. Checking a child in prints **two matching tags** — one for the child, one for the guardian — each showing the same pickup code large enough to read across a table. At pickup, a volunteer compares the guardian's tag stub against the child's, and taps **Check out**. If the selected ministry session has an **age band** set (see [Ministries & Ministry Members](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ministries.md)), only children within that age range are offered, even if they're a minor by the church-wide definition. **There's no scanner or label printer integration** — a "tag" is a piece of paper from your regular printer, and the security model is a human visually comparing two printed codes. That matches how most churches already run paper tag stubs; this just keeps the record digital. ### Paging a guardian In **Check out**, each child with a guardian on file has **Page guardian**. It sends the guardian a notification on their phone asking them to come, showing the session and their tag's code (never the child's name). The row shows when they were last paged. After paging, the guardian's phone number appears with **Call them** and **WhatsApp** (a ready-to-send message from your own WhatsApp, with the session and code). If the app couldn't reach their phone, the screen says so: call or message them instead. If it did, those buttons are there in case they don't answer. ## Setting up who counts as a minor See [Members](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/members.md) — a member is a minor once their birth date is below your church's configured cutoff (Church Settings → Minor age cutoff), or via a manual checkbox if they have no birth date on file. Guardians can only be set on someone once they're marked a minor. ## What's not built yet Editing or removing a guardian link from the check-in screen itself (do that from the child's own Member record instead), running multiple simultaneous check-in sessions on one screen, and hardware scanner/printer integration. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ministries.md Section: Sundays & serving # Ministries & Ministry Members A **Ministry** is a standing team — Worship, Kids, Ushers, Tech, and so on. Ministries hold the group identity; **Ministry Members** and **Ministry Activities** hang off a ministry. ## Ministries Create a ministry with a name, a **Leader**, and optional **age band** (`Min age` / `Max age`). The leader picker, if your church has mapped the `ministry_leader` tag role (see [Tags & Tag Roles](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/tags.md)), only offers members carrying that tag; otherwise everyone is offered. The age band is used by **Kids Check-in** to narrow who can be checked into that ministry's sessions — for example, a "Kids Ministry" banded 0–12 won't offer a 15-year-old, even though they're still a minor; that teenager would show up correctly under a "Youth Ministry" banded 13–17. Leave both blank for a ministry with no age restriction (the default). See [Attendance & Check-in](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/attendance.md) for how this plays out at check-in time. **On your website.** A ministry's **Description on the website** and **Photo on the website** turn its entry on your [Church Website](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md) into a card. Your internal notes are never shown. ## Ministry Activities A ministry's recurring or one-time meetings/services (e.g. "Sunday Worship Service, weekly at 10am"). One activity row covers the whole recurring series — there isn't a separate row per week. Activities are what [Attendance](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/attendance.md), [Rotas](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/rotas.md) and the [Calendar](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/calendar.md) all schedule against. A weekly activity marked **Show on the website** appears under Service times on your [Church Website](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md) (title, day, time and the location's name), and the soonest one is shown at the top as "Next". Leave it unticked for internal meetings. ## Ministry Members Pick a ministry from the dropdown, and manage who's on it — add a member with a role (leader, co-leader, volunteer), change someone's role from the dropdown next to their name, or remove them. Removing takes them off the roster immediately. **Add several at once** adds everyone **with a tag**, or everyone **in a small group**, with the role you choose. Only active members who aren't on the team yet are added. This roster is what powers **Attendance**'s auto-prefilled roster for a ministry activity — add someone here first, and they'll already be listed when you go to take attendance for that ministry's next gathering. ## What's not built yet Viewing members who were removed. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/rotas.md Section: Sundays & serving # Rotas (Service Scheduling) Rotas are how you schedule volunteers into service roles for a specific event or ministry activity occurrence — "who's on Sound this Sunday," "who's greeting at the 9am service." ## The building blocks 1. **Service Roles** — define the roles your church schedules people into (Sound, Projection, Greeter, Kids Check-in Volunteer, etc.). Set these up once. 2. **Rotas (Role Requirements)** — say a role is needed for a specific Event or Ministry Activity, and how many people are needed. Reachable directly from the [Calendar](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/calendar.md)'s event panel, pre-filled with that event or activity. 3. **Rota Assignment** — who's actually filling that requirement. A rota linked to a requirement automatically inherits its date, time and location — you don't re-enter the schedule, just pick the volunteer(s). **Who can be picked.** Type a name in **Volunteers** to search. New churches let any member serve. If your church turned that off in Church Settings (*Any member can volunteer*), only people marked as volunteers on their Members record appear; if nobody is marked yet, the form tells you what to do. Availability never limits the list — it only suggests who fits best. ## Seeing what needs coverage The [Calendar](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/calendar.md)'s **rota focus** control has a **needs volunteers** view — anything where fewer people are assigned than required shows up there, color-coded, with a "Role — assigned / required" breakdown in the event details. The [Dashboard](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/dashboard.md) also surfaces upcoming understaffed rotas. Volunteer **double-booking** is also detected automatically — if the same person is assigned to two overlapping duties, it's flagged as a scheduling clash on the calendar, regardless of which location filter you have selected. ## Planning the week **Rotas** shows one week at a time — use **‹ This week ›** to move. Every service and activity that happens that week is a card with its date and time, and weekly activities show up on their actual date (for example *Fri 9 Oct · 20:00*), so you always know which day you're filling. - **Fill** (or **Edit**) is how you assign volunteers to a role: it opens a small window right on the board: search people by name, tap to add them, tap × to take someone off, and **Save**. You stay on the board. - For weekly activities, a person is added **only for that date** unless you tick **Repeat every week**. People who serve every week show a 🔁 next to their name. - **Copy last week** repeats last week's team on weekly activities, for the roles where people were scheduled just for that date. It only adds — nobody is removed. - **+ Role** adds a role a service needs (and how many people). If the role doesn't exist yet, choose **New role…** and type its name. Services that don't have any roles yet are listed at the bottom under *Also this week, without roles*. - If people have shared their availability, the window suggests who is free at that time — one tap adds them. - If someone you add already serves at the same time that week (another role, or another service that overlaps), the window warns you with a ⚠️ and says where. It's only a warning: you can still save. Volunteers see their own dates in [My serving](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-serving.md) and can confirm from there. ## Asking volunteers to confirm On the **Rotas** board, each upcoming service has a **Confirmations** button showing how many people have answered (for example *Confirmations · 3/5*). Open it to see everyone serving on that date and where they stand: ✅ confirmed, ❌ can't make it, ⏳ waiting for an answer, or not asked yet. 1. Click **Ask to confirm**. Everyone who has an email address gets an email with a button to confirm or say they can't make it. No login is needed — the link is personal to them. 2. For anyone without email, or who usually doesn't read it, click **WhatsApp** next to their name. WhatsApp opens on your phone or computer with the message already written, including their personal link — you just tap send. **Copy link** lets you send it any other way. 3. Answers appear on the board straight away, next to each name. 4. If someone hasn't answered when the service is less than a day away, they get one reminder email automatically. 5. If someone says they can't make it, the person who asked gets an email (with the volunteer's note, if they left one) so they can find a replacement. For weekly activities, confirmations are for the **next** date the activity happens. **WhatsApp and phone numbers:** set your **Phone country code** in [Church Settings](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md) so numbers saved without it (like *11 5555-1234*) open the right chat. In Argentina, mobile numbers need the 9 after the country code for WhatsApp — the safest is to save them in full, like *+54 9 11 5555-1234*. ## What's not built yet Substitution history, an automatic WhatsApp message without anyone tapping send, moving or cancelling a single occurrence of a recurring rota independently of the rest of the series, and a fully event-linked staffing model (the current model links a rota to an event or activity, but the deeper "series → occurrence → requirement" structure described in the internal architecture notes hasn't been built). --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/bulk-email.md Section: Outreach # Announcements & Email Templates Send announcements, newsletters and updates to your congregation, and reuse designs as templates. ## Composing an email Choose your **audience** — everyone, a tag, a group, a ministry, or one specific member — then write your subject and body using the composer. The composer has three modes, switchable at any time (they all convert to the same content underneath, so switching doesn't lose your work): - **Blocks** (the default) — build your email visually from blocks: headings, paragraphs, images, buttons, lists, dividers, and multi-column layouts. Drag blocks to reorder them, duplicate or delete them, and click **+ Add block** to insert a new one. - **HTML** — write raw HTML directly, for advanced users. - **Markdown** — a simple, readable text shortcut for a quick plain email. A **live preview** on the side shows exactly what recipients will see, including any merge variables filled in with sample data. ### Columns Use a **Columns** block to put more than one thing side-by-side in a row — for example, an image next to a paragraph, or two buttons next to each other. Pick a width split (50/50, 33/33/33, etc.), then choose what each column holds. On a narrow phone screen, columns stack on top of each other automatically so the layout still reads well. ### Personalizing with merge variables Click into any text field in the composer (a heading, a paragraph, a button label…), then click a variable from the toolbar (like **First name**) to insert it at your cursor as `{{first_name}}`. It's replaced with each recipient's actual value when the email sends — the preview shows this using a sample recipient so you can check it looks right before sending. ### Sending a test first Use **Send test to my email** to receive the exact email you've composed at your own address before sending it to your real audience — a good habit before any real send. ### Sending as an app notification **Send as** has three boxes you can combine: **Email**, **App notification** and **Webhooks**. An app notification is a short message: the **Subject** is its title and **Notification text** (up to 200 characters) is the message; merge variables work in both. It reaches people whose member record is linked to a HolyCRM login: they see it in the app's bell, and on their phone if they turned notifications on. People without a login only get the email. **Send test notification to me** shows you how it looks first. ### Sending to your webhooks If an Administrator has turned on [webhooks](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/integrations.md) that receive announcements, tick **Webhooks** under **Send as** (alone or with email and app notification); otherwise the box is greyed out. The announcement — subject, message and the list of people it's for, with their names, emails and phones — goes to your own automation (for example a Zapier, Make or n8n flow), which can pass it on through WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS or anything else. Sending to the webhook doesn't count toward the monthly email limit. **Recent sends** shows whether the webhook received it. ## Email Templates Save a design you'll reuse — a welcome email, a monthly newsletter layout — as a Template, then load it into a new announcement later instead of rebuilding it from scratch. Templates show merge variables as literal `{{placeholders}}` in the preview, since there's no specific recipient yet. **Duplicate** makes a copy of a template to start a new one from it. **Images**, under the templates list, shows every image you've uploaded into emails and templates. You can delete the ones you don't need; an image you delete also disappears from emails already sent. ## Branding - **Your church's logo**, if you've uploaded one in [Church Settings](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md), can be inserted into any email with one click via the composer's **Church logo** button. - **Your church's colour** (the theme colour in Church Settings) shows as a thin bar on top of every email, and in the preview. - Every email sent through HolyCRM includes a small "Sent with HolyCRM" line — this isn't something you can remove, and it's kept deliberately understated. ## After you send Emails go out in the background, usually within a few minutes, so you can leave the screen right away. **Recent sends** shows the progress of each send: how many have been delivered out of the total, and **Sending…** while some are still on their way. If an email can't be delivered (for example, the address doesn't exist), it's counted as **Failed** and the reason is shown under that send; the others still go out. A test email arrives the same way, usually within a minute. **Opened.