Enabling small group sign up through Embed

Overview of the Embed group sign-up functionality

In addition to enabling people to sign up for small groups through My ChurchSuite and Connect, you can also run small group sign-up through your church web site using Small Group Embed. See the related support article for how to easily customise and embed a small group List and Map on your website.

Once embedded, people can browse the groups you offer and even sign-up there and then! This can be especially useful for non-church members (i.e. those not yet in your Address Book) and those unable to access My ChurchSuite to sign up to small groups quickly and easily.

The sign up functionality in Small Group Embed works on a group-by-group basis, enabling you to turn on the sign-up feature for some groups but not others; while still retaining the ability to show all your other groups, even if they are full or not yet open for sign up, rather than displaying an empty list!

For each small group that is set to Show in Embed, and where sign-up has been enabled for the group, people can browse your groups and, if sign-up is open and the group has capacity, to sign up. If a group is full, or the sign-up period has ended, the group remains visible in the Embed, but an appropriate message is displayed and the Sign up to this group button is disabled.

Overview of the sign-up user experience

The user experience of signing up to a small group through Embed works in exactly the same way as the Connect Group List and uses the same Sign up form. ChurchSuite will attempt to match the sign-up details to an existing Address Book or Children contact. Clever matching algorithms match based on first name, last name, email and optional mobile. If matched, the sign-up is linked to their existing contact profile in the Address Book; otherwise a new contact is added to the Address Book. The sign-up is joined to the small group member list, either as a pending or active status group member (depending on the group's sign-up settings), a "Joined group" Key Date is added against their Address Book profile, and, for new contacts created, a Note is added against their Address Book profile to indicate that the new contact originated through the Groups online sign-up form. A sign-up notification is also sent to those group members whose role permissions include Notify of sign up enabled - ensuring that the group leaders are kept in the loop and can extend a welcome to the new group member.

Enabling embed sign-up functionality for a small group

Enabling sign-up via Small Group Embed is granted on a group-by-group basis, making it possible to enable sign-up on some groups but not others, if you wish. From a group's "View" page in the Small Groups module, click the Edit button.

Scroll down to the Visibility section and check Show in Embed, to make the group visible in the Embed, and also check Sign up through Embed in the Sign-Up section.

Where Sign-Up has been enabled, specify the Dates within which the sign-up period is to be active for (this can be open-ended, but a start date is required). Optionally set a sign-up Capacity for the group. The Member List setting is only relevant to groups visible in My ChurchSuite - Embed and Connect "sign-ups" can never view a group Member List until they are subsequently granted access to My ChurchSuite, so this setting can be ignored for Embed purposes. You can also set the default Member Status assigned to new sign-ups - people can be added to the group as Active members, or they can be added with a Pending status requiring a group leader with Edit Group Details role permissions to approve the new member and set them active.

Remember to save any changes made to a group before navigating away from the page. Repeat the above steps for each small group.