You will need the Limited Account permission to update your account details, and the Full Account permission to add organizations, assign add-on seats or change your subscription. Adding an organization also needs no campus or organization limit and no campus override. A Super User can do every step in this guide.
Welcome to One Church Software! This checklist walks you through setting up your new account, from filling in your church's information to inviting your congregation. Work through the steps in order. Most churches complete the first seven steps in their first week and the last three as they are ready to launch.
Your checklist
Update your account information
Decide on organizations, campuses and venues
Schedule training
Set your directory privacy settings
Set up One Church Giving
Set up text messaging
Add people to your database
Decide on permission levels and access
Invite your church members
Start using the ministry modules
Set up your account
1. Update your account information
In the left-hand menu, under your name, select Account settings.
Open the Organizations tab and edit your default organization. Confirm your church's name, EIN, address, phone, email and website, and add your logo. Your address is what lets members find your church in the My One Church mobile app.
On the Settings tab, set your time zone and add your icon and brand colors so the software matches your church's look.
Every account starts with one organization, called the default organization. It takes your account's name, EIN, logo, address, phone, email and website the first time it is used. When you save the default organization, its name, EIN, phone and address are written back to your account, and clearing one of them clears it on the account too.
2. Decide on organizations, campuses and venues
Decide how your church is structured before you set up giving or texting, and before you import anyone. It is much easier to set this up first than to move records afterwards. Three things can look alike, but they work very differently:
Organizations - separate legal entities, each with its own EIN, books, giving setup, texting number and public site. A church that runs a school is the usual example.
Campuses - locations inside one organization. Campuses share that organization's books and giving.
Venues - rooms and resources for booking only. They hold no records and do not limit what staff can see.
Many churches need none of these yet. If you have one location and one legal entity, skip ahead to step 3.
Neither campuses nor organizations are a switch you turn on directly. Multi-campus turns on when your plan includes it and two or more campuses are active. Multi-organization turns on when two or more organizations are active.
Warning: Adding a second organization runs a one-time cutover. Every record with no campus and no organization is assigned to the default organization, and the new organization starts empty. The cutover is a one-way step, and financial records can never be set to All afterwards, so create your organizations before you import people and giving.
Do it in this order:
Decide on your structure.
Create any extra organizations at Account settings, on the Organizations tab, with Add New.
Add your campuses at Settings & Tools > Your Organization > Campuses.
Continue with the rest of this checklist, and import your data in step 7.
What is an organization? and What is the difference between a campus and a venue? explain the structure, and How do I add a second organization? walks through the cutover.
Set up each organization
If your account has more than one organization, each one has its own settings. Work through this list for every organization, including the default one:
Add-on seats - buy them on the Billing tab of Account settings, then assign them by editing the organization on the Organizations tab. A new organization starts with none. How do add-on seats work? explains seats.
Fiscal year and accounting method - set them for the organization at Accounting > Settings, on the Options tab. A new organization starts with a January fiscal year and the accrual method. See What is the difference between cash and accrual accounting?
Merchant account - each organization enrolls its own. See step 5.
Texting number - each organization activates and verifies its own. See step 6.
Public site - a new organization starts with its public site turned off, so nothing is live until you turn it on. See How do I set public visibility settings?
Directory rules and privacy defaults - each organization sets its own. See step 4.
3. Schedule training
Our software experts are ready to train you and your team so you start with a strong foundation.
Select your name in the top-right corner of the toolbar.
Choose Schedule a Training and pick a time that works for your team.
Tip: One training session per month is included on Core Plus plans. Other plans are charged per session.
Reference: How do I schedule a training session?
Additional training resources
The Learning Center at OneChurchSoftware.com/learn has video courses organized by module.
Help articles live at Support.OneChurchSoftware.com. You can also open them from the question-mark icon in the toolbar inside your account.
Our support team is happy to help: How do I contact support?
4. Set your directory privacy settings
Note: Setting these prior to adding profiles to your database ensures everyone is brought in with the same settings. Changes made to the default privacy settings later may result in different defaults across profiles, the need for a mass change, or overriding a person's own privacy preferences.
Select Contacts in the left-hand menu.
Select the Settings tab.
Decide whether members with Guest access can see the church directory, and which fields are visible when they do. If your account has more than one organization, each organization has its own directory rules and privacy defaults, so repeat this for each one.