** If an Administrator turned on **Count who opens Announcements emails** in [Church Settings](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md), Recent sends also shows how many emails were opened. It's an approximate number: some email apps open every image automatically, others never do. **Bounced.** When an address turns out not to exist, or someone marks your email as spam, the send shows it as **Bounced**. An address that bounced is skipped in later sends until the person's email is changed in Members; someone who marked it as spam is unsubscribed. (This works for emails sent by HolyCRM; if your church sends through its own email account, its bounces go to that account.) ## Unsubscribing Every email ends with a short note saying why the person gets it, your church's address (the one in your website settings, if you filled it in) and an **Unsubscribe** link. Email services such as Gmail also show their own "Unsubscribe" button. You can't remove the link: it's what keeps your emails out of spam folders, and in many countries the law requires it. When someone unsubscribes, their member record shows **Unsubscribed from announcement emails** and later emails skip them. They're counted as **Unsubscribed** in the result and in Recent sends, and they don't count toward your monthly limit. They still get app notifications and emails they ask for themselves, such as service confirmations. If they want the emails again, they can use the same link, or you can untick the box on their record when they ask you to. ## Limits A single send is capped at **500 recipients**. This keeps sending reliable; if your audience is bigger than that, ask about splitting the send. **Monthly email limit.** Each church can send up to **1,000 emails per month** (every recipient counts as one email, test emails included). The screen shows how many you've used and when the count resets, on the 1st of each month. A send that would go over the limit isn't sent at all, so nobody gets half a message. App notifications don't count toward this limit, so for short announcements they're a good alternative. To send without this limit, an Administrator can connect your church's own email account under [Integrations](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/integrations.md). **Need more emails?** An Administrator can buy an **email pack** in [Billing](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/plans-billing.md): 5,000 emails for US$5. Pack emails are used only after the month's 1,000 run out, and they never expire. The screen shows how many you have left. ## What's not built yet Scheduling a send for later (sends go out immediately), SMS as a channel, click tracking, and nested columns-within-columns. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md Section: Outreach # Church Website A full public website for your church — beyond a single link-in-bio page: an About section, service times, upcoming events, ministries, a Visit Us section with directions, your latest message, and a "connect with us" form, generated automatically from data you already keep in HolyCRM. ## Turning it on Go to **Outreach → Church Website** and choose a look under **Website**: **Modern**, **Classic**, **Minimal** or **Premium**. Picking one turns the site on at a web address that's ready immediately — no address to set up first. Leaving it blank keeps the site off. ## Choosing a look - **Modern** — a bold, colorful landing page with rounded pill buttons and soft gradients. - **Classic** — a warm, serif-typeset layout that reads as traditional rather than "startup." - **Minimal** — plain type and generous whitespace, no cover photo, letting your message carry the page. - **Premium** — a more design-forward look with frosted-glass panels and subtle scroll animation. All four show the same information — pick whichever fits your church's personality, and switch any time without losing content. ## What shows on the page - **About** — the paragraph from **Website About Text**, plus your **Website Cover Photo** and logo. - **Service times and "Next"** — every weekly [Ministry Activity](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ministries.md) you mark **Show on the website** is listed with its day, time and place, and the soonest one shows at the top as "Next", counted in your church's own time zone. If you haven't marked any, "Next" falls back to your next [Event](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/events.md) or weekly activity. - **Upcoming events** — your next [Events](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/events.md), with date, time and place. Give an event a **Description on the website** and a **Photo on the website** for a fuller card, and turn on **Sign-ups on the website** to add a **Register** button: people leave their name and an email or phone, and appear in [Event Registrations](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/events.md) as guests. - **Ministry cards** — once any ministry has a **Description on the website** or a photo, ministries show as cards instead of a simple list. - **Happening now** — while one of your service times is in progress, the cover shows "Happening now" instead of "Next", with a link to watch when you have a video. - **Ministries** — active ministries with their age range, so visitors can see what's available for their family before they even show up. - **Small groups** — every group you mark **Show in the group finder on our website** (in [Small Groups](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/groups.md)), with its day, time and public description. Visitors tap **I'm interested**, fill in the short form, and arrive in your [Visitors](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/visitors.md) list with the group noted. The host, the address and the group's notes are never shown. - **Leadership** — the pastors and leaders you add in the **Leadership** card, each with a photo, role and a few words. Only what you type there is shown, nothing from member records. - **What we believe**, **What to expect** (questions first-time visitors ask: parking, kids, how long the service lasts) and **Photos** (up to 12) — filled in on the Church Website screen. - **Visit us** — your **Website Address**, **Website Phone** and **Website Email**, with a Get Directions link. If your church has more than one [Location](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md) with its own address filled in, every location shows as its own card instead of a single block. - **Latest Message** — paste a YouTube or Vimeo link into **Website Latest Message Video** to embed your most recent message right on the page. Any other kind of link still shows as a plain "Watch" button instead of a broken embed. - **Connect with us** — the same short form as Church Links; whoever fills it in becomes a new [Visitor](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/visitors.md) in your follow-up list. - Your social links, reused from [Church Links](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-links.md). ## Make it yours Under **Make it yours** you can give your website a look no other church has, on top of whichever style you picked: - **Start from a style** — one tap sets a template, font, corners and background that go well together; **Shuffle** tries a random mix. Nothing changes for visitors until you press Save. - **Church colour** — pick any colour, or tap one of the colours taken from your logo. You'll see a warning if the colour is too light for white button text. - **Preview** — your real website, on a phone or a computer, updates as you change things. - **Font** — six font pairings; each tile shows its letters so you can compare. - **Tagline** — a short line under your church's name on the cover. - **Logo** — round (cropped to a circle), its original shape, or **Wordmark** for a logo that already includes your church's name, so the name isn't written twice. - **Corners** — square, rounded or pill-shaped buttons and cards. - **Background** — warm cream paper, or a light tint of your church colour. Both have a matching dark mode. - **Main button on the cover** — Plan a visit, Watch the latest message, Give or Connect. - **Sections** — change their order, rename a heading (the menu uses your name too), or hide one. A section with nothing to show is left out on its own. **Connect with us** always stays, since it's where visitors leave their details. ## Search & sharing Under **Search & sharing** on the Church Website screen you control how your site appears on Google and when someone shares its link: - **Search & share description** — one or two sentences (up to 160 characters) that Google shows under your church's name and that link previews use. Write it for someone who has never heard of your church: who you are, where you meet, what to expect. If you leave it blank, the start of your About text is used. - **Share image** — the picture shown when someone shares your website link. It's cropped to a wide 1200 × 630 shape, so a photo of your congregation or building works better than a logo. If you leave it blank, your cover photo (or your logo) is used. - **Hide my website from search engines** — asks Google, Bing and other search engines not to list your website. Anyone with the link can still open it. Turn this on if your church needs to stay private, for example where Christians face persecution. **Tip — preview it yourself.** Paste your website or Church Links address into Facebook's [Sharing Debugger](https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug) (you'll need to sign in with a Facebook account) and click **Debug**. It shows the title, description and picture that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp read from your page. After changing your description or share image, wait about a minute and click **Scrape Again** so Facebook picks up the new version. For step-by-step help getting your church onto Google and Google Maps, see [Getting Found on Google](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/getting-found.md). Changes can take a few days to show up on Google, since it only revisits your site from time to time. ## Seeing how it's doing The **Your website** banner on the Church Website screen shows the live URL, a view count, and a QR code for print materials — separate from Church Links' own banner, since they're two different pages people can visit. ## Using your own domain Instead of a holycrm.app address, you can point your church's own domain (like www.yourchurch.org) at your website — or your Church Links page, if you haven't turned on a website yet. 1. Go to **Settings → Custom Domain** (or **Set up custom domain** on the Church Website screen) and enter your domain — usually with a "www." in front. (A bare domain with no "www," like yourchurch.org, needs DNS support most domain providers don't offer for free.) Save. 2. Click **Connect domain**. You'll see a DNS record to add — pass it along to whoever manages your domain (your registrar, or your church's IT volunteer) and have them add it exactly as shown. 3. Click **Check status** until it shows **✓ Connected** — this usually takes a few minutes once the DNS record is live, but can take a few hours depending on your domain provider. 4. For a "www." domain, also add the record under **Make it work without "www"** (an A record for @). It doesn't affect your email. Then yourchurch.org opens www.yourchurch.org too, over a secure (https) connection. Once connected, visiting your own domain shows your website (or Church Links page) directly — no holycrm.app address needed. The links and QR codes on the Church Website, Church Links, Giving Methods and Prayer Requests screens switch to your domain too. ### Custom code Once your own domain is connected, a church **admin** can add code from other tools at the bottom of the Church Website screen, under **Custom code**. For example: - **Analytics**: Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Plausible, a Meta Pixel. - **A chat widget**: Tawk.to, Crisp, a WhatsApp button. - **Verification files**: the small file a service asks you to upload, such as `BingSiteAuth.xml` for Bing Webmaster Tools or `google….html` for Google Search Console. Add the file's name and paste its contents. Paste each tool's code where its setup guide says: most say "in the ``". Chat widgets usually go before ``. Changes show on your website within a minute. Good to know: - It only runs on your own domain. It doesn't run on the holycrm.app address or in the preview, so check it on your domain after saving. - It isn't added to the giving and prayer request pages. - Only admins see this section; coordinators can edit the rest of the website. - Only paste code from services you trust: it can change your website and see what visitors type into it. - You don't need to upload `robots.txt` or `sitemap.xml`; they are made for you. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-links.md Section: Outreach # Church Links A single branded page — a "link in bio" — for your church's Instagram, TikTok or Facebook profile: one URL with every link people actually need (service times, giving, socials, your address) instead of one link that only goes to your website. ## Turning it on Check **Public Links Page** on in **Settings → Church Settings** — that's it, your page has a web address the moment you do. Want it at your own domain instead of a HolyCRM one? See [Custom domain](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md) — the same setup used for the Church Website also covers this page. The page's logo and brand color live on that Church Settings record too; what actually shows on the page is managed here, in **Church Links**. ## Managing links **+ Add link** for each item you want on the page: a title, a URL, and an optional icon (pick one from the picker, or type any emoji). Two extra settings worth knowing: - **Order** — lower numbers show first. - **Featured** — shows this one link as a larger card above the regular list. Meant for one timely thing at a time — "This Sunday's service," a holiday event, a fundraiser — not a permanent state for every link. - **Hidden** — takes a link off the public page without deleting it, so you can turn it back on later exactly as it was. ## What visitors see Besides your links, the public page also shows: - **Next service** — worked out automatically from your upcoming [Events](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/events.md) and recurring [Ministry Activities](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ministries.md), so you don't have to keep a "next Sunday" link up to date by hand. - **"New here?"