Fixed tags

What are tags?

Tags are one of the most commonly used and versatile features in ChurchSuite. They enable you to group or categorise people within a growing database of Address Book contacts, Children module children and young people, Giving module givers and Bookings module customers. Tags enable you to direct communications and filter reports just for specific groupings of people.

Your ChurchSuite database of contacts, children, givers, and booking customers will likely contain people from various contexts with varying levels of engagement with your church, charity or ministry; tags help you categorise those people and stay organised! For example, you could use tags to group together your "Members" or those who are "Parents/carers", those "In small groups", or those you consider "Leaders".

Tags are module-specific. It's not possible for a tag to comprise contacts, children, givers and customers. This would require four tags, one for each module. Tag names must be unique within a module, but a tag name in one module can be used in another. Tags are a feature of your admin-facing ChurchSuite modules only and are not seen in the member-facing My ChurchSuite. You can optionally restrict tag visibility - only permitted users will see restricted tags in ChurchSuite. People can be assigned to multiple tags. Tags persist when a person is archived. While a tag View only shows active people, those archived will show on the tag View if they are later set active again.

There are two types of tags: Fixed Tags and Smart Tags. Fixed Tags are a fixed list of people that remain unchanged over time unless the list is changed by a User. Smart Tags are based on conditions, with the tagged people reflecting a list of those who meet the tag's conditions. With Fixed tags, a User manually adds or removes people from the Tag. With Smart Tags, the list of tagged people constantly changes and updates automatically as people's data changes relative to the tag conditions.

We've produced a separate support article for Smart Tags. In the remainder of this article, we'll focus on Fixed Tags in the Address Book, but the same fixed tag principles and functionality exist in the Children, Giving and Bookings modules.

Assigning people fixed tags

Fixed Tags can be assigned directly from a person's profile by clicking Add to tag:

In the pop-up, select the relevant tags to apply from existing fixed tags (grouped by tag category) or click Add tag to create the new tag:

Assigned tags can be removed by hovering over a fixed tag and clicking X. On mobile devices, un-assigning a fixed tag in this way has a 2-step process with confirmation to avoid inadvertent tag removal when working on touchscreen devices.

Note: You will only see Fixed Tags listed when assigning tags to a person. By definition, you can't assign people to or remove them from Smart Tags—a person is automatically smart-tagged or untagged depending on whether they meet the tag's conditions.

Managing tags

Tags can also be assigned when working in the Tags section of a module. You can manage all your existing Fixed and Smart tags in this section. A blue rotating arrow symbol distinguishes Smart Tags. The tag Actions enable you to View, Duplicate, Edit or Delete a tag. Deleting a tag will not delete the tagged people; it removes the tag assignment from all tagged people. You can assign colours to tags to distinguish different types of tags, e.g. Discipleship tags, Safeguarding tags, and Newcomer tags. New tags are added by clicking Add tag.

On the Add tag pop-up, give the tag a suitable tag Name and optionally choose a Category. Categories are an optional way to organise tags, which enables filtering in searches, reports and when viewing tags on a person's profile. To add and manage tag categories, click Manage:

On the Manage Categories pop-up, click to Add category (and assign a category colour) or click the pencil icon to Edit an existing category. Deleting a category doesn't delete tags; it simply sets affected tags as uncategorised. Click Back to return to the previous Add tag pop-up.

The tag colour defaults to the category colour, or you can choose a different Colour. You can optionally pin an important tag. Pinned tags give you a quick way to see your most important tags at a glance; they're displayed at the top of the page when viewing a person's profile. Choose a pinned tag icon.

Here's an example of pinned tags on a person's profile - the tag-coloured icons shown next to the person's name:

Optionally add a Description to help module Users understand the tag's purpose. By default, tags are visible to all module Users, but you can restrict their visibility - see the related support article for further information on Restricting visibility and access to user groups. Once you're happy, click Save to add the tag.

The tag View is shown. To assign people to the tag, click Add [people], or you can navigate away from the page if you plan to assign people to this tag at a later time (perhaps using one of the methods shown in the previous section of this article).

On the Add [people] pop-up, search and select those you wish to assign to the tag. The list of matching results filters as you type. You can also bulk-add people from other tags - the results show people and tags. Continue searching and selecting people as appropriate. Click Save to apply the changes.

The tag View updates to show the newly added people. Note the options to View demographics for the Tag and the Advanced Search options to invert and see people Not in the tag, or to filter the list of tagged people by other Tags (grouped by tag category).

You can Remove people from a tag using the available action - removing people does not delete the person; it simply unassigns them from the tag:

A batch action is available to Remove multiple selected people from the tag:

You can optionally Communicate with tagged people from the View to send an email or SMS to just those people.

You can also Print badges - which will be formatted to the label stock size specified in the module settings - Duplicate or Delete the tag, and view the tag Changes log.

Finally, you can view tag Snapshots that are taken automatically on the 1st of each month. Over time, as the tag snapshot history grows, you'll see historical trends and the number of changes as people are added and removed between snapshots:

Back in the Tags section of the module, you can Search to locate a particular tag within a long list - the list filters as you type. From the tag Actions, you can View, Duplicate, Edit or Delete a tag. Batch actions are also provided in the list to Edit or Delete multiple tags that have been selected in the list.

As you can see, Fixed Tags are incredibly powerful and versatile. Fixed Tags (and Smart Tags) are ideal for targeted communications and report filtering.