Question 1. Are parents included, or are children left in your care?
If children are left in the care of your team without their parents, you should use the groups and attendance in the Children module.
- This will check in both the children and your team in case of later questions.
- You can check children in across multiple groups simultaneously. For instance, a parent with children in groups for different ages on a Sunday morning can check them all in together.
- You can add visiting children quickly, with their parents' contact details (visitors can be converted to full records if they start coming regularly, or will be deleted after not coming back for 12 months).
- You can keep check-in simple for small groups, or scale up for full control of large groups where you don't know everyone personally.
- If your venue has no internet connection, you can print registers for paper completion and type them into ChurchSuite quickly later.
- It's easy to report children's attendance if required for school entry purposes.
Question 2. Is this a group that people belong to, or an event that they attend?
Some groups feel like individual events that people attend, even if they happen on a regular basis. For instance, a cafe-style all-age worship might feel like an event. But people feel like they belong to a parent and toddler group. A Messy Church could fall into either category.
You can use either the Calendar module (for events) or the Small Groups or Discipleship module (for groups).
Calendar events | Small groups |
You invite people to each event individually. | You advertise the group as an ongoing thing. |
People can sign up to individual events (a monthly coffee morning) or to a sequence of events (an Alpha course). | People still belong to a group, even if they do not attend a session. They do not sign up to each session in advance. |
Event organisers can check people into an event from My ChurchSuite, if booking has been enabled. | Group leaders can tick off attendance from My ChurchSuite. |
Check-in scales easily for large events, with options to search and to add extra check-in points to avoid queues, and even to scan QR codes on tickets. Additional volunteers only need a smartphone with a QR code reader and no prior setup. | Multiple leaders can tick off attendance, but the list of potential attendees cannot be searched or filtered. Each group leader will use My ChurchSuite. |
People can turn up to an event without pre-booking. The organiser will need to ask them to book on the spot to record their details, if they are not in the ChurchSuite Address Book for your site, then they are checked in like pre-booked people. | People can turn up to a group without prior notice. The leader will record them anonymously in the total number of attendees and can add a note with their name. Someone with access to ChurchSuite can add them to the group afterwards and adjust the attendance. |
The engagement tab for individuals in the Address Book or Children's module will show the last 10 events that people signed up for, though it may not show whether they actually attended. | The engagement tab for individuals in the Address Book or Children's module will show recent attendance at groups. |