** — a short form; whoever fills it in becomes a new [Visitor](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/visitors.md) in your church's follow-up list, tagged with an online source, instead of just being a click you'll never follow up on. - A **Share** button and a QR code for print materials — a bulletin, a welcome card, a sign in the lobby. ## When your link is shared When someone shares your Church Links address on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook or in a text message, the preview shows your church's name, a short description and a picture. You set the description and picture once, under **Search & sharing** on the [Church Website](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md) screen — they're used for both your website and your Church Links page. If you leave them blank, a general description and your logo are used. **Tip — preview it yourself.** Paste your website or Church Links address into Facebook's [Sharing Debugger](https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug) (you'll need to sign in with a Facebook account) and click **Debug**. It shows the title, description and picture that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp read from your page. After changing your description or share image, wait about a minute and click **Scrape Again** so Facebook picks up the new version. Apps keep old previews for a while, so a change can take some time to show on a link that was already shared. ## Choosing a look Below the page URL banner, pick a style under **Links page style** — each one is designed just for this page, not a shrunk-down version of the [Church Website](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md) looks: - **Modern** — soft drifting color behind everything, a glowing ring around your logo, and a light sweep across your featured link. - **Classic** — a warm, framed look with a small decorative mark, more keepsake card than app. - **Minimal** — quiet and uncluttered, with your links numbered like a museum label instead of icons. - **Premium** — frosted-glass cards over a gently shifting two-color glow, with a soft shimmering pulse around your logo. Tap one and it's saved right away — no separate save button, and switching any time keeps every link exactly as it was. The page also follows your visitor's light/dark preference automatically, with a small toggle in the corner if they'd rather choose for themselves. ## Seeing how it's doing The banner at the top of this screen shows your page's URL, a view count, and a QR code (with a bigger version to download for printing). Each link's own **Clicks** column in the table below tells you which links people actually use. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/getting-found.md Section: Outreach # Getting Found on Google Most people looking for a church today start with a search: *"church near me"*, *"evangelical church in Springfield"*, or your church's name after hearing about it from a friend. This guide walks through the few things that make the biggest difference to whether they find you — most take a few minutes, and none need any technical knowledge. ## How people actually find a church When someone searches for a church, Google usually shows two things: 1. **A map with nearby churches** at the top — this comes from **Google Business Profile**, not from your website. 2. **Websites** below it — this is where your [Church Website](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md) appears. So the two most useful steps are a Google Business Profile (for the map) and a complete church website (for everything else). Do both, and link them to each other. ## 1. Set up your Google Business Profile This is free, and it's the single biggest help for local searches. It puts your church on Google Maps with your address, directions, photos and a link to your website. 1. Go to [google.com/business](https://www.google.com/business) and sign in with a Google account your church controls (not just one person's personal account, if you can avoid it — people change roles). 2. Search for your church's name. If it's already listed, choose **Claim this business**; if not, create it. 3. Choose **Church** as the category (or a more specific one, such as *Evangelical church*, if Google offers it). 4. Enter your address exactly as it appears on your website, plus your phone number. 5. Under **Website**, enter your church website's address. 6. Google will ask you to verify that you represent the church — usually by phone, email, video or a postcard to your address. Follow its steps. 7. Once verified, add photos (the building, a service, your people) and a short description, and keep your service times up to date. ## 2. Fill in your church website Google can only show what's on your page. The more complete your [Church Website](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md) is, the more searches it can appear for. - **About text** — a few sentences about who you are. Mention your city or neighborhood by name; that's what people search for. - **Address, phone and email** — the same address you used for Google Business Profile. Keeping them identical everywhere helps Google trust that they're the same church. - **Service times** — they appear automatically from your recurring [Ministry Activities](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ministries.md) and upcoming [Events](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/events.md). Keep those current. - **Cover photo** — a real photo of your church or congregation looks better in search results and link previews than a logo. - **Your social links** — add your Instagram, Facebook and YouTube in [Church Links](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-links.md); they show on your website too, and help Google connect your profiles to your church. ## 3. Write a good description Under **Search & sharing** on the Church Website screen, the **Search & share description** is the line Google may show under your church's name, and the text in link previews on WhatsApp and Facebook. You have 160 characters — make them count. **Do:** - say what you are and where: *"Evangelical church in Riverside, Springfield."* - say when you meet: *"Sunday services at 10am and 6pm."* - give a reason to visit: *"Kids' ministry every Sunday. Everyone welcome."* **Avoid:** - only your church's name — Google already shows it; - general phrases that could describe any church (*"A place of faith and love"*) with nothing about where or when; - ALL CAPS, lists of keywords, or emojis in place of words. A good example: *"Evangelical church in Riverside, Springfield. Sunday services at 10am and 6pm, kids' ministry, small groups during the week. Everyone welcome."* If you leave the description blank, the start of your About text is used instead. ## 4. Use your own domain (recommended) An address like **www.gracechurch.org** is easier to remember, print and share than a holycrm.app address, and it's the address Google will list. You can connect a domain you own from the Church Website screen — see [Using your own domain](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md). ## 5. Tell Google about your site (optional) If your church has its own domain, you can use Google Search Console — free — to tell Google about your website directly and to see which searches bring people to it. It's the most technical step in this guide, so ask your church's IT volunteer if you have one. 1. Go to [Google Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console) and sign in. 2. Choose **Add property** → **Domain**, and enter your domain (for example `gracechurch.org`). 3. Google shows a **TXT record**. Add it at your domain provider, the same place you added the record when connecting your domain to HolyCRM, then click **Verify**. 4. Open **Sitemaps**, enter `sitemap.xml` and click **Submit**. HolyCRM creates this file for your domain automatically. After a few days, Search Console starts showing how often your site appears in searches and what people searched for. Bing has a similar free tool, [Bing Webmaster Tools](https://www.bing.com/webmasters), which can import everything from Search Console in one click. This step isn't available for a holycrm.app address — only a domain you own can be verified. ## 6. Check how your link looks when shared Paste your website address into Facebook's [Sharing Debugger](https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug) (sign in with a Facebook account) and click **Debug**. It shows the title, description and picture that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp use. After you change your description or share image, wait about a minute and click **Scrape Again**. ## 7. Be patient Google doesn't list a new or changed website right away — it visits sites on its own schedule. Expect a few days to a few weeks before a new site shows up, and longer before it ranks well. Keeping your events, service times and photos current, and sharing your link on social media, all help over time. ## If your church needs to stay private Some churches — for example where Christians face persecution — shouldn't be easy to find through a search engine. Turn on **Hide my website from search engines** under **Search & sharing** on the Church Website screen. Search engines are asked not to list your site, while anyone you give the link to can still open it. In that case, skip Google Business Profile and Search Console too. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/online-giving.md Section: Outreach # Online Giving Page Give your congregation one simple page with every way they can give their tithes and offerings — bank transfer details, PIX, alias, mobile wallets or a payment link — with a **Copy** button next to each detail so nobody has to type an account number by hand. HolyCRM doesn't handle the money: people give from their own bank or wallet app, straight into your church's account. There are no extra fees from HolyCRM. ## Turning it on 1. Open **Giving Methods** (under Finance) and click **Add giving method**. 2. Pick the **Type** — the form then shows only the fields that type needs: - **PIX (Brazil)** — your PIX key, the account holder and the city. The page shows a PIX **QR code** and a **copia e cola** button, ready for any Brazilian bank app. - **Bank transfer — alias / CBU / CVU (Argentina)** — alias, CBU or CVU, holder, CUIT and bank. - **SPEI — CLABE (Mexico)** and **Bank transfer — CCI (Peru)**. - **Mobile wallet or instant-payment key** — Yape, Plin, Nequi, Daviplata, Bre-B, Pago Móvil, MB WAY, Bizum… with the number or key. - **Bank account (other countries)** — Chile, Colombia, Uruguay and anywhere else: bank, account type, account number, holder and tax ID. - **UK bank account — sort code** and **IBAN — SEPA (Europe)**. - **Online payment link** — Mercado Pago, PayPal, Stripe or any payment page. - **Other / instructions** — free text, for anything else. 3. Optionally add a **Title** (for example *Tithes and offerings* or *Missions fund*), **Instructions** (*"add the word OFRENDA as the reference"*), the **Currency** and an **Order**. 4. In [Church Settings](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md), tick **Public giving page** and save. You can add as many methods as you want — for example one for tithes and another for a building fund. **Hidden** removes a method from the page without deleting it. ## Sharing it Once it's on, a **🎁 Give** button appears on your [Church Links](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-links.md) page and your [Church Website](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md). The **Giving Methods** screen shows the page's link and a QR code you can download: show it on screen at offering time, print it in the bulletin or post it in your WhatsApp groups. Gifts made this way still need to be recorded in [Giving & Finance](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/finance.md) by your treasurer, as with cash or any other transfer. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/finance.md Section: Giving & reports # Giving & Finance Four screens cover money: **Giving** (member-facing donation view), **Transactions** (the full ledger), **Categories** (income/expense categories) and the **Finance Dashboard** (KPIs and charts). ## Giving Shows donations grouped by member for a selected year — total given, number of givers, and number of gifts, with a per-member breakdown. Click a member to see their full **statement** for the year, which you can print (e.g. for tax/donation receipt purposes) — it includes a standard "no goods or services were provided" line. Only transactions marked as **income** with a **member** attached count as a gift here; undesignated income (cash offering not tied to a person, grants, etc.) is tracked in Transactions but won't appear in Giving. **+ New gift** / **+ Add a gift** opens a quick form: search for the member, enter the amount, date, an optional location, currency, and method. If the currency doesn't match your church's default, an **exchange rate** field appears so the total can still be combined accurately. ## Transactions The full income/expense ledger, usable for anything beyond individual giving — building expenses, event costs, general offerings. A plain create/edit/delete list with category, amount, currency, date, direction (income/expense) and notes. ## Categories Define the income and expense categories your church uses (Tithe, Offering, Building Fund, Utilities, etc.) — Giving's gift form needs at least one **income** category to exist before you can log a gift. ## Finance Dashboard A separate dashboard just for money: income/expense/balance KPIs, a monthly chart, and a category breakdown chart — all converted into your church's default currency so mixed-currency records still total correctly. ## Multiple currencies If your church receives gifts or has expenses in more than one currency, set a **default currency** in [Church Settings](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md) (and optionally per Location). Any transaction in a different currency needs an **exchange rate** so it can be converted and combined into your totals — rates are entered by hand as of the transaction's date; there's no automatic exchange-rate lookup. A church with no default currency set at all still works fine — totals just display as plain numbers instead of a currency amount. ## What's not built yet Automatic exchange-rate lookups, pledges or recurring-giving commitments, emailing a statement directly to a giver, and PDF export beyond your browser's own print-to-PDF. