Depending on the needs of your church, the Member Directory is a feature you may or may not wish to use. However, so you understand what it is let me explain -
The Member Directory serves as a place where members can access a predefined list of church members and their contact details within the Member Area of Elvanto.
When setting up the Member Directory, you can set certain People Categories or Demographics to be excluded entirely, as well as which people categories should be automatically added. It’s worth noting though that users who are appearing can choose to hide themselves at any time.
As an extra custom privacy option, individuals can select to hide certain fields in their profile within the My Account area so that what is shared remains the control of each individual. Eg. they may not want to show their address, but happy to have their email address and phone number displayed.
Having a Member Directory available in your account can be useful for volunteers wanting to get in contact with different leaders or members within the groups they are a part of, and provides an easy way for getting details of the people they need.
For this you are going to head to Settings > Member Directory.
There are 2 TABS Settings & Layout
Settings TAB
Details
The first setting is where you wish to Enable or Disable.
You can create a Custom Name. By default this is named Member Directory but you may like to call it something else under the Custom Name field.
Eg. Church Directory, Parish Role, you may have a term you use within your church, so this is where you can edit that.
View Options
Display Options
This is where you want to display the list of members as individual only. Group them by families so that means you would need to go into the family to then see the individuals. Or you can choose to have both.
Default View
If you do choose to do both families and individuals you can then choose what the default view is, and people can switch between the two views when their browsing the directory.
Individual Sort Options
If you display individuals only or both families and individuals, the Individual Sort Options appear. This gives you the option to sort by an individual's name or last name.
Preferred Name Display
This applies to all options, and gives you the option to choose the preferred way of displaying people’s name. This view only applies to the member directory, not anywhere else in the account.
Exclusions & Inclusions
Exclude People Categories / Exclude Demographics
This is the area where you can set specific people categories and demographics to be excluded from the Member Directory.
When it comes to the demographics, we usually suggest you exclude any children and teenagers from appearing to protect their privacy.
‘Always Include’ People
This setting is quite self explanatory, but it's the area where you can add names of people or leaders who should always be included in the directory, regardless of any directory lockdowns.
Other Settings
Automatically add newly created people to the Member Directory
When a new person is added to the system, as they are created do you want to automatically add them to the Member Directory?
If yes, you can specify what People Categories are automatically added. Eg. You may only want the Congregation People Category added, but you may not want the Visitor/New People added. This setting only applies to people being added to the system as a new members, if they were a visitor and moved to the People Category Congregation, they would need to be added to the Member Directory separately.
Opt-in required for new people added to the Member Directory
If enabled when a person is added to the Member Directory they will receive an email requesting their approval prior to it being displayed.
List all members when the Member Directory is first loaded
If you wish for all your members to appear on the page when accessed via the Member Area you would enable it. Otherwise you may disable and for people to access anyone's data they would need to search for them on the page.
Layout TAB
Layout
This is specific to the Member Directory and how it is displayed in the Member Area.
The layout is very similar to the People Category in how it is set up. You can add additional fields by using the Edit Layout feature on the right and drag across the fields you wish to show.
This layout is what will be seen by users viewing the Member Directory in the General Information area
Admin View
Member View
Columns To Display
The columns to display is relating to what columns you wish to show when viewing the Member Directory? This is only visible when using a browser and not displayed in the Mobile App.
Family Address (Tickbox)
This tick box means when you view the Member Directory in the Family View, that their address will appear in the columns or card.
The address is determined by the primary member of the family. If the primary doesn’t have an address listed, then it would be the next in line, being the spouse etc.