Contents

• Watch an 86s video about working with Events
• What you can do with Events
• Introduction
• Adding a new event
  • Basic event details
  • Event image and description (Optional)
  • Calendar setup 
  • Attendance Setup 
    • Choose who can attend
    • Enable Self Check In
    • Add a Mandatory Check In Form
    • Configure Child Check-in
    • Set Event Publication Date
  • Recurring events setup (Optional)
  • Location (Optional)
  • Managers (Optional)
  • Registration and payment setup (Optional)
• Editing an existing event
  • Editing a one-time event
  • Deleting a recurring event or its occurrences
• Deleting an existing event
  • Deleting a one-time event
  • Deleting a recurring event or its occurrences

 

Watch an 86s video about working with Events

What you can do with Events

• One-time and Recurring Events
• Member and Guest Registration
• Payments and Refunds
• Attendance Tracking & Child Checkin
• Volunteer Scheduling / Rota
• Calendars

Introduction

Organizing church events is easy, with ChMeetings’ dedicated Events module. Here is where you can create a list of your events, share them with people, register and check in participants, and retrieve related lists and reports. 

Adding a new event

To add a new event to ChMeetings, please follow the steps below:

• Go to the Events module. Here is where you will see a list of any existing events.
• Click on Add Event.

• You are now ready to fill out your event details.  

Basic event details

Add the following basic details to your new event:

• A Title.
• A Start date and time.
• An end date and time.
• Whether this is an all day or multi-day event.

Event image and description (Optional)

If you want to add an image and a description to your event, please toggle the Image and Description switch to the ON position. Next: 

• Click on Add image, then browse your computer for the image you want to add. The resolution should be 620x200 pixels.
• Enter your event description text into the Description editor area.

• If you would like to replace or remove the image of an event, click the edit (pencil) icon, found in the top right corner of the image. Here is where you can choose to Replace the Image (browse your computer for a new one), or Remove the image altogether.

• The banner image can be accompanied by Alt Text, for better accessibility for blind users and members. You can add it by clicking the accessibility icon at the top right of the image, then entering the text in the field. Be sure to click OK to save your text when ready. 

Calendar setup 

This is where you can choose which Calendar to add this event to. If you do not select one, the event will be added to the “Meetings” calendar by default.

All calendars, except for the one dedicated to Meetings, allow you to optionally limit people’s registration to the events added to the respective calendar. If you enable this option, please enter for how many days you would like to prevent people from registering to other events within the selected calendar.  Once you add a number of days to this field within any event, then the setting will apply to all events within the same calendar for which you have enabled registration.

If you need to add a new calendar, please click the Settings (⚙) icon. In the window that comes up, enter your calendar’s Name, select a color to associate with it, or add your own HEX color code, then click Save.

Attendance Setup 

Here is where you can set who can attend your event: 

Choose who can attend

• Set Attendance to: “All”, “Groups”, “ Form Respondents” or “No One”. If you have enabled registration for this event, you can only choose between “All” people or “Groups”. Here are the options that some attendance option reveals:
• Form respondents will allow you to choose the form based on which you would like to create the event.
• Groups will allow you to select which Groups can attend. 
• Set the Visibility to one of the following: 
  • Users: The event is only visible to church staff with ChMeetings access (all roles except for Member). Learn more about roles.
  • Members: Everyone with a ChMeetings account can see the event, regardless of role (User or Member). Learn more about how church members can get access. Events with visibility set to “User” or “Member” are not shareable outside ChMeetings, but are visible within the Events module for Users (in the Admin View) or for Members (in the Member View), respectively.
  • Public Anyone can see the event when you share the link.

Enable Self Check In

• To see these options, your event visibility needs to be set to either “Member” or “Public”. When this is active, people can check themselves in once the event starts. At the end of the event, the option will be automatically disabled. 
• Additionally, you can enable Self Check-In using a QR Code. When this is active, you can generate and print a QR code, then display it at your event’s location. When attendants arrive, they can scan this code to check themselves in. Codes are available when accessing your event detail pages.   

