Managing Groups Using InFellowship. A guide for Small Group Leaders

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1 Managing Groups Using InFellowship A guide for Small Group Leaders

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3 3 Managing Groups Using InFellowship Table of Contents MyLifePoint your InFellowship account...4 InFellowship Groups - Your Dashboard...5 Managing Group Settings...6 Adding Group Members...7 Adding Group Members by Invitation...7 How does the Invitation Work?...9 Adding Group Members Using the Dashboard...10 Managing the Group Schedule...11 Deleting a Schedule ing the group...14 Taking Attendance...16 Attendance Reminders...17 Working with Prospects-Before They Become Members...18 Accepting a Prospect...19 If a Prospect Agrees to Become a Member...20 Denying a Prospect...21 Prospect Trouble-shooting...21 Finding a Group...22 How it works...22

4 4 MyLifePoint your InFellowship account To use the mylifepoint InFellowship site, you need to create an account. If you've ever registered online for a LifePoint event or given online, your account is already created. This account attaches to your record in our church database. You now have control over your account and can keep your contact information up to date. Go to and click the button to get started. Once you log in, you can access your groups, update your profile or privacy settings, or find available groups. Clicking on Your Groups brings you to a list of groups that you either lead or belong to. When you click on an individual group, you will see the Dashboard.

5 5 InFellowship Groups - Your Dashboard The Dashboard feature of InFellowship Groups is the "news" center for a specific group that you lead. If you lead more than one group, you will have the ability to scroll to other groups by clicking on the up/down arrows next to the current group name. The Dashboard displays information you need at a glance that is pertinent to your group. You will see the group schedule and location as well as time zone, description and start date.

6 6 Managing Group Settings After logging in, a group leader can manage his or her group settings. You can: Configure your bulletin board Edit your group details Edit your meeting schedule and location Invite or add people to your group Send an to your group (or to individuals within your group) Manage your prospects (people who have expressed an interest in joining your group) Post Attendance Note your group should initially be set up by the Small Group Admin, but if anything changes (time, location, etc.) you can edit these things yourself. The other tabs in the Dashboard are: Roster (list of current group members) Attendance Prospects (potential group members)

7 7 Adding Group Members Keeping an accurate list of group members is important. When people want to join your group, this can happen several ways: They can be invited to join the group by a leader or another member. Leaders can manually add them. They can request to join your group via Group Finder. Adding Group Members by Invitation Leaders can send an invitation directly from InFellowship. To invite someone to join the group 1. Sign into InFellowship. The list of groups that you belong to or lead will appear. 2. Click the name of the group to manage. The group roster appears. 3. In the Actions area, click Invite someone to join. 4. Enter as much information as possible about the person you are inviting.

8 8 5. Click Next. InFellowship will try to match the individual to an existing record. All possible matches display. 6. Do one of the following: o o Click Select beside a matching record. Click Select beside the original entry you made. 7. Confirm the invitation by clicking Send invitation. The individual appears in the Prospects list and can be worked like any other prospect. Additionally, all leaders of the group (including the leader that sent the invitation) are notified by that a new prospect has been added.

9 9 How does the Invitation Work? The individual you invited will receive a notification with your personal message along with a link to join the group. Prospects will have 30 days to respond to the message before the link expires. Once the link is clicked, this individual has the ability to join or decline as shown below: If the person elects to join, they will be asked to sign in or to create an account if they do not already have one. Once they have created their account, they are added to the group roster. If for some reason they do not finish creating their account, they remain in the prospect list until their account is completed (this needs to happen within 30 days). They can resume account creation by referring back to their invitation and clicking on the link to access InFellowship and complete their account.

