One-time events or last-minute changes to your weekly services may happen a few times a year. Holidays, weather cancellations, or bi-annual member meetings may all be a little different than your regular programming, so there are a few things to consider as you decide whether to create a separate event or use your current event for your special service. Check-Ins, Services, and Calendar all have some tips!
Sometimes, special services like Christmas Eve and Good Friday run differently than your regular service, so those services should be created as separate events. Create a separate event if you:
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Are meeting on a different day than your regular programming
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Don't want to include these numbers in your regular reporting
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Want to compare attendance year over year
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Need largely different locations/location filters
Follow these steps for your separate event:
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Create a new event with the appropriate times for your special service.
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If you use the same locations as your typical weekly event, copy locations from your regular event. If your locations differ, create new locations.
Tip
If your volunteers are scheduled to a special service or plan in Services, make sure the times, position names, and location names match! Then, you can enable the Services integration so that volunteers are suggested their correct location and checked in as the correct type.
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Add/remove labels and double-check your Church Center settings. If you don't need labels printed, enable complete check-in so that folks joining from home can record their attendance!
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Set up additional stations and test things out.
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No profiles will show on the Ready tab of any Roster station since there are no past check-ins for this new event. You can still search for anyone and check them in on the roster, but if you need to use populated roster stations, consider adding check-ins to a past session.
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Any profiles with Ignore age and grade filters selected must have their location chosen manually.
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You can set up all of your stations ahead of time and save those settings in a template that can be applied/scheduled for the day of your event.
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If this event happens at the same time as your regular programming, lock your stations to your special service to avoid accidental check-ins to your regular service event.
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If this is a service or event you'll likely have again, archive it between occurrences and unarchive it when it comes up again in the year. Choose to Start a new session from the Settings tab to set up the new date/time, and attendance across years for the same special service type can live in one event!
If a holiday falls on a Sunday, the weather is poor, or you plan to add another gathering to your regular programming for a week, add a new time to your existing event instead of creating a new event. This allows you to include the service's numbers in your regular reporting, add another gathering to the same day as your regular programming, and use the same locations/location filters.
Follow these steps to add a new Time:
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You can use the calendar/session arrows under the event title to go to the next future session in your current event.
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On the Times tab, select New Time.
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Set up the new service with the start time, show-at, and hide-at times.
When adding a time to a current event, there are a few things to remember:
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Profiles will not show on the Ready tab of any Roster station since there are no past check-ins at this new time. You can still search for anyone and check them in on the roster, but if you need to use populated roster stations, consider adding check-ins to a past session.
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If this is a single-day event, you must remove the time you've added from the next session. Following the same steps above, go to the next future session and delete the unneeded time from the Times tab.
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If you add additional times for services in the evening or midweek, anyone who attends an earlier service time will show as being Already checked in if they return for the later service time. They can still check in but will need to either:
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Tap the Edit pencil when checking in again and manually select the later service time.
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Or, check out of the earlier service before checking in to the later one.
Tip
In many cases, evening or midweek services should be separated into different events.
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