Getting Started

• Getting started with the Address Book Module
• Importing your data
• Importing your children data

Welcome to ChurchSuite! You may be wondering where to begin or what to do first. While there isn't a "hard and fast" right way, the following suggestions may help give some pointers as you begin.

1. Configure account settings

Working within your Account Settings, you'll want to make some simple customisations - see: Customising your ChurchSuite account. This includes adding your Data Protection Policy and adding other Users.

2. Add sites

If you're a multi-site church or organisation, now is the time to set up the Multi-site functionality.

3. Add branding

Help your communication and branded pages stand out and look like your own church or organisation's branding - Using brands

4. Configure module settings and import data

Check out the Getting Started article for a module of interest - read the module introduction, next steps, some suggested short training videos, glossary of terminology, key functionality at a glance and links to other related support articles

1
Address Book
2
Children
3
Attendance
4
Calendar
5
Small Groups
6
Rotas
7
Giving
8
Bookings
9
Planning
10
Network

5. Customise your user dashboard
Customise your dashboard so that you have the widgets you want, providing you with the information you need to hand. Every dashboard is unique.

Terminology

Here's a list of terms you will see across the modules and in our support articles:

• Connect is the Sunday-service-facing and in-person-event-facing functionality - a suite of applications designed to run on a device at your Information Point at services, in-person events and at a child registration/check-in point.
• My ChurchSuite is your church's member-facing platform where contacts can keep their details up to date, view all their communications in one place and communicate with one another.
• My Consent is a feature that allows you to send consent requests to people and where people can update their details and preferences.

Data Protection

We encourage all organisations to revisit their Data Protection policies and procedures in light of the features and functionality they'll use within ChurchSuite. Questions you might consider include:

• Do people know what personal information is stored/processed by our organisation and the purposes for which it is used? Do we have a lawful basis for processing each type of information we process, and is our privacy notice up to date?
• Do people understand that only appropriate users have access to our data, the security protections in place and their permissions?
• Does our Data Retention policy need updating? Have we purged all data we no longer need or no longer have a lawful basis to process?
• Do we need to refresh our training, confidentiality and data access provisions for our staff and other users?
• Are the default privacy settings and communication options appropriate and in line with guiding legislation and the expectations and wishes of our members?
• Do the organisation's "data capture" processes (e.g., visitor cards, web-embedded forms, etc.) have sufficient data protection messaging and privacy notice visibility?
• Does our safeguarding policy need updating to reflect how data about children, young people and vulnerable adults will be handled?

Got a question?

You’ll find the answers to most questions in our support articles - they're all available through the Support menu located in the top-right corner of each page in ChurchSuite. Select Get help and 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!