10 10 Adding Group Members Using the Dashboard As a leader of a group, you are able to add members to your group without having to send them an invitation. Important! When Group Leaders add someone to the group roster, they are bypassing permissions and privacy settings. When members join through an invitation, they are giving permission to be seen in the group. They are also able to adjust their privacy settings. When Group Leaders add new group members, they should be informed that they can adjust privacy settings to their liking. To add a new group member, log in to InFellowship, toggle to the Group you want to work with and click Add or Invite someone (on the Dashboard or the Roster tab). Next, use the Search feature to find the person you want to add to the group. Tip! Type in the full name of the person you want to find. The system is looking for an exact match. For example, if you search for Jane Do, the system will not find Jane Doe. You may be presented with more that one potential match. Select the person you wish to add and then choose Add to Group. When you select Add to Group, a confirmation message will be displayed. You can choose Add to Group or Cancel.

11 11 Managing the Group Schedule The group schedule is an important part of your group settings. The schedule should be kept up-to-date as much as possible. It tells prospects and members when your group typically meets. A nice feature of the schedule is that you can choose to notify group members when you update the group's schedule to let everyone know there has been a change. One important thing to note about your schedule is that if your schedule ends, your group will no longer appear in the group search results when people are looking for a group to join. To create or edit a group schedule: 1. Click the name of your group to view the group roster. 2. Click the Dashboard link to view your group settings.

12 12 4. Click Edit schedule in the Actions list on the right side of the page, or click edit beside Schedule. The Group schedule form appears. 5. Enter a Start date by typing the date or selecting it from the calendar icon. Enter the Start time by typing the time (add AM or PM after the time to indicate morning or evening meetings) or select the time the group meets by clicking on the clock icon.

13 6. Optionally, if your group meets with a specific end time, select the End check box. You can then type the End time or click the clock icon to select the end time. 7. Select one of the following options: 13 o o This is a one-time event this option creates a single schedule with no future meeting dates for your group. Once this schedule is in the past, this group will no longer appear in the group search results. This repeats weekly this option provides you with day of week selections along with an option to choose the recurrence pattern for your group. For example, you can select Wednesday and then choose 2 weeks as the recurrence pattern to create a schedule that meets every two weeks on Wednesdays. You may also choose to select the Stops repeating check box to enter an end date for this schedule. o This repeats monthly this option allows you to choose which day of the month the group meets as well as set a recurrence pattern for how often the group meets. For example, you can choose the first Wednesday of every month. You may also choose to select the Stops repeating check box to enter an end date for this schedule.

14 14 8. By default, group members are notified when you update or change your schedule. If you don t want this, clear the Yes, notify all members if the schedule has changed check box. 9. Click Save schedule. Deleting a Schedule You may delete a schedule at any time. Follow steps 1-3 above to access your schedule. Click Delete this schedule to clear your previous schedule. ing the group The tool is used to send simple messages to your group members. It does not support any kind of special formatting. Additionally, there is no ability to see previously sent ; however, all leaders will receive a copy of sent. Note: Recipients can unsubscribe from s from the InFellowship application. If a group member has unsubscribed, they will not receive your . They do have the option to opt back in to using their InFellowship account - Profile settings > Update your profile. > uncheck the Unsubscribe box. To send an 1. Click Home and Your Groups. Click the name of the group to manage. The group roster appears. 2. Click Send an to the group in the Actions list on the right side of the page.

15 15 3. Select the recipients by choosing one of the following options: o Send an to everyone in the group this option will include all group members. A copy of the is sent to leaders of the group by default. or o Let me choose which people to this option displays the roster and allows you to select the check box beside individuals to Type a Subject. 5. Type a Message. 6. Optionally, click Attach a file to upload an attachment. You may upload one attachment which cannot exceed 1MB in file size. 7. Click Send now.

16 16 Taking Attendance Taking attendance in Small Groups helps LifePoint Church staff know how we are doing in our Grow strategy. Posting attendance is easy! Click the Attendance tab and then click Enter Attendance to get started. Select the date of the meeting from the drop-down menu and choose a radio button regarding whether or not the group met. Yes is the default selection. If the group met, select all the group members by clicking the box in the header bar of the roster or select members individually by clicking in the box next to a group member's name. Click Save attendance at the bottom of the screen. Don't see someone in the list? Now you can add them and post attendance all on the same day.