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/reports.md Section: Giving & reports # Reports Reports answers the question every pastor actually asks — **is your church connecting with people?** — instead of a pile of generic charts. Visible to Administrator and Coordinator roles only, since it includes giving figures. ## Quick answers, always for this month Five numbers at the top, each answering one specific question: - **First-time visitors this month** — with a comparison to last month. - **Received follow-up** — what share of this month's first-time visitors have actually been contacted (a call, message, WhatsApp, visit — anything logged in [Visitors](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/visitors.md)). - **Now attending regularly** — of everyone who started as a visitor and later became a member, how many are actually showing up: at least two "present" check-ins in the last 60 days. This is different from conversion below — a name can convert to membership without actually attending; this counts who's really there. - **Volunteers serving 3+ times/month** — how many people are carrying more than their fair share on the rotas this month. - **Visitor → member conversion** — of visitors who first came 30 days ago or longer (giving them enough time to decide), what share have become members. ## Trends, with a period to choose Below the quick answers, three cards you can switch between **6 / 12 / 24 months**: - **Average attendance** — not a raw count of check-ins, but people per gathering: events, ministry activities and small-group meetings are each counted as one session, and the number is the average present per session, by month. - **Growing groups** — which of your small groups have real attendance growth, comparing their own recent meetings to their earlier ones (a group that meets twice a month gets a fair comparison, not a rigid calendar split). Shows nothing until a group has at least a couple of logged meetings. - **Giving** — net giving (income minus expenses), by month, converted into your church's default currency the same way the [Finance Dashboard](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/finance.md) does. The comparison badge under Average attendance and Giving always measures the period you're viewing against the same length of time right before it — on 12 months, that's this year's total against the year before, not a single earlier month. ## Why a card might look empty Reports needs real history to answer a question — a church just getting started, or one that hasn't used a particular feature yet (recording attendance, logging visitor follow-ups, taking rotas), will see that card empty or show "—" until there's enough data. This isn't an error; it fills in as you use the app. ## Export, print or email The buttons at the top of Reports share what you see: - **Export** downloads a spreadsheet file (CSV) with the five numbers, the month-by-month values of each chart and the growing groups. - **Print** prints the page (choose "Save as PDF" in the print window for a PDF). - **Email** opens your own email app with the report written out, so you choose who gets it. ## What's not built yet History beyond 24 months for the trend cards, and any automated "send me this monthly" email. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/profile.md Section: My space # My Profile Your own account settings — visible and editable by anyone with a login, regardless of role or which church(es) you belong to. - **Name and avatar** — how you appear throughout the app. If a "My church info" card (below) is showing, your name is edited there instead — see why below. - **Change password** — enter your current password and a new one. - **Change email** — this uses a verified flow for security: a confirmation link is sent to the **new** address, and the change only takes effect once you click it and confirm with your password. This protects you from someone silently redirecting your login email if your session were ever compromised. Profile doesn't control your role or which churches you can access — that's managed by an Administrator or Coordinator at each church; see [Users, Roles & Permissions](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md). If you belong to more than one church, use the church switcher elsewhere in the app to move between them — your Profile itself is shared across all of them, since it's tied to your one login, not to any single church. ## My church info If your login is linked to a record in the congregation (common for the **Member** role, but not exclusive to it), a second card appears with your contact details as a member: phone, address, birth date, sex, and your name. Editing your name here — rather than above — keeps it in sync with how staff see you everywhere else in the app, from directories to giving statements. This card simply doesn't appear if your login isn't linked to a member record — that's normal for most staff logins, not an error. See [My Giving](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-giving.md) for your own giving history, and [My Availability](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-availability.md) to let your church know when you're usually free to serve — both shown the same way, linked to this same record. ## Notifications The **Notifications** card turns notifications on for the device you're using, sends a test, and lets you choose what to be notified about. See [Notifications](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/notifications.md). --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/notifications.md Section: My space # Notifications HolyCRM can let you know when something needs you, like being asked to serve, even when the app is closed. ## The bell The **bell** at the top of the app shows your notifications for the church you're in. A number on it means there are ones you haven't read. Tap one to open what it's about; **Mark all as read** clears the number. Notifications are kept for 90 days. ## Turning notifications on for your phone or computer Notifications are turned on **per device**: your phone and your computer are separate. 1. Open the bell and tap **Turn on notifications**, or go to **My Profile → Notifications**. 2. Your browser asks for permission: choose **Allow**. 3. Tap **Send a test** in My Profile to check it works. The test should arrive within a few seconds. **iPhone and iPad:** notifications only work once HolyCRM is installed on your Home Screen (iOS 16.4 or later). Install it first (see [Getting Started](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/getting-started.md)), open it from its icon, then turn notifications on from there. **Android and computers:** they work in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Samsung Internet, whether or not you installed the app. They don't work in private or incognito windows. ## What you'll be notified about - **When you're asked to serve** on a rota. On Android and computers the notification has **I can serve** / **I can't** buttons; "I can't" lets you add a note. Or tap it to answer. - **A reminder** the day before if you haven't answered yet. - **The day before you serve**, once you've confirmed. - **Event reminders:** the day before an event you're registered for, with the time. - **Small group:** on the day your group meets, a few hours before. - **Announcements** your church sends as an app notification. - **A thank-you** when a gift of yours is recorded (never the amount). - **Kids check-in:** if the kids' team needs you, a page asking you to come, with your tag's code. This one can't be switched off. - **If you lead rotas:** when a volunteer says they can't serve, so you can find a replacement, and two days before a service if any role still has open places ("Sunday service needs 2 more people"). - **If you see Visitors:** when a new visitor arrives (from the app or your "New here?" form), and when a visitor is assigned to you for follow-up. - **If you see Prayer Requests:** when a new request arrives, and when one is assigned to you. The notification never shows the request itself or who sent it. - **Administrators:** when someone they invited joins the team, plan and trial reminders, and when a payment is received. When several of the same kind arrive close together (say, a list of visitors imported at once), you get one notification that counts them, like "12 new visitors", not twelve. Under **My Profile → Notifications → What to notify me about** you can switch each kind off for the church you're in. If you belong to more than one church, each one has its own switches. Notifications only say *what* happened. Details stay inside the app, behind your login, because notifications can appear on a locked screen. ## Devices and signing out **My Profile → Notifications** lists the devices where notifications are on. **Remove** stops them on a device you no longer use. Signing out also turns them off on that device, so on a shared computer the next person isn't sent yours. ## The "Tap to copy the URL for this app" notice on Android While HolyCRM is open, Android may show a quiet notice from Chrome saying **"Tap to copy the URL for this app"**, with **Share** and **Open in Chrome**. Chrome adds it to every app installed from the browser; it isn't a HolyCRM notification. To hide it, long-press it and turn that kind of Chrome notification off. That hides it for **every** app you installed from Chrome, and HolyCRM's own notifications keep working. ## Not getting notifications? - **"Notifications are blocked"**: you chose *Block* when the browser asked. Allow notifications for HolyCRM in the browser's site settings, then come back. - Check the device isn't in *Do not disturb* or battery saver mode, which can hold them back. - You'll still find everything in the bell, and you'll still get the usual emails. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-teams.md Section: My space # My Teams (for leaders) If you lead a small group or a ministry, **My teams** shows the teams you lead and lets you look after them, without needing access to the whole church directory. **One rule:** your role says *what kind* of things you can do in HolyCRM; leading a team adds *that team*. ## Who sees My teams My teams appears in the menu (and as a tile on the Dashboard) for anyone who is: - the **leader** or **co-leader** of a small group, or its **supervisor**; - the **leader** or **co-leader** of a ministry, or set as the ministry's leader. Your login must be linked to your member record (an Administrator does that under **Users → Link member**). Being a leader is set where it always is: in the small group's people or in **Ministry members**, by the church office. ## What you can do - **See your team's people** with their phone, email and address. For ministries, you also see when each person is available to serve. - **Add someone** to your team: type at least two letters of their name and pick them. - **Remove someone** from your team. Leaders and co-leaders can only be changed by the church office. - **Report a small-group meeting**: date, topic, visitors and offering, then tick who came. This records attendance for everyone in the group. ## What leading never opens Leading a team only adds that team. It doesn't show you other teams, the full member directory, finance, prayer requests or settings. Coordinators and Administrators keep their usual screens. On the **Users** screen, Administrators and Coordinators see "Also leads: …" next to each person, so it's always clear why someone has access to a team. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-serving.md Section: My space # My serving **My serving** (under your account) lists the dates you're serving in the next 8 weeks — the service or activity, your role and the time. For each date, tap **✅ I'll be there** or **❌ I can't make it** (you can add a short reason). Your coordinator sees your answer straight away on the Rotas board, and if you can't make it they get an email so they can find someone else. Changed your mind? Tap **Change**. If you get an email or WhatsApp message asking you to confirm, it's the same answer — you can reply from either place. If the page says no member record is linked to your account, ask your church admin to link your login to your member profile. Want to be suggested for the times that suit you? Fill in [My availability](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-availability.md). --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-availability.md Section: My space # My Availability Let your church know when you're usually free to serve, so schedulers see it when filling a [Rota](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/rotas.md) — instead of asking around or guessing. ## Weekly pattern For each day of the week, **Add a time** to mark a recurring window you're usually available (for example, Sunday mornings, or Wednesday evenings). Add as many time slots per day as you need, or leave a day empty if you're never available then. ## Specific dates Your weekly pattern won't always be right — **Add a date** to override it for one day: - Mark a date **Available** with its own time window to add extra availability outside your usual pattern — you're in town for a one-off event, say. - Mark a date **Unavailable**, with or without a time, to block it even though your weekly pattern would normally say you're free — a trip, an exam, a day you already know you can't make it. A specific date always overrides the weekly pattern for that day. ## How this is used When a Coordinator or Administrator fills a rota role requirement, HolyCRM checks who's published availability that covers that slot and suggests them first — see [Ministries & Rotas](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ministries.md). If no one has published availability for a given time, you'll see a note saying so instead of a wrong suggestion. ## If you don't see this screen My Availability only appears if your login is linked to a member record in the congregation — see [My Profile](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/profile.md) under "My church info." Ask your church's Administrator or Coordinator if you think that's missing. