Reporting allows you to keep track of all sorts of trends. Watching these trends often indicates which people may need extra pastoral support.
Where the data comes from
For any reporting to work, the software needs data to report on. In some cases, it’s merely data you entered when you first added the person to Elvanto: Birthdays, for example. For special fields, you’ll need to have collected all the extra data before you can report accurately. And for things like attendance, you’ll need to be keeping records of who came when, and where, to get an accurate snapshot of people in your church.
In group situations, the Group Leader is usually responsible for submitting all the relevant data. Set automatic reminders to make sure your leaders remember to submit.
For more on how collecting attendance works, have a look at this article.
Reporting
Reporting is the easiest way to bring large amounts of information from all over Elvanto into one place. To get the most out of reporting, familiarize yourself with these features:
Scheduling Reports
Reports, once set up, can be automatically emailed to people on a regular basis. To do so, simply find the report on the reports page, and click on the ’email’ link underneath the report title. This will then give you a variety of options about how frequently, at what time, and to whom you want the email sent.
We recommend scheduling reports done on a regular basis, such as a birthdays and anniversaries report or an attendance report.
Learn how to schedule reports at this page.
Advanced Reports
While we hope you’ll find the Built-in reports regularly useful, and other reports easy to set up, sometimes you just need a more complicated report. Comprehensive Reports allow you to group multiple reports together. Use this feature for any reports you regularly view together.
Learn how to set up new comprehensive reports at this link.
Advanced logic allows you to further narrow down your searches. For example, a ‘High-priority Follow Up’ report might specify people who attended church weekly last month but haven’t attended this month, and people who gave more than $500 last month, who’ve given less than $100 this month (Use the logic: (1 AND 2) OR (3 AND 4)). Reports like this will indicate people who either need Pastoral Care, or feel disengaged from your church.
See how filter logic works in Elvanto at this link.
People Views
People Views are just like Reports (in fact, they’re set up exactly the same), except that People Views allow you mass manage any people that show up in the results. This is really handy for sending emails, or adding people into People Flows.
By default, all Reports will be saved as a Report and a People View, but you can select which one you wish to create when you set up any Report or People View.
Reports Versus People Views
When you set up a report, the default is that you set up a report and a People View. People Views are the same as a report, except that you can Mass Manage anyone who appears in the report’s results. We recommend setting up a People View with any report that generates results you intend to move into a People Flow.