Working With and Editing Families

Linking church members together as a family can be extremely helpful as you work to manage a church family in the best possible way. In this article we will talk about how to link people up as a family, add a new family via people and check-in, and connect new couples as a new family!  Family members in your church can be linked together during initial import of data or within the ‘Family Members’ tab of an individual’s profile.

Elvanto Tip

The 'Sibling' relationship in our system specifically pertains to the primary entity and not its children. If you attempt to use this relationship for the primary's children or in conjunction with the check-in feature, it will not function as expected. Please ensure you use it only in the context of the primary relationship to avoid any issues.

 
There is no gender distinction between a Primary Contact or a Spouse. For example, you can have a male Primary Contact and a female Spouse, or a female Primary Contact and a male Spouse. We recommend setting the Primary Contact to whoever the first point of contact would be within the family.
 
Elvanto supports immediate family structures best, and provides the following relationships built-in to the system:
 
  • Primary Contact
  • Spouse
  • Child 
  • Sibling
  • Grandfather
  • Grandmother
  • Partner
  • Other

Adding People to a Family

Let’s look at how to create a family using people who already exist in Elvanto.

  1. Login to your Elvanto Admin account.

  2. Click on the People section in the main menu on the left-hand side.

  3. Click on the profile of the person you would like to add to a family.
  4. Once in the profile, find Family in the tabs at the top.
  5. Click the Find Family Members button. This will search for people with the same last name by default and make suggestions of those to add to the family. If you need to add others to the family with a different last name, simply change the name being searched. 
  6. Click the Add to Family button to add these individuals to the family, and choose the family relationship you would like to assign to them. 

Once added, the two will be linked as a family. Any family members of the two people will also be added to one another’s families, and the two families will be merged.

 

Add New Person as a Family Member

If you are wanting to add a family member that does not already exist in your database as a person you will want to follow these steps:

  1. Login to your Elvanto Admin account.

  2. Click on the People section in the main menu on the left-hand side.

  3. Click on the profile of the person you would like to add to a family.
  4. Once in the profile, find Family in the tabs at the top.
  5. Click the Add Family Member button on the top right corner of the page.
  6. On the next page enter the enter in the person details (similar to adding a new person into Elvanto).
  7. Click Add Person and the newly added family member should be automatically linked with the family.
  8. Choose the Family Relationship for this New Person.

Adding New Families to the Database

If you are wanting to add an entire family that does not already exist in your database at one time you will want to follow these steps:

  1. Login to your Elvanto Admin account.

  2. Click on the People section in the main menu on the left-hand side.

  3. To add an entirely new family, from the People page, click Add Family.

  4. Choose what category this family should be placed in.
  5. On the next page enter the last name and basic contact details for the entire family.
  6. Once you click Next or Save you will be able to start creating the individual members of the family.
    • The contact details will by default, be the same as the contact details in the previous screen.
    • The main difference between these screens and the normal ‘Add Person’ screen is the choice for the family relationship at the top of the screen, make sure to assign a family relationship for each person.
  7. Click Save after you are doing with each family member, to add the next family member. 
 

Create a new Family from the Check-In Area 

During check-in, you can create a family for new members that come on the day of a service. This allows you to add new members of your church quickly into the system.

  1. Login to your Elvanto Admin account.

  2. Click on the Check In section in the main menu on the left-hand side.

  3. On the check-in page click Add Person or Family
  4. On the next pop up choose if you are wanting to add a new person to an existing family in Elvanto, or if you are wanting to add a completely new family. 
    • If adding to a new person to an existing family, search for the existing family on the left. 
    • If adding a completely new family click Add New Family button. 
  5. Fill in the requested information and hit Save to add the new family / person to family. 

Creating a New Family from Members

As your church family grows you will have people getting married and needing to move around in the system! You can easily unlink a person from a family and then connect them with their new spouse! Just follow these easy steps :) 

  1. Login to your Elvanto Admin account.

  2. Click on the People section in the main menu on the left-hand side.

  3. Click on the profile you would like to remove from original family.
  4. Once in the profile, find Family in the tabs at the top.
  5. From the listed family members click on the Family Relationship field and in the drop down select Remove from Family
  6. Confirm you would like to remove them from family. (If you are joining two people together who have been in family units, repeat steps 1 - 6 for both people. This is an important step. If this is not done, both existing families will be merged together into one big family, which is not what you want.)
  7. Click on the profile of the person you would like to add to a family.
  8. Once in the profile, find Family in the tabs at the top.
  9. Click the Find Family Members button. This will search for people with the same last name by default and make suggestions of those to add to the family. You may need to search for a different last name, if you have not yet updated info, simply change the name being searched. 
  10. Click the Add to Family button to add these individuals to the same family, and choose the family relationship you would like to assign to them.  

Removing People From a Family 

Let’s look at how to remove a person from a family in Elvanto. This could be when a child grows up and is now giving independently of parents and need to receive their own tax statement, or when a child goes to college, or gets married, etc. 

  1. Login to your Elvanto Admin account.

  2. Click on the People section in the main menu on the left-hand side.

  3. Click on the profile you would like to remove from family.
  4. Once in the profile, find Family in the tabs at the top.
  5. From the listed family members click on the Family Relationship field and in the drop down select Remove from Family
  6. Confirm you would like to remove them from family.