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-giving.md Section: My space # My Giving Your own giving history — visible to anyone whose login is linked to their own member record in the congregation, whatever their role (Member, Volunteer, Coordinator or Administrator). This is different from the [Giving](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/finance.md) screen staff use, which shows everyone's giving; My Giving only ever shows **yours**. ## What you'll see Pick a **year**, and you'll see a total for that year plus a list of each individual gift — date, a short description, and amount. ## If it says you have no giving history linked This means one of two things: no gifts have been recorded against your member record yet for the selected year, or your login isn't linked to a member record at all. If you think that's wrong, ask your church's Administrator or Coordinator — they can link your login to your member record from **Settings → Users**. ## Where your name and contact info come from My Giving always matches whoever your login is linked to. If your name looks wrong here, fix it on [My Profile](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/profile.md) under "My church info" — that's also where you can update your phone, address and other contact details. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md Section: Settings # Church Settings & Locations ## Church Settings The global configuration for your church: name, default timezone, default currency, minor age cutoff, and your church logo. - **Minor age cutoff** — the age below which a member is treated as a minor throughout the app (Guardians on their Members record, Kids Check-in eligibility). Leave it blank to use the default of 18. - **Default currency** — used across [Giving & Finance](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/finance.md) when a transaction doesn't specify its own. Search-as-you-type over the full list of world currencies; leave it blank if you don't need currency formatting yet. - **Logo** — upload an image here to have it available as a one-click insert in the [Announcements](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/bulk-email.md) composer, and to personalize your church's identity in the app. - **Public prayer request form** — turns on a public page where anyone can send your church a prayer request. See [Prayer Requests](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/prayer-requests.md). - **Public giving page** — turns on a public page with your church's ways to give (bank details, PIX, alias, payment links). See [Online Giving Page](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/online-giving.md). - **Count who opens Announcements emails** — adds a tiny invisible image to each [announcement](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/bulk-email.md) email so Recent sends can show how many were opened. Off by default; the number is approximate. - **Theme colour** — also shown as a thin bar on top of your announcement emails. - **Phone country code** — your country's dialling code, numbers only (54 Argentina, 55 Brazil, 52 Mexico, 44 UK…). HolyCRM adds it to phone numbers saved without one when it opens a WhatsApp chat, for example when [asking volunteers to confirm](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/rotas.md). Only Administrators and Coordinators can change these settings. ## Share the app The **Share the app** card at the top of Church Settings has a link and a QR code that anyone in your church can use to install HolyCRM on their phone. Show the QR code on screen during a service, print it in your bulletin, or send the link in your church's group chat. People scan it, follow the steps for their phone, and then log in as usual. Use **Download QR** for a print-quality image. ## Locations If your church meets in more than one place — multiple campuses, an outdoor venue, a rented hall for a special event — set each one up as a Location with its own **timezone**. This matters most if your locations are in different timezones: every event, ministry activity and rota anchors its actual time to its location's timezone, so schedules stay correct no matter what timezone you personally view the calendar in (see [Calendar](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/calendar.md)). A location can also have its own **default currency**, overriding the church-wide default for transactions entered there — useful if, say, one campus collects offerings in a different currency than your main church account uses. Fill in a location's **Address**, **Phone** and **Email** and it appears automatically on your [Church Website](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-website.md)'s Visit Us section — with its own card once your church has more than one location with an address set. **Locations don't limit who sees what.** Permissions are set per church and role (see [Users, Roles & Permissions](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md)), so Administrators and Coordinators see every location. To keep a campus leader to their own people, give them a Volunteer or Member login linked to their member record and make them the leader of that campus's small groups or ministries: they see only the teams they lead, in [My Teams](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-teams.md). --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md Section: Settings # Users, Roles & Permissions There's an important difference between a **Member** (a person in your congregation) and a **User** (someone with a login to this app). Most members never log in; a user is a member of your staff/volunteer team who needs access to HolyCRM itself. ## Inviting someone **Settings → Users → Invite user**. Search for and pick an existing Member first (if they're already in your directory) — this links their login to their existing record instead of creating a duplicate person. If they're not a member yet, you can invite them with just a name and email instead. Linking matters most for the **Member** role: it's what lets someone see their own contact info and giving history (see [My Profile](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/profile.md) and [My Giving](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-giving.md)) — a Member invited without a linked record just sees an empty Profile page. Pick their **role**: | Role | What they can do (by default) | |---|---| | **Administrator** | Everything, including users, custom permissions, Data & Privacy and billing. | | **Coordinator** | Day-to-day ministry and administration: people, small groups, ministries and rotas, events, attendance, finance, email and church settings. Can't change permissions, Data & Privacy or billing, and can't promote anyone to Coordinator/Administrator. | | **Volunteer** | Hands-on serving at the door and in services: welcome visitors, take attendance and run check-in, finding people by name only. No access to the member directory, finance, prayer requests, small groups, ministries, rota planning, email or reports. | | **Member** | Self-service only: their own profile, their rotas, availability and giving history. No access to anyone else's data. | These limits are enforced by HolyCRM's server, not only hidden from the menu, so someone can't reach data their role doesn't allow by any other route. A **suspended** user loses all access to the church immediately. Most people who serve on rotas only need the **Member** role: being on a rota depends on **Serves on rotas** in their member record, not on their login, and Members already see their own rotas and availability. Leading a small group or ministry adds access to **that team** — see [My Teams](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-teams.md). An invited person receives an email with a link to set their password. **The link works for 7 days.** Until they use it, their status shows as **Invited** with the date the link is valid until; once they set a password — or sign in with **Continue with Google** using that same email — they become **Active** automatically. If the link runs out, the status shows **Invite expired**: click **Resend invite** to send a new one. ## Inviting several people at once **Invite several** lets you paste a list, one person per line: email, first name, last name (copied from a spreadsheet works too), or choose a CSV file. Pick one role for everyone and click **Send invites**. Anyone who is already a member with that email is linked to their member record automatically. You see the result for each person; the ones that couldn't be invited stay in the box so you can fix them and try again. Up to 100 people at a time. ## Managing existing users From the Users list you can **change someone's role**, **suspend** them (they lose access without deleting their account or history), **reactivate** them, **remove them from the church** entirely, **resend an invite** that hasn't been accepted yet, or **edit their login email**. The **Status** filter above the list shows only Active users, **Pending invites** (everyone who hasn't accepted yet), expired invites or suspended users. **History** shows the last 100 changes to your church's logins — who was invited or added, role and status changes, email changes and removals — with when and who did it. A few built-in safety rules: you can only assign or manage roles *below* your own (a Coordinator can't touch an Administrator or another Coordinator's access), you can't edit your own row from this screen, and a church always keeps at least one Administrator — the last one can't be removed or demoted. ## Linking a login to a member A login works best when it's linked to the person's **member** record: their name, My serving, My giving and My availability all come from it. In the Users list, people without a link show *Not linked to a member*. - Click **Link member** (or **Change member**) on their row, search the member and **Save**. **Unlink** removes the link without deleting anything. - You can link your **own** login too, from your row. - Each member can be linked to only one login. Members that already have one show *already has a user* in the search. ## Custom permissions Each role comes with HolyCRM's recommended access. An Administrator can change it for your church under **Settings → Custom User Access**: 1. Pick the role at the top (Coordinator, Volunteer or Member). A number next to a role shows how many screens you've customized for it. 2. Each screen has up to four boxes: **View**, **Add**, **Edit** and **Delete**. A dash means that action doesn't exist for that screen. Ticking Add, Edit or Delete also ticks View; unticking View clears the rest. 3. Changed rows are marked; nothing applies until you press **Save changes**. Changes apply to everyone with that role, and HolyCRM enforces them everywhere, not just in the menu. Some screens share one setting — for example, Check-in and Kids Check-in follow **Attendance** — and are listed as "Also applies to" under it. **Restore default** undoes one screen; **Restore all defaults** undoes everything for that role. Two things can't be changed here: the **Administrator** role always has full access (so nobody locks the church out of this screen), and Billing, Data & Privacy and Custom User Access stay with Administrators (Users with Administrators and Coordinators). ## My Profile vs. Users **My Profile** (under Account) is where anyone manages their *own* login — name, avatar, password, and email. The Users screen is where an Administrator/Coordinator manages *everyone else's* access. See [My Profile](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/profile.md). --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/tags.md Section: Settings # Tags & Tag Roles ## Tags A simple, flexible label you attach to members and small groups — "Worship Team," "First Responders," "Youth Leader," anything your church finds useful. Create tags once under **Settings → Tags**, then pick them from a chip picker on any member's record. There's no limit to how you use them beyond members, and no colors or scoping — a tag is just a tag, shared across your whole church. ## Tag Roles Different churches call the same job different things — one calls their small-group leader a "Leader," another a "Coach," another a "Guide." **Tag Roles** let you map *your* church's own tag onto a fixed set of built-in functions, so pickers throughout the app can filter to "whoever does this job" using your own vocabulary. Under **Settings → Tag roles**, map a tag to each function you use: | Function | Where it's used | |---|---| | Small group leader | The Leader picker on [Small Groups](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/groups.md) | | Small group supervisor | The Supervisor picker on Small Groups | | Ministry leader | The Leader picker on [Ministries](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ministries.md) | | Visitor follow-up | The "Assigned to" picker on [Visitors](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/visitors.md) | If a function isn't mapped to a tag, its picker simply shows every active member instead of filtering — mapping these is entirely optional, and nothing breaks if you skip it. ## Creating a tag on the spot Every tag picker ends with **＋ New tag**: type the name and press Enter. The tag is created and selected right away, no need to go to Settings first. ## Tagging many people at once On the [Members](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/members.md) list (and on [Small Groups](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/groups.md)), **Tag…** adds or removes one tag on **everyone the list is showing right now**. Search or filter first — for example, filter by a ministry's tag or by status — then choose the tag, **Add this tag** or **Remove this tag**, and **Apply**. People's other tags are never touched. ## Merging two tags Two tags that mean the same thing ("Youth" and "Young people")? In **Settings → Tags**, click **Merge into…** on the one to remove and pick the one to keep. Everyone with the first tag gets the second, Tag Roles that used it switch over, and the first tag is deleted. This can't be undone. ## Tags on groups Small groups can carry tags too, and the groups list can be filtered by tag. ## What's not built yet Mapping a function to more than one tag. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/data-import.md Section: Settings # Import Data If your church already has its records in a spreadsheet, Import Data lets you bring them in instead of retyping everything by hand. First choose **what you're importing**: **Members**, **Visitors**, **Giving history** or **Groups**. Each has its own template and its own columns; the steps below are the same for all four (see "Visitors, giving and groups" further down). ## Before you start - **Use your file as it is.** Excel (`.xlsx`, `.xls`), LibreOffice (`.ods`) and CSV files all work. The columns can have any names and be in any order, and extra columns are fine: you choose what each one fills in the next step. - **Starting from scratch?** Click **Download template** (Excel or CSV). It has the right columns, an example row and, in the Excel version, an *Instructions* sheet saying what to write in each column. Fill it in and import it here. - **Custom fields first.