17 17 If your group did not meet, choose no and enter a note explaining why you didn't meet. Don't forget to click Save attendance. Note: If your group held an unscheduled meeting, choose Create a New Event from the drop down menu and then post attendance accordingly. Attendance Reminders You will receive a reminder based upon how you have configured your group's meeting schedule. The two options are as follows: Start time is present but no end time has been configured notice will be sent two hours after your scheduled start time. Start and End time are both configured two hours after the end time has passed. Click the link in the reminder to go directly to your group to post attendance.

18 The reminder will be sent to the address you use to sign into InFellowship. If you need to change this address, simply click the Account option at the top of the screen and choose Change /Password. 18 Working with Prospects - Before They Become Members The Prospects Tab is a list of people who have searched for and expressed interest in a group or people who have been invited to join the group by a leader or member. Prospect requests will be ed to group leaders, but the leader must sign into InFellowship to work with the prospect. Note: Remember that prospects will have 30 days to respond to a message before the link within it expires. If the prospect accepts the group invitation, they then have 30 days to complete their account creation. To view the prospect list: 1. Log in to InFellowship and click on the group to manage. 2. Click on the Prospects tab. 3. Click on the name of the prospect you wish to manage.

19 19 Once you receive a prospect in your group, it is your responsibility to follow up with that person. Group leaders can record prospect interactions in any of the following ways: Sending an Recording phone call notes the phone number is only available if the prospect elected to type it into the request form (it is not a required field, so a phone call may not be an option) Recording face-to-face meeting notes Recording personal notes (comments) Accepting a Prospect If you and the prospect have determined that your group would be a good fit for them, make sure that you record these notes. After recording any notes, click on Allow in the upper right hand corner. This will send an to the person that will give them the option to choose to join or not.

20 Note: It may seem odd that they expressed an interest and now have a chance to join or not - they get the final say! 20 If a Prospect Agrees to Become a Member Once the prospect accepts the invitation and joins the group, the system will determine whether or not he or she already has an account. If not, he or she will need to complete the account information before their membership is accepted.

21 Note: If for some reason the prospect does not complete the account information request, he or she will remain in the prospect list and not be added to the group roster until the request is completed. In this case, the prospect will need to refer back to the invitation and use the link to access InFellowship and complete the account creation. Once that is done, the prospect becomes a member of the group. 21 Denying a Prospect If you have made the determination that someone is not a good fit for your group or is unable to join at this time, please send an or have a phone conversation explaining why. This is very important. If you skip this step and simply click Deny, this person will never receive notification from you and will be left hanging wondering if he or she can join your group or not. After you have communicated why they may not join your group at this time, simply click Deny in the upper right hand corner of the screen. It will give you the opportunity to type in a comment there for your records NO comment or communication is sent to the prospect by clicking Deny. The information entered by Group Leaders can assist Pastors with follow-up for people who have outstanding interest in groups or have been denied. In Fellowship One, Small Group staff can log in and see how Group Leaders are doing with regard to prospects. Prospect Trouble-shooting If you have issues working with prospects (duplicate accounts, etc.), please contact the Small Group Admin.

22 22 Finding a Group The Group Finder is an easy way for people to search online for a group to join. Anyone can find this application by visiting the Small Group page on our church website. How it works People can search by Postal Code or by Category. People also can search for groups that provide childcare or groups that meet on a specific day. After searching, the results appear with a list of the groups that match the search criteria. Search filters appear at the top of the list to allow a person to further refine the search results. As shown in the image below, the results can display as a list or on a map.

23 Once people find a group they are interested in, they can click on the name of the group to see more details. Details can include the group description, the targeted gender, marital status and age range; the group's meeting schedule, and an approximate location as shown below: 23 If someone is interested in joining the group, the interest form on the right side of the page can be completed. Once submitted, an notification is sent to the leader(s) and the person will show up in the group s Prospect list.

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