Getting started with the Calendar module

Purpose of the module

Welcome to ChurchSuite's Calendar module! This module enables you to manage all your events in one place, from large events for your members and supporters to smaller internal-use events such as staff meetings. A separate Bookings module is provided for room/resource bookings for the events you run. You can easily control each event's visibility and status so that each event is promoted to just the right audience - in ChurchSuite, in My ChurchSuite, on social media, in your communications, at your Information Point through the Connect 'Events List' and through your website using the Embed calendar and Featured Events feed. For each event, you can optionally enable sign-up, create tickets (free, pay, pay on arrival), add custom questions to the sign-up form, send invitations, record event attendance and much, much more!

The Calendar module also includes Leave management functionality. Knowing when key team members are on leave is a vital part of event management, so we've made it easy to manage user leave requests - you can even use the 'leave approval' feature if your internal HR processes require an accept/decline response to leave requests.

Note that the Calendar module is not intended to be used as an 'appointments diary'. We encourage you to read this article in full to familiarise yourself with the module's key features and customisation options available and to acquaint yourself with some of the basic concepts and terminology you'll see within the module and our other Calendar module support articles.

Calendar module features at a glance

• Add or import individual and sequence events and categorise them within the calendar
• Set physical event locations or run online events through the meeting URL
• Control event visibility and sign-up settings on an event-by-event basis
• Manage event status, set pending events confirmed, or cancel an event with a button click
• Embed your calendar or event feeds into your website
• Increase engagement by enabling sign-up for events
• Manage event planning to-dos with checklists to ensure everything happens before and after the event
• Create tickets - free, pay online, pay on arrival, and private tickets
• Manage event and ticket capacity
• Add custom questions to the sign-up form to collect all the important information needed to manage the event
• Send event invitations and track accept and decline responses
• Record event attendance using the check-in functionality
• Allow sign-ups to self-cancel, with an optional reason, should they be unable to attend
• Communicate with those who have been invited, signed up or checked in
• Integrates intuitively with other modules, connecting events to rotas, resource bookings and service plans
• Get your ChurchSuite calendar linked to your calendar application by subscribing to an iCal or Google Calendar feed
• Manage user leave requests with accept/decline approval and optionally auto-add unavailability to the Rotas module

Next steps...

To explore many of the Calendar module's features and functionality, you'll need to add or import some data. See the related support articles at the end of this article for further details.

Got a question?

You’ll find the answers to most questions in our support articles - they're all available through the Support beacon located in the bottom-right corner of each page in the Calendar module - just search by topic, phrase or keyword. You can also access the Support Article library on our website. And if you still can't find something you're looking for, click to get in touch with one of the ChurchSuite team - we’re happy to help!