5. Set up One Church Giving
Go to Contributions > Settings.
Select the Merchant Accounts tab.
Choose Open New Account.
In the window that opens, review the fee rate and enter your organization's information, including the bank account where donations should be deposited.
If your account has more than one organization, each organization opens its own merchant account. The EIN must match that organization's EIN, and a merchant account's EIN cannot be changed once it is set.
Reference: How do I set up One Church Giving?
6. Set up text messaging
Go to Settings & Tools (cog icon in the tool-bar) > Messaging Center > Overview.
In the Text Messaging panel, click Enable, pick a number and accept the agreements.
Verify your number. Phone carriers block texts until a number is verified, and only a verified number can send. See How do I verify my text messaging phone number?
If your account has more than one organization, each organization holds its own number, and each number is activated and verified separately. When you activate a number, you choose its organization, and you need access to every campus to do it.
Reference: How do I enable text messaging?
7. Add people to your database
A database is only helpful once it has data in it. If you need more than one organization, finish step 2 first so your organizations and campuses exist before anyone is imported. You have three ways to get your people into One Church Software:
Add people manually, one at a time, from Contacts.
Import in bulk using the built-in import tools. See How do I import data into One Church?
Ask our team to migrate your data for you. Select your name in the top-right corner of the toolbar and choose Request Data Import.
Tip: The import tools accept more than people. You can also import giving records, attendance, and other historical data.
Let people add their own information
Share your account URL. Anyone who visits it can select Register, create a profile, and fill in their own details. See the login page screenshot in step 9.
Share an online form. Build a form that collects contact details, and check the Create new profile if submission cannot be matched to an existing person profile box in the Editing Submitter Profile Information window so new people are added automatically. See the Forms collection to get started.
Bring your church on board
8. Decide on permission levels and access
Before you invite anyone, decide who gets which level of access. Most churches use three tiers:
Super User - full access to everything. Keep this to a very small number of people.
Custom or Role-based - staff and key leaders who need specific modules. See How do I set role-based permissions or role-based system access?
Guest - the bulk of your members. Guests can manage their own profile, give, and register for events. Their directory access is controlled by the settings you chose in step 4.
The Security & Access Control collection covers permissions in detail.
Tip: Our system overview videos are organized by module, so you can send each person only the videos that match their level of access. They live in an unlisted YouTube playlist that anyone with the link can watch.
9. Invite your church members
Because One Church Software lives in the cloud, your members can reach your church's login page from anywhere. We suggest starting with a mass email that introduces the software and explains how to log in or register.
Build a polished announcement email with the email template builder. See How do I create and insert email templates?
Include your account URL so people can register or log in.
Optionally, link to About One Church Software and the member-friendly introduction video below.
Sample announcement email
Church Family,
We are excited to announce that we have started using One Church Software, an online church engagement tool that will help us stay better connected as a church. We are passionate about our mission of [insert your mission statement here], and we believe this tool will help us in that pursuit.
With it, you will have access to our ministry areas, whether that is connecting with groups or volunteer teams, learning about church events, watching sermons, and much more. When you have a few minutes, I encourage you to watch a brief overview of One Church Software.
You can reach the login portal at [YourAccountURL].OneChurchSoftware.com, where you can claim your profile or register.
Blessings,
Your Pastor
Member-friendly video introducing One Church Software
Other ways to give people access
Self-registration on the login page. Anyone who visits your account URL can select Register and create their own account.
Registration in the My One Church mobile app.
Download the My One Church app from the App Store or Google Play.
Find your church by location or ZIP code. If your church has more than one organization in the app, each one appears as its own row.
Open the menu in the top-left corner and select Sign In or Register.
Select Register Now and follow the prompts.
Grant access in bulk from the Query Builder. Use this carefully, because every person on the list receives an email.
Run a report in Reporting > Query Builder that returns the people you want to give access to.
Select Bulk Actions > Mass change, choose Perform an action, tick Grant Access under Security, and click Done. Then click the Update Profiles button, which shows how many people will be changed.
Each person receives an email with a link to set up their account. A sample is shown below.
10. Start using the ministry modules
You are set up! From here, explore the modules your church will use most. Each has its own collection of help articles.