** If your file has information HolyCRM has no field for (a baptism date, a membership class…), create a custom field for it in **Settings → Custom Fields** (full app) before importing. It then appears in the column list and in the template. The Import Data screen lists the custom fields you already have. ## The four steps ### 1. Upload Upload the file. If an Excel file has several sheets with data, pick the one with your people. The first row should be the column headers. Files over **500 rows** are rejected: split a larger file and import it in batches. ### 2. Match your columns For every column in your file, choose which HolyCRM field it fills — first name, last name, email, phone, birth date, status, tags, location, your custom fields and more — or **Don't import**. HolyCRM guesses the matches from your headers, in English, Spanish or Portuguese ("Apellido", "Nome", "Celular"…), and a filled-in template matches itself. A sample of each column's values is shown next to it, so you can check what's really in the cells. **First name** and **last name** are the only required fields. ### 3. Preview See every row exactly as it will be saved, with all the columns you matched. Each row shows whether it's **Ready**, ready with a **warning** (something small was left blank, like an unreadable date; the row still imports), or has an **error** (no first or last name; the row is skipped). Use **Show** to see only the rows with warnings, with errors, or people who are already in HolyCRM. ### 4. Import Rows are saved a few at a time with a live count. At the end you see how many people were created, updated and skipped, and the reason for anything that failed. ## People who are already in HolyCRM The preview checks every row against your directory: - **Same person** — the same email, the same phone number (even written differently: `+54 9 11 5555-1234` and `11 5555 1234` match), or the same first and last name (accents and capitals don't matter). - **Possible match** — a similar name: a typo ("Jonatan" / "Jonathan"), a nickname ("Pepe" / "José", "Bill" / "William"), a short name ("Ale" / "Alejandra", "Juanito" / "Juan"), or one surname of two ("María López" / "María López García"). For the **same person** rows, choose once what happens to all of them: - **Skip them** (the default) — the existing records stay as they are. - **Update the existing people** — fills in the columns from your file. Blank cells never erase anything, tags are added to the ones the person already has, and the person's **name is never changed**. - **Import them as new people anyway.** **Possible matches** are imported as new people unless you choose otherwise, because a similar name can be a different person. Every matched row also has its own choice in the table — **Skip**, **Update this person** or **Import as new** — so you can decide one by one. If the same person appears twice in your file, the second row shows a warning ("Looks like row 4"). Both rows are imported, so delete one from your file if needed. To clean up people who were already entered twice, use [Find Duplicates](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/find-duplicates.md); the summary screen has a button to open it. ## Good to know - **Tags are created automatically** if a tag name in your file doesn't exist yet. - **Locations are matched by name, never created.** If a location in your file doesn't match one you've set up, that cell is left blank, with a warning. - **Dates:** a date cell from Excel is read exactly. Dates typed as text are read as day-first or month-first on a best-effort basis, so spot-check a few birthdates after importing. A CSV file keeps dates and long numbers the way the spreadsheet *displayed* them (`3/7/85`, `5.49E+12`), so upload the Excel file itself when you can. - **Custom fields** are read by their type: a number, a date, yes/no, or one of the choices of a list field. A value that doesn't fit is left blank, with a warning. - Minor status is worked out from the birth date with your church's age cutoff — see [Members](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/members.md). ## Visitors, giving and groups - **Visitors** — first name (required), last name, email, phone, WhatsApp, address, first visit, how they found us, stage and notes. Visitors already in HolyCRM are spotted the same way as members. - **Giving history** — one gift per row: date and amount are required. The **giver** is matched with your members by email or by first and last name; if nobody matches (or two people have that name), the gift is recorded without a giver and won't show in a person's giving statement. Amounts can be written `1500.00` or `1.500,00`. A blank currency means your church's; another currency needs an **exchange rate** column. A **category** that doesn't exist yet is created; blank uses your first income category. Gifts that are already in HolyCRM (same date, amount, giver and reference) are flagged, so importing the same file twice doesn't count them twice. - **Groups** — name (required), type, leader (matched like a giver), meeting day and time, where they meet, host, description and status. A group with the same name as one you have can be skipped or updated. ## What it can't do (yet) Import more than 500 rows at once, the members of each group, or expenses. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/find-duplicates.md Section: Settings # Find Duplicates Sometimes the same person ends up in your directory twice: they were imported from two lists, entered once as "Pepe" and once as "José", or added at the door and again at the office. **Find Duplicates** (in **Settings**) shows those people side by side so you can merge them into one record. Administrators and Coordinators can use it — anyone who can edit and delete members. ## What it finds - **Same email**, **same phone** (even written differently) or **same name** — almost certainly the same person. - **Similar name** — a typo ("Jonatan" / "Jonathan"), a nickname ("Pepe" / "José", "Bill" / "William"), a short name ("Ale" / "Alejandra", "Juanito" / "Juan"), or one surname of two ("María López" / "María López García"). These are marked **Check before merging**: two brothers or a mother and daughter can have very similar names. ## Merging two records 1. Compare the two cards: name, email, phone, birth date, address, sex, status, when each was added and whether either has a HolyCRM login. 2. Choose **Keep this one** on the record to keep. HolyCRM picks the one with a login, or else the older one, but you can change it. 3. Where both records have a **different** value (two phone numbers, two spellings of a name…), each side shows **Use this**: pick the value that should stay. 4. Click **Merge** and confirm. When you merge: - **Everything linked to the other record moves to the one you keep:** attendance and check-ins, small groups and ministries, serving dates and confirmations, giving, event registrations, guardians and children, visitor and prayer assignments, and their login. - **Blank fields are filled in** from the other record (an email, a phone, a birth date…). Tags and guardians are combined, notes are joined, and custom fields are merged. Where both records have a value, the one you picked with **Use this** stays (the kept record's, unless you chose the other). - If both people were in the same group, event or service, they end up there **once**. - The other record is deleted. **Someone entered three times?** After the first merge, the list shows the kept record paired with the third copy: merge again. ## Undoing a merge **Recent merges**, at the top of the page, lists the merges of the last 30 days. **Undo** brings the removed person back as they were, with everything that was linked to them, and puts back the kept person's details — except anything someone changed since, which stays. After 30 days a merge can no longer be undone. **Both have a login?** Merge isn't possible until one of them is removed. Go to [Users](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md), remove the login you don't need, then come back and merge. ## Not the same person If the pair is two different people, click **Not the same person** and it disappears from the list. This is remembered on that device and browser only: another administrator, or you on another computer, may see the pair again. ## Tips - After an [import](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/data-import.md), the summary screen has a **Find Duplicates** button. - The list shows 25 pairs at a time; **Show more** loads the next ones. - Importing again won't create new duplicates of people who are already there: the import preview spots them and lets you skip or update them. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/integrations.md Section: Settings # Integrations Under **Settings → Integrations**, an Administrator can connect services your church already uses. Today that's **your own email server**: Announcements can send its emails through your church's own email account instead of HolyCRM's. You can also connect up to five **webhooks** to pass announcements and what happens in your church (new visitors, members, prayer requests, registrations, serving answers) on to your own automations (see below). ## Why send through your own email account - **Emails come from your church's address** (for example `office@yourchurch.org`), so replies go straight to you and people recognize the sender. - **No HolyCRM monthly limit.** Emails sent through your own account don't count toward the [1,000 emails a month](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/bulk-email.md) that come with HolyCRM. Your email provider's own sending limits apply instead (see below). ## Before you start You need an email account that allows sending through **SMTP**, and its settings. Most do: - **Google (Gmail or Google Workspace):** server `smtp.gmail.com`, port 587. Use an **app password**, not your normal password: in your Google Account go to Security → 2-Step Verification → App passwords. Google Workspace accounts can send about 2,000 emails a day. - **Microsoft 365 / Outlook:** server `smtp.office365.com`, port 587. Your Microsoft 365 administrator may need to allow "Authenticated SMTP" for the mailbox. - **Mailgun, SendGrid, Amazon SES, Brevo** and similar sending services: use the SMTP credentials from your account with them. If you're not sure, ask whoever looks after your church's email for the "SMTP settings". ## Setting it up 1. Go to **Settings → Integrations**. 2. Choose your **Provider**. This fills in the server and port for you, and shows a tip for that provider. 3. Enter the **Username** and **Password**, the **From address** your emails should come from, and the **From name** people will see (usually your church's name). The from address must be one your account is allowed to send from. 4. Click **Save**. 5. Click **Send test email**. HolyCRM sends a test to your own email address through your server and shows the result after a few seconds. Check it arrived (look in spam too). 6. Click **Turn on**. From then on, Announcements shows **"Sending through your own email server"** instead of the monthly limit, and every email goes out through your account. You can only turn it on after a successful test, and **saving any change turns it off again** until you send a new test. That way it's never on with settings that don't work. ## If the test fails The screen explains what went wrong in plain words, with the technical message underneath: - **The server rejected the username or password:** check them again. With Google, make sure you used an app password. - **Couldn't reach the server:** check the server name and port. - **The secure connection failed:** port 587 goes with STARTTLS, port 465 with SSL/TLS. - **The server refused the email:** the from address is probably not one this account may send from. Problems with real sends show up in the same place, as **Last problem**, and under the send in Announcements' **Recent sends**. If your server can't deliver an email, that email fails: HolyCRM never sends it through its own email instead. ## Turning it off or removing it **Turn off** goes back to sending through HolyCRM's email, which counts toward the monthly limit again. Your settings stay saved, so you can turn it back on later. **Remove** deletes the settings; emails still waiting to go out through your server will fail. ## Webhooks (automations) A webhook sends things to a web address of your own, usually an automation tool such as **Zapier**, **Make** or **n8n**, where you decide what happens next: send it on through WhatsApp or Telegram, add the person to a spreadsheet, notify the welcome team, and so on. It's meant for whoever looks after your church's tech; nothing changes for members. You can add up to **5 webhooks**, each with its own address and its own choice of what it receives. ### What a webhook can receive Tick what each webhook should get: - **Announcements you choose to send to webhooks** (see [Announcements](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/bulk-email.md)). - **New visitor**: anyone who fills in the "New here?" form or is added in Visitors. - **New member** (never children). - **New prayer request**: who asked and how to reach them. **The request itself is never sent**: your team reads it inside HolyCRM. - **Event registration**. - **A volunteer confirmed** or **declined a serving slot**. **Privacy:** deliveries include names, email addresses and phone numbers. Children (members marked as minors, with guardians, or under your church's minor age) are never included in anything sent to a webhook, and notes, addresses and birthdates are never sent. Only connect services your church trusts and is allowed to share this information with. ### Setting one up 1. In your automation tool, create a flow that starts with "receive a webhook" (Zapier: *Webhooks by Zapier → Catch Hook*; Make: *Custom webhook*; n8n: *Webhook* node). Copy the address it gives you; it starts with `https://`. 2. In **Integrations → Webhooks**, click **Add a webhook**, give it a name if you like, paste the address as the **Webhook URL**, tick **What to send** and click **Save**. 3. HolyCRM shows a **signing secret** once. Copy it and keep it with your automation: it lets your automation check that each delivery really comes from HolyCRM. If you lose it, click **New signing secret** (the old one stops working). 4. Click **Send test**. The screen shows what your webhook answered. 