Getting started
Twenty minutes from sign-up to your first invited member. You do not need a card, a spreadsheet or a committee.
1. Create your church
Go to the sign-up page and enter your church's name, your own name, an email address you check, and a password of at least 10 characters with an upper-case letter, a lower-case letter and a number. You become the church's first admin.
We send a verification link to that address. Click it, then sign in. Your 10-day trial starts now, with every feature turned on.
2. Make it look like your church
In Settings, upload your logo and choose an accent colour. Set your timezone so birthdays and the adult-transition queue run on the right day. Add a contact email and a sender name; that is what members see on invitations.
3. Decide three things
Three settings shape how your directory behaves. The defaults suit most churches, but look at them once:
- Allow members to hide fields. On by default. Members can hide their birthday, phone, email, allergies or photo from other members. Admins always see everything.
- Require approval for all edits. Off by default. When off, only names, addresses and family names go to the approval queue; everything else publishes instantly.
- Show children's birthdays to members. Off by default. Admins always see them.
4. Add your first families
Go to Families and add a family: the family name, address, home phone, and anniversary if you know it. Then add the people in it. Each person needs a first and last name and a role, adult or child. Adults can have an email address; children cannot sign in, so an email is never needed for them.
You can also add a person first and create a new family in the same step. Single adults are simply a family of one.
Mark one adult in each family as head of household. That person can keep the family's shared details current.
5. Invite people
When you add an adult with an email address, HomeField sends an invitation by default. The email contains a link where they set a password. Their record shows Invited until they do, then Active. You can resend an invitation from the person's page at any time.
Prefer to load everyone first and invite later? Untick "send invitation" when adding people, then resend from each person's page when you are ready.
6. Make another admin
Open a person's page and turn on Admin. Two admins are better than one; if you ever lose access to your own email, the other admin can fix it in a minute.
7. Tell your congregation
Members open the invitation email, set a password, and are in. On a phone, they can add the directory to the home screen from the browser's share or menu button; it then opens like an app with your logo as the icon. The member guide walks through it, and you are welcome to link to it.