Events

Overview

Without event records, you cannot enter attendance. If you are using Shepherd’s Staff for the first time, you will need to create at least one event record in order to enter attendance. An event record should be made for every event the church has that it wants to track attendance for. Usually this is for the various worship services and for Sunday School.

Note

It is suggested that you have an event record for each service and each Bible study or Sunday School class that you are tracking attendance for. This will allow you to better track data when generating reports. Information about Kiosks and Check-in will be covered in a separate article.

Each event record has a name, event type, description, enrollees, and special setting for a kiosk and check-in if your church uses them. Only an event name and type are required to create the event record. Enrollees are not required, but it is recommended you add them because it makes entering attendance easier.

Event Types

Event types are used when one event may have two different types of attendance being tracked. This is required for church services during which Communion participation is tracked. When attendance is entered, you have the option of marking each person as having participated in just the service or in both the service and Communion. Every event must have at least one event type selected.

Note

By default, Shepherd’s Staff has event types called Worship, Communion, and Sunday School. You have the option of adding two additional, custom event types in the Tools/Settings tab under Change attendance types.

Key Terms

» Event—The name of the event that is being added or edited.

» Description—A brief summary of the event.

» Types—A categorization used to distinguish events. Multiple types can be selected for an event and attendance can be added for each event type.

» Is Active?—Only active events can have attendance added to them. Once attendance has been added to an event record, the event record cannot be deleted. It must be marked as inactive if it is no longer used.

» Enrollees—People who attend an event on a regular basis. This can be used to quickly filter out people from any view in the Attendance module.

» Kiosk Setting—Setting used when a kiosk is in use at the church. Kiosks allow users to enter themselves as attending an event.

» Check-in Setting—Setting used when an event is set up to have people check in and to have name tags be printed for attendees. This is commonly used for Sunday School or childcare situations.

Here is how to add or edit an Event:

1. Open the Attendance module and select the Events tab, then select Events
2. Click Add in the command line or double click an event from the list to edit it.
3. Add an Event name and select the appropriate Type.
4. Add any Enrollees.
5. Click Save.