5. Click **Turn on**. Changing the address or the format turns the webhook off until a new test succeeds; changing what it receives doesn't. If a webhook doesn't answer, HolyCRM tries again several times over the next hours; problems show on that webhook as **Last problem**, and for announcements also under the send in **Recent sends**. ### Format: HolyCRM JSON or custom By default each delivery is the same JSON for every tool, which Zapier, Make and n8n read without any setup. Every delivery includes a ready-made line in your church's language, `summary` (for example "New visitor: John Smith"). If the place you send to expects something else, choose **Custom (for developers)** and write the body yourself, with placeholders HolyCRM fills in, plus extra headers if needed. **Start from an example** fills it in for two common cases: - **ntfy** (phone notifications): a plain-text message with a title. - **Telegram** (a bot posting in a group): replace `YOUR_CHAT_ID` with your chat's id and use `https://api.telegram.org/bot/sendMessage` as the URL. For developers: every request is signed. The `X-HolyCRM-Signature` header is `sha256=` + the HMAC-SHA256 of `.` with your signing secret (also with the custom format, over the body actually sent). `X-HolyCRM-Event` says what happened, and `X-HolyCRM-Delivery` stays the same when a delivery is retried, so you can ignore duplicates. Templates use Go template syntax over the delivery: `{{.data.summary}}`, `{{.data.subject}}`, `{{.church.name}}`, `{{range .data.recipients}}…{{end}}`, and `{{json …}}` to insert a value as JSON. A template error makes the test fail with the error. Only Administrators can see and change Integrations, and it's part of the paid plan. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ai-assistants.md Section: Settings # Use HolyCRM from ChatGPT or Claude You can connect HolyCRM to ChatGPT, Claude or another AI assistant and ask about your church in your own words. For example: - *"Which visitors came in the last month and nobody has contacted yet?"* - *"Who hasn't come to their small group in the last three weeks?"* - *"What events do we have in November?"* - *"Add María Gómez as a visitor. She came today and is interested in the youth group."* The assistant looks the answer up in HolyCRM and explains it, so you don't have to search through screens. ## What it can do - **Look things up:** people, [visitors](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/visitors.md) (including who hasn't been contacted yet), absences in [small groups](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/groups.md), and [events](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/events.md). - **Make a few changes:** add a visitor, log a follow-up (a call, a WhatsApp message, a visit) and move a visitor to another stage. **Nothing is saved until you confirm it**: the assistant shows you exactly what will change and waits for your "yes". - It only sees what **your role** can see in HolyCRM, and it **never sees children's records**. - Turning a visitor into a member is still done in the app. ## Before you start: an Administrator turns it on AI assistants are off for every church until an Administrator turns them on: 1. Go to **Settings → AI assistants**. 2. Read what is shared (below) and click **Turn on**. The same screen shows the address to add in your AI assistant, and **who uses it**: each person, the apps they used and when. An Administrator can **Block** a person (it stops at once, whatever app they use) or turn AI assistants off for everyone. ## Connect Claude HolyCRM is in Claude's connector directory: 1. Open [HolyCRM in Claude's directory](https://claude.ai/directory/holycrm-app), or in Claude (web, desktop or mobile app) go to **Customize → Connectors** and search for *HolyCRM*. 2. Click **Connect**. A HolyCRM page opens: sign in as usual if you're asked, check that it says Claude wants to connect, and click **Allow**. 3. Back in Claude, ask your question. If your Claude organization doesn't allow directory connectors, an administrator can add it as a custom connector instead, with the address from **Settings → AI assistants** (`https://mcp.holycrm.app/mcp`). ## Connect ChatGPT In ChatGPT, adding your own connection needs a paid plan with **Developer mode** turned on (**Settings → Apps → Advanced settings**). Then create an app with the same address, choose OAuth sign-in, and approve it on the HolyCRM page as above. We're working on listing HolyCRM in ChatGPT's app directory so it can be added more easily. The menus of these apps change from time to time; if you can't find an option, search their help for "custom connector" or "MCP". ## Tips - **If you belong to more than one church**, say which one: *"In Iglesia Gracia, who…"*. - **Check before you confirm.** Read the change the assistant shows you before you say yes. - **Dates and times** come from HolyCRM in universal time (UTC); the assistant usually converts them, but check event times in the app if it matters. ## Privacy and control - **What you ask about is sent to the AI assistant you use**, for example names, phone numbers, visitors, groups and events, and that company's terms and privacy policy apply to it. Only connect assistants your church is comfortable using. See [Data & Privacy](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/data-privacy.md). - Each person connects their **own** account; there is no shared church login. - Your connection stays active while you use it. After **14 days** without using it, or if you change your password, you'll be asked to connect again. - To disconnect, remove HolyCRM from your AI app's connectors. ## If something doesn't work - **"AI assistants are turned off for…"**: ask an Administrator to turn them on in **Settings → AI assistants**. - **"…has turned off AI assistant access for your account"**: an Administrator blocked your access; talk to them. - **"Your HolyCRM sign-in has expired"**: remove HolyCRM from your AI app and connect it again. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/data-privacy.md Section: Settings # Data & Privacy Under **Settings → Data & Privacy**, an Administrator can confirm your church's data responsibilities, download a full copy of your church's data, request deletion, and review a log of who's changed Member and Giving records recently. This screen exists because your church's records — who your members are, what they give, sometimes information about minors — deserve to be handled carefully, and a church should be able to see and control its own data without waiting on us. ## Confirming your church's data responsibilities Church records can reveal someone's religious affiliation, and may include information about minors (a children's or youth ministry, for example). Most data protection laws treat this kind of information as sensitive, and several of them — recognizing that a church's relationship with its own members is different from an ordinary business's — give religious organizations more room to hold it, as long as the church itself has a proper basis (such as the consent of its members or, for a minor, a parent or guardian) for the records it keeps. The first time your church signs up, an admin confirms this once. If it's still outstanding — because your church was set up another way, or simply hasn't gotten to it yet — you'll see a **"Confirm your church's data responsibilities"** card on the [Dashboard](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/dashboard.md) until someone does. It only takes a click, and it's the church's own responsibility either way, not something HolyCRM decides on your behalf. ## Exporting your church's data **Export data** downloads everything belonging to your church — members, groups, events, giving, and everything else — as a single spreadsheet file (.xlsx), with one tab per part of your data. It opens directly in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers; there's nothing to convert or import first. An **Info** tab up front lists what's in each other tab and how many rows it has, and tabs for parts of your church with no data yet are simply left out rather than included empty. Where one record refers to another — a gift's category, a member's small group — the spreadsheet shows the actual name (not just an internal reference) so it reads naturally, with the underlying reference kept in a second column for anyone who wants to cross-check between tabs. ## Requesting deletion **Request deletion** is exactly that — a request, not an instant, irreversible delete. Once requested, our team processes it within a reasonable window; you can **cancel the request** at any time before that happens, right from this same screen. If you have questions about a pending request, reach out to **support@holycrm.app**. ## Recent activity A read-only log of recent changes to **Member** and **Giving** records — who created, edited, or deleted what, and when — kept for security review. If something in one of these records looks like it changed unexpectedly, this is the first place to check. ## Who can see this Data & Privacy is visible to **Administrators only** — it doesn't appear in the menu for Coordinators, Volunteers, or Members. ## What's not built yet - Deletion is a request today, not a self-service instant delete — see above. - Recent activity currently covers Members and Giving only, not every module. - A record that refers to something with no name of its own (a handful of internal, structural records do this) shows its internal reference instead of a name — this is a known limitation, not a bug report we need repeated. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/security.md Section: Settings # Security & Data Protection How HolyCRM protects your church's information: who can see it, where it is kept, what we do to prevent a leak, and what your church can do on its side. This page is written so a pastor, a church board or an AI assistant can answer the question "is our data safe with HolyCRM?" from facts rather than guesses. ## The short answer Your church's records are kept in a private workspace that only your own church's users can open, and the server checks this on every request, not just the screen. Inside your church, each person only reaches what their role allows. Data travels encrypted, passwords are never stored in readable form, backups are encrypted, and public forms are protected against bots and abuse. No online service can promise that a leak is impossible, and HolyCRM doesn't either. What follows is exactly what is in place, and its limits, so you can judge for yourself. ## Each church is sealed off from every other church - Every record (people, giving, groups, prayer requests, everything) belongs to one church. - **The server itself** refuses to return another church's records, whatever the app or a user asks for. Hiding a menu is not the protection; the rule is enforced on the server for every read and every change. - A user who belongs to two churches sees one church at a time, and only with the role they have in that church. - One church's data is never shared with, or visible to, another church. ## Inside your church, people only see what their role allows - There are four roles: **Administrator**, **Coordinator**, **Volunteer** and **Member** (see [Users, Roles & Permissions](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md)). Most of the congregation never logs in at all. - These limits are also enforced by the server, not only by what the menu shows. For example, a Volunteer can't read the member directory or giving records, even by going around the app. - Volunteers who need names for check-in or attendance see only names, never contact details. - Small-group and ministry leaders see only the people on their own teams ([My Teams](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-teams.md)). - Administrators can tighten or loosen what each role may do with [Custom User Access](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md). Who can change permissions, billing and Data & Privacy is fixed to Administrators and can't be handed out. - When someone is suspended or removed from your church, their access ends immediately. ## Protecting data in transit and at rest - **Encrypted connections:** the app, the public pages and the server only talk over HTTPS. - **Passwords** are stored hashed (one-way), so nobody, including us, can read them. You can also sign in with Google instead of a password. - **Backups** are encrypted, kept for 30 days and stored in the European Union. - **Where the data lives:** our main servers and database are in the United Kingdom. The full list of providers, and what each one does, is in the [Privacy Policy](https://holycrm.app/privacy.html). - We never receive or store card or bank credentials for subscription payments; the payment provider handles them. ## Protecting against abuse - Public forms (sign-up, "New here?", prayer requests) are protected by a bot check (Cloudflare Turnstile) and hidden anti-spam traps. - The server limits how many requests each address can make, which slows down password guessing and scraping. - Network protection and DNS run through Cloudflare. ## Seeing who changed what - Administrators can review a log of who created, edited or deleted **Member** and **Giving** records, and when, under [Data & Privacy](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/data-privacy.md). - Administrators can download a full copy of your church's data at any time, and request its deletion. After a church asks to close its account, its data is deleted within 30 days and disappears from backups within a further 30 days. ## What we don't do with your data - We don't sell it, use it for advertising, or share it with other churches. - We don't use your church's data to train AI models. - Your church is the owner (the "data controller") of the records it enters; HolyCRM processes them only to provide the service. The [Privacy Policy](https://holycrm.app/privacy.html) covers GDPR, UK GDPR, Brazil's LGPD and Argentina's data protection law. ## Honest limits These are the things a careful reviewer should know: - **No system is perfectly secure.** HolyCRM doesn't claim to be immune to leaks; it claims the protections listed on this page. - **No formal certification.** HolyCRM is not independently certified (for example SOC 2 or ISO 27001). - **No built-in two-step sign-in yet.** If you want two-step verification today, sign in with Google and turn it on in your Google account. - **The operator can reach the servers.** Like any hosted service, HolyCRM's operators technically have access to the servers that store your data. They use it only to run, support and protect the service, as the Privacy Policy describes. - **Some things are public on purpose.** Your church website, Church Links page, giving page and prayer-request form are public pages, and they show only what your church chooses to publish there. Images inserted in Announcements emails can be opened by anyone who has the link, as with any email image. A calendar subscription link shows your church's schedule to anyone who has that link, so share it with care. - **Your own settings matter.