For any church or non-profit organization new to Church Office Online (COO), the first step to building a useful, informational, and reliable data base is to establish consistent best practices for entering data. Each entry should be done exactly the same for each individual and family based on their unique characteristics, family structure, and member types.
Step One: Establish Goals and Guidelines
Each church must first decide what information and functionality they most wish to gain from their data and member tracking. Once these goals are established, member types, age/grade categories, ministries, and custom fields can be defined. Often a church will need to work with the information they have to determine exactly how they want to track it.
To provide the flexibility to change direction at a later time, all data should be entered in the same manner each time keeping in mind the ability you have with Church Office Online to mass edit and customize your information. This means every first time visitor would be entered exactly the same as all the other first time visitors and that all the information you gather is entered in the same format, using the same filters, or custom fields.
As a Church Office Online client and user, below are my recommendations for making sure your data is reliable and easily adapted as your church grows.
Step Two: Determine Your “Member Types”
COO has a set of default types for your use, but you can add any you would like to use. Below are the types we use. Defining each of these categories and then making sure each person entered is correctly labeled saves lots of headaches later.
“Member Types” can be managed under the “Admin” menu by selecting the “Manage Member Types” link.
Step Three: Define How You Will Use “Age Categories”
Next, determine which “Age Categories” you will use. Because we use the “School Year/Grade” filter, we do not use many of the categories available. All our children infants to 5th grade are listed as “child.” We do use the “Middle School” and High School” so we can track our youth. This eliminates the need to keep updating this field as your children grow and move from grade to grade. When it is time to move your children up a grade, the “School Year/Grade” allows each category to be mass edited which makes it very quick to promote. We also use the “Adult” and “College” categories.
“Age Categories” cannot be edited, so you will need to determine how you will use the default categories for your church.
Step Four: Create Ministries and Groups
Define your ministries. In my church these include all our volunteer teams from Ushers to Kids Ministry workers. Our children’s ministry is Tots and Kids. I entered a separate ministry for each. This is the ministry heading for the actual children who attend. I have then created a heading for the adult volunteers in each of those areas. I then added another ministry for each team we have in our church. I also added a “Volunteer” ministry which includes all our volunteers from every ministry. This allows me to text or email all our volunteers with one click.
“Ministries and Groups” can be managed under the “Church” menu by selecting the “Manage Ministries and Groups” link.
Step Five: Determine Your School Age / Grade Categories
Once you have your ministries established, then you can enter your preferred “Age/Grade” categories. We define this using the ages in each class for our younger children and then defined by grade for our elementary age children.
“School Years / Grades” can be managed under the “Admin” menu by selecting the “Manage School Years / Grades” link.
Step Six: Setup “Spiritual Development” Categories
Next, set up your “Spiritual Development” categories. This is also located under the “Admin” tab. We have set up Baptism, Volunteer Team, and if you offer membership classes, that could be included as well. Whatever your church uses to define the spiritual growth of its members can be entered in to this field.
“Spiritual Development” categories can be managed under the “Admin” menu by selecting the “Manage Categories” link.
Step Seven: Determine “Custom Fields”
Last, is to determine what other types of data you would like to maintain. We use this feature to track our background checks, how visitors learned about our church and many other pieces of information we find valuable to our church.
“Custom Fields” can be managed under the “Admin” menu by selecting the “Custom Fields” link.
All of this information can be added it a later time, but it is good to be thinking about it as you enter your data.
Step Eight: Add Individuals and Households
You can add new individuals by selecting the “Add Inidividual” link under the “Church” menu.
- Begin data entry with the head of each household.
Using the “Add Individual” feature is a very streamlined data entry process that enables you to enter individuals and add them to, or create, households on the fly. Entering families and singles in this manner allows you to add all the data, from which ministry they participate in to grade etc., all at the same time rather than having to save the household and then going back to each individual and adding the information. Even a single adolt shoold be entered this way and saved as a household.
- Enter the data for the head of household. Include as much data as you can to include home phone, cell phone, email address, etc. If you have already defined your ministries, spiritual development, etc., enter this data now as well. This data can be entered under the tabs at the bottom of the screen.
- Once you have entered as much data as you would like, check the box: “Create New Household”
Individual last name, address and phone number information will be used to populate household name and contact information.
- Click “Save”
- If there are more family members to enter for this household, scroll down to “Add more individuals to this household” and check the box.
- Click “Save”
Continuing entering each individual in this household, entering as much data as possible and clicking save after each entry.
Repeat this for each household you enter. I have changed, modified, deleted, and edited numerous times to get my data set up the way it works best for us.
This has been made much easier by entering each person in the same manner each time. Be meticulous about how you enter your information. If you have volunteers helping with this, be sure they know exactly how you need the information entered. It is time-consuming but well worth it in the long run.
Guest post by Nancy Wall
Office Administrator – Next Level Church – Yorktown, VA