Your event QR code can be easily retrieved from within the event’s menu, under the Check In QR code option.

When self check-in is enabled for an event, members will see a button next to it, within their list of upcoming events. This button will allow them to check in for the event, once it starts. If QR code check-in is enabled, it will be the default option on this button. Attendants will need to provide access to their camera, scan the code, then choose who to check in. They can use this feature to check-in themselves and their families as well. Here is what this feature looks like for members, on the mobile app: 

Add a Mandatory Check In Form

All forms you create via the Forms module will become available to select within the event editing window. This is very useful when you want to obtain information before checking people in for an event. If you choose to add a form here, it will be automatically displayed during Check In. 

Configure Child Check-in

In this section, you can configure the Child Check-in feature, which includes the following:

• Enable Check Out - Allows you to check people out of an event, after they have checked in.
• Enable Check-In by Family - This feature displays a menu of family members when you select to check someone in for an event, so you can quickly tick everyone who is participating in the event. 
  • Note: Enable Print Name Tags for Child and Parents - When this feature is active, a name tag will be printed for parents and children who check in for an event. Clicking Preview next to this feature (within the event settings window) allows you to see what these could look like. See supported printers.
    
• Include Child Name - This field lets you include the child’s name on the parents’ nametag.
• Include Custom Fields - This feature allows you to select two custom profile fields to display on the child's name tag. This is useful when you want to display specific information on the tag, such as Allergies, Nutritional Requirements, etc.

Set Event Publication Date

Enable Publish On to choose the date and time when the event will be visible to members within their calendars or upcoming events widget. This way, the event will not be published immediately. Instead, you can set it up and choose when it should be made public.

 

Recurring events setup (Optional)

If your event is recurring, then you can turn on the Event Repeat toggle. This will allow you to configure the following: 

• How often the event repeats: daily, weekly, every two weeks, monthly, or yearly.
• The days on which the event takes place. You will have the option to select specific dates or weekdays, depending on the recurrence option you choose. For weekly and by-weekly events, you can choose specific weekdays. For monthly events, you can choose a specific weekday within the month, from first to fourth (e,g.: Second Sunday), or a certain day of the month.
  
• The end date of the repeat, which will represent the date at which the events stop taking place. Simply enter the date or use the calendar tool in the field to select it.

Location (Optional)

Here is where you can choose to display the physical location where your event takes place. You can type in the address to Search Google Maps, or use the locator to automatically select your actual location. Note that this feature requires that you grant ChMeetings access to your location. Please click on Allow so that this feature can work. 

Managers (Optional)

This section allows you to assign a manager to your event - whether you are creating or editing it. The person assigned as such will have access to event related activities, such as event editing, registration, cancellations, checkin, volunteers, etc. However, they will not have access to the rest of your database. To assign someone as a manager, they need to have a ChMeetings account under any role (Member, Leader, etc.)

To find the person you need to add as a manager:

• Type their name in the search field or use the dropdown arrow to browse the list of available people. Click the name when found.  
• Next, click the Add button to add the person as a manager for the event.

To delete a manager, click the Delete sign next to their name.

Please watch the short demonstration below to see how to use these options.

Save your event

When you have completed the sections above, please click on Save to make sure your event is saved.

 

Registration and Payment setup (Optional)

If you want to enable registration for this event, please switch to the Registration tab and toggle Registration to the ON position. Registration is optional, and you can enable it when setting up the event or afterward, provided the event has no attendance. You can configure event registration and payments as follows:

• Require a Registration Form : this allows you to select an existing form that participants must fill out before registering for the event. If you add a registration form, you can easily reach its responses using the Forms button on the event’s details page. This button only displays if the event has a form associated with it. Event managers can see responses without being able to edit the form.
  
