Steps in a nutshell:

• Configure your account
  • Step 1: Create a Demo or Permanent account
  • Step 2: Adjust your settings
    • Customize your account
    • Configure people profile fields
    • Manage your subscription
    • Configure user roles and permissions
    • Import your data or let us import it for you
• Start Using ChMeetings
  • Step 1: Add and manage people
  • Step 2: Create groups by going to the Groups area 
  • Step 3: Start organizing events, via the Events section 
  • Step 4: Provide your members with access to ChMeetings, by going to Member Portal 
  • Step 5: Create forms, via the Forms section 
  • Step 6: Follow up with people, using the Follow Up area 
  • Step 7: Receive and manage contributions, via the Contributions section 
  • Step 8: View Reports from under the Reports section 

Configure your account

Step 1: Create a Demo or Permanent account

You can sign up for a free account or choose one of our paid plans. Read more about the benefits of a paid plan. 

If you would like to see how ChMeetings works, we recommend that you start with a demo account. This will not be specific to your church, but will contain sample people and data, so that you can test the platform and see if it is suitable for you. A demo account comes with the same features as a permanent account, both free and paid, and is meant to save you time by not requiring you to input information. You can sign up for a permanent account anytime, right from within the demo. 

Step 2: Adjust your settings

• Customize your account by going to Settings - Account Settings

Here is where you can customize general settings that apply throughout your account, such as: Church Name and URL, Date Format, Language, App Colors, etc. We recommend that you take full advantage of these settings in order to make the in-app experience unique to your church and community. A couple of examples include customizing app colors, using native names or promoting the school grade on a specific date (useful when working with children). For increased security, we also advise that you enforce strong passwords for all users. A regular password only requires 8 characters, while a strong password should be at least 8 characters long, and contain at least one lowercase letters, one capital letter, one number and one special character (for example: !, @, #, $). Learn more about managing your account settings. 

• Configure people profile fields by going to Settings - Profile Fields

This is where you can enable default profile fields that will apply to all your member profiles. You can also add your own, custom fields. This is your opportunity to customize the information you collect via user profile, so that it matches your church’s and your community’s needs. There are many default fields to choose from, but you can make profiles even more unique, by configuring custom fields.  Learn more about managing profile fields.

• Manage your subscription by going to Settings - Subscription

Here is where you can see what plan you currently have, your payment dates, payment cycle, available features and upgrade options. If you are on a free account, you will see the extra features that are only available for paid accounts. This is an easy way to keep track of your billing or upgrade to a superior plan. Read more about managing your billing.

• Configure user roles and permissions by going to Users & Roles - Roles & Permissions

This is where you can customize who has access to the app and what parts of the app they have access to. You can use the provided default roles or create your own. You can then assign specific roles to your users, so that you can ensure adequate privacy for your data. Learn more about users, roles and permissions

• Import your data by going to the Settings > Tools menu, or let us do it for you

You can import: people, contacts (via the mobile app), event attendance and giving. Learn More about importing data. If you subscribe to a paid plan, we will import your data for free. Please go to Help in the app and contact us to request this service. 

Start Using ChMeetings

Step 1: Add and manage people

You can do so by using the People section of ChMeetings. Read more details about the available features. If your church account includes several ministries, it is a good idea to assign each person to the ministry they belong to.

Step 2: Create groups by going to the Groups area 

This allows you to organize people based on your preferred criteria, such as the activities they undertake together.  Read more about Groups.

Step 3: Start organizing events, via the Events section 

Events will be added to your Calendar, which you can then Share, via the Calendar section. This makes it easier for everyone to be informed about your events and activities. Learn more about Events and the Calendar.

Step 4: Provide your members with access to ChMeetings, by going to Member Portal 

This allows everyone in your congregation to register as a member, view and manage their profile, view and register for events, submit forms, view their  contributions, etc. Learn more about Member Portal. 

Step 5: Create forms, via the Forms section 

These are fully customizable and allow you to easily gather information from your congregation. Learn more about working with Forms. You can get a form sharing link to add anywhere you like (in emails, notifications, SMS messages, on a website or on social media). In addition, each form is embeddable, so you can add it directly to your church website.

Step 6: Follow up with people, using the Follow Up area 

This is how you can easily stay in touch and keep track of specific discussions and people. This is particularly useful, for example, when you want to communicate more consistently with someone in need or you simply want to stay on track with different aspects that you need to manage with individual people. Read about Follow Ups.

Step 7: Receive and manage contributions, via the Contributions section 

Here is where you can view and manage giving activity. From under Contributions - Online Giving, you can also integrate a payment processor to enable online giving, which makes the entire process much faster and easier. Read more about our giving features.

Step 8: View Reports from under the Reports section 

You can find a wide variety of options. Reports are available both for you to gain access to insightful data, and so that you can restore archived or deleted people. (Please note: Archived people can be restored from both free and paid accounts. Deleted people can only be restored from a paid account.) Learn more about Reports.