** Giving someone the Administrator role, or a weak password, can expose data no matter how the platform is built. ## What your church can do - Give each person the **lowest role that lets them do their job**. Most people who serve only need Member; leaders get [My Teams](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/my-teams.md) automatically. - Use strong, unique passwords, or Google sign-in with two-step verification. - **Suspend users** as soon as they leave a role. - Review the change log in [Data & Privacy](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/data-privacy.md) from time to time. - Don't paste members' personal data into outside tools, including AI chatbots. ## Reporting a problem If you think you've found a security weakness, or you suspect your church's data was accessed by someone who shouldn't have it, write to **security@holycrm.app**. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/plans-billing.md Section: Settings # Plans & Billing Every new church starts with a **30-day trial** — the entire app unlocked, every module, no limits on people, team members or locations. No card required. ## What happens after the trial If your church hasn't moved to the paid plan by the time the trial ends, nothing is deleted and nobody is locked out. Your church automatically continues on the **Free plan**: | Free plan | | |---|---| | People | Up to 50 | | Team members (logins) | Up to 2 | | Locations | 1 | | Included | Members and Import data, Visitors, Small groups and My teams, Attendance, Events & calendar, Prayer requests, Giving page, Tags, and everyone's own screens (My profile, My serving, My availability, My giving) | Everything else — Ministries, Rotas, Finance (giving by member, transactions, categories and the finance dashboard), Announcements and email templates, Check-in and Kids Check-in, event registrations, Reports, your church website, Church Links, Custom Fields and Custom User Access — becomes available again as soon as your church moves to the paid plan. ## If your church is already over a Free plan limit Say your church already has 80 people, or 3 team members, by the time the trial ends. Nothing gets deleted. Records above the limit become **read-only** — visible, but you can't edit them or add new ones — until either you're back under the limit or your church moves to the paid plan. **Deleting is always allowed**, even above the limit — it's the quickest way back to full access yourself, without waiting on anyone. A banner at the top of the app tells you exactly which limit(s) your church is over, and by how much, for as long as it applies. ## Upgrading Church admins will find **Billing** under **Settings** in the menu. It shows your current plan, when your trial or paid period ends, and your payment history. A reminder banner also appears at the top of the app during the last week of your trial, with a shortcut to it. The paid plan is **USD 30 a month** or **USD 300 a year** (pay 10 months, get 12). 1. Open **Billing** and choose **Monthly** or **Yearly**. 2. Click **Pay by bank transfer**. You'll go to a secure GalioPay page where you can pay from any Argentine bank account or wallet. The amount is shown in pesos, converted with the day's official exchange rate. It's a payment in pesos, not a dollar purchase by card, so none of the card-dollar taxes or perceptions are added. 3. When you're done, you're taken back to HolyCRM. The page confirms your payment as soon as the bank reports it — usually within a minute. If it takes longer, you don't need to pay again: the page updates on its own once it arrives. If you close the payment page by accident, **Continue payment** on the Billing page takes you back to the same one. Paying during your trial doesn't cost you any trial days: your paid time starts when the trial ends. ## Email packs The paid plan includes 1,000 Announcements emails a month. If your church needs more, an Administrator can buy **email packs** in **Billing**: 5,000 emails for US$5, paid the same way as the plan. Pack emails are used only after the month's 1,000 run out, and they never expire; Billing and Announcements show how many are left. A pack doesn't change or extend your plan. Churches that connect their own email server in [Integrations](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/integrations.md) have no HolyCRM email limit at all. ## Invite another church Know a pastor whose church could use HolyCRM? In **Billing**, under **Invite a church**, you'll find your church's invite link and code. Copy it or share it straight to WhatsApp. - The church you invite gets a **60-day free trial** instead of 30. - When that church makes its first payment, **your church gets a free month**, added to the end of your current trial or paid period. Your admins get a notification when it happens. - You can earn up to **12 free months** in any 12 months. Billing shows the churches that signed up with your link and how many months you've earned. If someone gave you a **promo code**, type it in the code box when you sign up. It may give your church a longer free trial; when the trial ends, it works like any other trial. ## Renewing Payments don't renew automatically — nothing is ever charged without you. We email your church's admins a week before your paid period ends and again the day before. You can renew early at any time; the new period starts when the current one ends. If the period ends without a renewal, everything stays unlocked for **7 more days**. After that your church moves to the Free plan — nothing is deleted, and you can upgrade again whenever you like. ## Invoices and other ways to pay Need an invoice for a payment, or want to pay from outside Argentina? Write to **support@holycrm.app** or WhatsApp **+54 9 341 682-4689** — a real person will help, usually within a day or two. --- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/faq.md Section: Support # Frequently Asked Questions
I can't see a menu item I expected to see. Why? What you see depends on your role (Administrator, Coordinator, Volunteer or Member) and any custom permission your church has set for you. Ask an Administrator or Coordinator to check [Users, Roles & Permissions](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md) — either your role needs to change, or a custom permission needs to be granted for that module.
How do I bring in members I already have in a spreadsheet? Use [Import Data](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/data-import.md) under People with your file as it is: Excel (`.xlsx`, `.xls`), LibreOffice (`.ods`) or CSV. You choose what each column fills in and see a preview of exactly what will be created before anything is saved. The preview also checks every row against your directory, so people you already entered by hand can be skipped or updated instead of added twice.
Why is a member's email field locked and I can't edit it? That member also has a HolyCRM login (they're a Volunteer, Coordinator or Administrator). Their login email and member-record email are kept in sync automatically, so editing it from the Members form would just get overwritten. Change it from **Settings → Users** instead — see [Users, Roles & Permissions](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md).
How does HolyCRM decide who's a "minor"? Your church sets a **Minor age cutoff** in [Church Settings](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md) (default 18). Any member with a birth date below that age is automatically treated as a minor throughout the app — this is what makes the Guardians field and Kids Check-in eligibility work. A member with no birth date on file falls back to a manual checkbox instead. See [Members](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/members.md).
What's the difference between Check-in and Kids Check-in? They look almost identical, but **Kids Check-in** only ever allows checking in minors and prints a matching guardian tag, while plain **Check-in** allows any active member and is meant for services/events open to everyone. Use Kids Check-in specifically for minor-restricted ministries (like a children's ministry during a service). See [Attendance & Check-in](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/attendance.md).
How do I schedule volunteers for a Sunday service or event? Set up your **Service Roles** once (Sound, Greeter, etc.), then create a **Rota** (Role Requirement) tied to the event or ministry activity saying how many people that role needs — you can do this directly from an event's panel on the [Calendar](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/calendar.md). Then assign volunteers to fill it. See [Rotas (Service Scheduling)](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/rotas.md).
Why does an event show a different time than I expected? Every schedule is tied to the timezone of its **location**, not to whatever timezone you happen to be viewing the calendar in. If your viewing timezone is different, the event details show both times so nothing is ambiguous. Check that the event's Location has the correct timezone set — see [Calendar](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/calendar.md) and [Church Settings & Locations](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md).
Can I personalize an announcement email with each recipient's name? Yes — click into a text field in the composer, then click a variable like **First name** from the toolbar to insert `{{first_name}}`. It's replaced with each recipient's actual value when the email sends. See [Announcements & Email Templates](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/bulk-email.md).
Is there a limit on how many people I can email at once? Yes, 500 recipients per send, and the same limit applies to a single Data Import file. If you need to reach more people, split the audience or file into batches.
How do I remove the "Sent with HolyCRM" line from my emails? You can't — it's a small, fixed part of every email sent through the platform. It's kept deliberately understated and never appears anywhere else in the app.
My church collects offerings in more than one currency. How does that work? Set a **default currency** in [Church Settings](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md), optionally overridden per [Location](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md). Any transaction entered in a different currency needs an **exchange rate** (entered by hand, as of that date) so totals in [Giving & Finance](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/finance.md) can combine correctly. There's no automatic exchange-rate lookup.
How do I add a church logo, and where does it show up? Upload it in [Church Settings](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/church-settings.md). It becomes available as a one-click "Insert church logo" button in the [Announcements](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/bulk-email.md) composer.
I forgot my password. What do I do? On the login screen, use **Forgot your password?** and enter your email. You'll always get the same neutral confirmation message, and a reset link if an account exists for that address — this is intentional, so the login screen can't be used to check whether an email is registered.
Can Members log into HolyCRM themselves? Only if they've been given a login as a Member-role **User** — most members are records in your directory only, with no login at all. A Member-role login is read-only and mainly sees their own [Profile](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/profile.md). To give someone a login, see [Users, Roles & Permissions](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/users-roles.md).
Can guests sign up for an event themselves online? Not yet — [Event Registrations](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/events.md) is currently staff-entered only (a staff member searches for and adds a member who's already in your directory). Public self-serve signup is a planned future feature.
Something looks broken or I'm stuck on something not covered here. What now? Reach out to whoever manages your HolyCRM account/support contact at your church or with HolyCRM directly. This Help Center covers how each module is meant to work today; if something behaves differently from what's described here, that's worth reporting.
--- Source: https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ask-ai.md Section: Support # Ask an AI Assistant You can ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or another AI assistant questions about HolyCRM, and it will answer from this Help Center instead of guessing. It's handy when you'd rather ask *"how do I schedule volunteers for Sunday?"* than search through guides yourself. ## Copy this prompt Copy the prompt below, paste it into your AI assistant, and replace the question at the end with your own: ```text Read https://docs.holycrm.app/llms-full.txt (the HolyCRM Help Center) and answer using only that guide. How do I schedule a rota? ``` The link is important: it points the assistant to every guide in one file. If you just ask *"how does HolyCRM work?"* without it, the assistant may make up buttons or steps that don't exist. ## Tips - **Ask follow-up questions.** Once the assistant has read the guides, you can keep asking in the same conversation — *"and how do volunteers see their schedule?"* - **Ask in your language.** The guides are also available in Spanish and Portuguese; switch the Help Center's language to see the prompt for yours. - **Double-check important steps.** AI assistants can still get things wrong. If an answer doesn't match what you see in the app, trust the app and this Help Center. - **If it says it can't open the link, don't trust the rest of the answer.** Some assistants can't read web links at all, but answer anyway with made-up steps. Claude and ChatGPT usually read the link; if yours doesn't, try one of those, or open the link yourself and paste the text into the chat. ## Keep your church's data private This only shares the public Help Center with the assistant — never your church's data. Don't paste names, phone numbers, giving records or other personal details of your members into an AI tool. See [Data & Privacy](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/data-privacy.md). To ask about your church's own data (visitors, groups, events), an Administrator can turn on [AI assistants](https://docs.holycrm.app/content/en/ai-assistants.md): then the assistant reads HolyCRM with your permissions instead of you pasting anything. ## For developers and AI tools A short index of every guide, following the [llms.txt](https://llmstxt.org) convention, is at `https://docs.holycrm.app/llms.txt`.