  

• Don’t allow cancellation - You can set how many hours before the event you would like to stop allowing people to cancel their registration.

• Enable Guests, if you want to allow the registration of guests to your event. 

• Enable ticket payments if you want participants to pay for the event.

• Add Ticket Type to create different types of available tickets, and give them a name. 

  • Set the Available Ticket Count, either per event or per ticket type.

    • When configuring tickets per event, you can set the total ticket count per event, and have the option to switch on “Per family” if you want to enable people to register for one ticket, but come to the event with other members of their family. If you toggle on “Unlimited” then there will be no limit to the number of people who can register. 

    • When configuring tickets per ticket type, you can customize the ticket count for each ticket type.

  • Add a custom payment account: If you need event payments to go to a different account than the one you integrated for e.g. Online Giving, then you can configure a custom account for every event. For the moment, this feature supports PayPal accounts, for which you need to know the associated email in order to add it.

  • Enable partial payments if you would like to allow participants to pay in multiple installements.

  • Enable Pay Later to allow participants to skip the payment during registration and pay later instead; for example, in cash, on-site.

• Enable Donation: This option allows you to collect donations during event registration. You can name your donation section, add a suggested amount, and select the fund to which the donations will be assigned. Once this feature is enabled, members will see a donation section on the event registration page, and they will be able to donate upon registration. You can use this feature together with ticket payments.

Please see How to enable and manage event registration and payment for details on this section.

Editing an existing event

To edit an existing event:

• Go to the Events module, where you will see a list of upcoming events. Find the event that you would like to edit, and click on it.

• You will now see your main event screen, where all related details and options will be displayed. 

Editing a one-time event

• If you are editing a one-time event, then you will see the event options on the top right corner of your screen, where you can press the options button and then select Edit.

Editing a recurring event or its occurrences

• If you are editing a recurring event, then you can also find the Edit option by clicking the options button at the top right. This option allows you to edit the entire event. 

• If you would like to edit a specific occurrence, please find it in the occurrences list on the left, then click the options button next to it to find the Edit option for that occurrence. You can change the start and end dates to adjust the period for which you’d like to view or edit occurrences.

• When using this option, you will only be able to edit specific details, which will only update the selected occurrence, not the entire event. Here is a list of fields you can edit: 
• Title.
• Start Time.
• End Time.
• Image and description.
  
• Available Ticket Count.
• Turn on/off unlimited tickets.
• Enable or disable cancellations within a desired amount of hours before the event.
• Self Check In.

Note: You can also edit the main event or a specific occurrence from the occurrence registration page, using the options menu at the bottom right. This page is accessible via the main event screen, as well as through the calendar. 

Deleting an existing event

You can delete an entire event (whether one-time or recurring), or an occurrence (if the event is recurring).

Deleting a one-time event

If you want to delete a one-time event, then please see the event options on the top right corner of your screen, where you can press the options button and then select Delete. 

• Deleting an event will remove all data associated with it, including recorded attendance. Please confirm your choice by clicking again on Delete. Click Cancel if you change your mind.

Deleting a recurring event or its occurrences

• If you want to delete a recurring event, then you can find the Delete option by clicking the options button at the top right. This option allows you to delete the entire event, along with all data associated with it, including recorded attendance. 

• Please confirm your choice by clicking again on Delete. Click Cancel if you change your mind.

• If you would like to delete a specific occurrence, please find it in the occurrences list on the left, then click the options button next to it to find the Delete option for that occurrence. Note that this list only displays future occurrences of the event and those that have passed can no longer be deleted.

• Deleting an event’s occurrence will remove the data and attendance associated with the selected occurrence. It will not remove the data associated with other occurrences of the same event. Please confirm your choice by clicking again on Delete. Click Cancel if you change your mind.

• A third option is to delete the event (if one-time) or one of its occurrences (if recurring) from the event registration page, at the bottom left, where you can press Delete, then confirm your choice.