People categories provide a powerful way to handle the different types of people in your church. A person can only be in one people category at a time.
Setting Up People Categories
When setting up people categories for your church, consider the various ways you want to classify active members or contacts. Think about categories that will be helpful for sorting and reporting. Elvanto's default categories are Congregation, Visitor/New People, and Community Contacts, but you can change these or create other specific categories to distinguish between members.
Purpose of People Categories
People categories allow your church to group and sort individuals according to your preferences. Unlike a person’s status, categories are not directly related to pricing. Each person can only belong to one category and have one status.
Now is a good time to start thinking about how you would like to categorize people at the highest level. Remember, you can use tools like People Views, Demographics, and Groups to narrow down on people within these categories, so you don’t need to create too many.
Most churches use categories such as:
- Congregation
- Visitors / New People
- Community Contacts
Feel free to name these categories whatever you wish! They can always be adjusted and refined over time.
People Categories vs. People Status
People Categories are different from People Status. Categories are purely for organizational purposes and do not affect billing. We charge based on the status of people in your system, and they need to be active to take advantage of many Elvanto features.
Profile Layout
Each people category has a profile layout with two sides: Admin Area and Member Area.
Admin Area
This side is about how you and your leaders see people’s information when accessing profiles through the Admin Area. Organizing profile layouts effectively can significantly reduce the time spent scrolling through profiles.
Member Area
This side is about how individuals in your system (note: you don’t have to give access to everyone in your church) see and possibly edit the information collected about them through the Member Area. For some information, like addresses and phone numbers, it’s convenient for people to update these themselves. For others, like Demographics, you can decide if they should have editing permissions.
Custom Fields
Custom fields are additional pieces of information you need about people in your church that Elvanto doesn’t already provide. For example, you might need custom fields for things like Baptism date, First-Aid qualifications, and Allergies, but not for basic details like Age, Marital Status, and Phone number.
All of your people have default fields like first name, last name, and email address, but any additional fields are called ‘custom fields’. There’s no limit to the number of custom fields you can add, and they can be used to store additional contact information or relevant data, such as allergies, blue card expiry date, interests, or survey responses. This is useful for reporting and generating specific People Views.
Elvanto Tip: Identify from your old database which custom fields you need to set up prior to importing your data.
Sorting People Categories
To sort the categories:
- Go to People > Categories.
- Click Sort.
- Drag the selected category to the desired position in the list using the crosshairs icon.
By following these steps, you can efficiently manage and organize the people in your church, ensuring your data is categorized in a way that best suits your needs.