Controlling the editable fields in My ChurchSuite
Introduction
If members can self-manage their details and those of their children, considerable administration time is saved. You can customise the fields of personal information that members can edit through My ChurchSuite. However, some personal details may be held for internal use only, so you may not wish your members to modify those fields—for example, a custom field for 'membership status'. This article explains how to customise the fields people see in My ChurchSuite and the fields they can edit and self-manage.
Managing editable member fields
The editable fields for contacts and children are managed in the respective module's settings. Let's look at each in turn:
Contacts
Head into the Address Book module settings and select the My ChurchSuite Options tab. In the editable Fields section, click Edit to make changes to the fields that adult members can edit in My ChurchSuite. Bear in mind that, under data protection law, data subjects may have the right to access and the right to rectification. Best compliance with these rights is achieved by allowing members to manage more of their personal information rather than less, even though that may result in people choosing to remove information that they no longer wish you to process.
Children
Head into the Children module settings and select the My ChurchSuite Options tab:
In the editable Fields section, click Edit to make changes to the fields that primary parents/carers and children can edit in My ChurchSuite. Bear in mind that under data protection law, data subjects may have a right to access and a right to rectification. Best compliance with these rights is achieved by allowing members to manage more of their personal information rather than less, even though that may result in people choosing to remove information that they no longer wish you to process.
Contacts & Children
In addition to the standard and optional fields, you may also have custom fields. Some custom fields may be internal-use only and not intended for members to edit, but some fields may be personal information that members are permitted to edit. Working respectively in the Address Book or Children module's settings, switch to the Module Options tab. This example is from the Address Book.
Scroll down to the Custom Fields section. Here, you can Edit each custom field's Settings for visibility and edit-ability within My ChurchSuite.
In the example below, from the Address Book, the 'Subscribe to weekly e-news' custom field has been set not to Show in the Search for Others results in My ChurchSuite, but contacts can Edit their responses in My ChurchSuite and on their My Consent form. The field is set as Required, meaning that each member must select one of the two options if no value has yet been selected.
Allowing contacts to link to their Spouse/Partner
One of the editable Fields listed above allows contacts to self-link to their Spouse/Partner within My ChurchSuite. Let's see how this functionality works:
Safeguarding children.
The My Children section is only visible to parent/carer contacts with linked children. A Primary parent/carer can self-manage all their linked children and each child's list of other parents/carers.
Linked spouse/partner couple giving.
Ordinarily, the My Giving profile represents donations made by you as an individual. However, on request, your church or charity can designate your giving profile as a 'Couple' where the donations you each make represent a couple or household. Additionally, for UK churches and charities only, couples can specify the Gift Aid split to be applied to the donations they make as a couple.
For example. Paul doesn't have a giver profile, but his spouse, Fiona, does. When Paul links to Fiona as her spouse/partner, and Fiona confirms the linking, Paul doesn't automatically see Fiona's giver profile. However, if Fiona and Paul request that their giver profile be designated as a "Couple", Paul and Fiona will both be able to see their donations in My Giving.
This is helpful in the context of a genuine couple link, but the spouse/partner confirmation step safeguards unscrupulous or 'curiosity' spouse linking.
When the Spouse/Partner linking option is enabled, all Address Book contacts with My ChurchSuite access (subject to their marital status) can search for and select their spouse/partner, which links the two contacts (subject to approval).
When searching, spouse/partner names are suggested as they type. Only those whose privacy settings have Name is visible are searchable.
An information message explains that an email will be sent to the spouse/partner requiring their confirmation:
The selected spouse/partner can accept or decline the link via the email but is also alerted about the linking the next time they log in. If they have not responded via the email, they can then select to Confirm spouse or Unlink [partner name]:
Only when the spouse/partner is confirmed are the contacts fully linked.