Add and edit members

Every member has a record with their personal details, their place in the church (rung, leader and roles) and everything your church wants to keep about that person.

Add a person

1. In Members, select New member.

2. Fill in the record. First name, Last name, Gender and Nationality are required, along with the rung and at least one role. The Email address is optional, but without it the person can’t be invited to the app.

3. Select Save.

You can also add many people at once with a spreadsheet: Import and export.

What the record holds

The form is split into sections:

• Personal: first name, last name, email, gender, date of birth, marital status, nationality and ID document. The document type and number go together: if you fill in one, the other is required.
• Contact: two phone numbers, each with its country code, and the address.
• Ministry: the rung on the Growth Ladder, the direct leader and the dates the person joined, was baptized and converted, plus their previous church. The leader starts as Unassigned: you can leave it that way and place the person later, or pick whoever leads them now. On the top rung, that option is called Root of the tree: the person heads their own branch.
• Role: the person’s access roles. Disciple by default.
• Tags: tags from your church’s catalog.
• Additional: internal notes, emergency contact and profession.
• Family: their ties to other members or contacts: Family and marriage.
• Custom fields: the ones your church has created for members.
• Invitation: whether the app invitation is sent when you save.

The email, when there is one, identifies the person

The email address is optional: you can add someone who doesn’t have one, such as a child or a person who doesn’t use email. If you enter it, it can’t be repeated within the church, and neither can the ID document (no two records can have the same type and number): it’s the address the person signs in to the app with if you invite them. If you try to add someone who already exists, Inperia warns you: Duplicates and merging records explains how.

Without an email the person can’t be invited. And if they later join through a registration link, Inperia can’t tell they already have a record and creates another one: the two are combined with Merge. To avoid that, add their email to the record before you share the link with them.

View and edit a record

When you select a person in the list, their record opens on the right. It has up to four tabs:

• Data: all their information, grouped by section. If they have an address and you can see it, Get directions opens Google Maps directions to it.
• Attendance: how they’ve been coming to meetings. Each person’s attendance explains it, and the permission it requires.
• Courses: the courses they passed and every place they had in a group, with its attendance. Give a course gives a course to that person alone. Groups and one-to-one courses explains it.
• History: who changed what and when. It logs which fields changed, not their values. It requires the View change history permission.

From the record:

• Edit opens the same form with the details filled in, except the email address, which is added, changed or removed from the contact section.
• Growth ladder promotes, demotes or moves the person: Promote, demote and change leaders.
• Merge combines this record with another record of the same person.
• Send invitation invites them to use the app, and Archive takes them off the roll.

If someone else has the same record open at the same time, Inperia lets you know so you don’t overwrite each other’s changes.

Add, change or remove the email

To add an email to a record that doesn’t have one, use Add email in the contact section. Being able to edit members or send invitations is enough. The address can’t be repeated within the church, and you can’t add it to someone who has a role you couldn’t give them: their invitation would go to that address, and whoever accepts it would have that role.

To change it, use Change email. You need the Change login email permission. If the person doesn’t use the app yet, the change is made directly and, if they had a pending invitation, it’s resent to the new address. If they already use the app, their email is their username. In that case you have to confirm your identity, and the change applies right away. The new address gets a link to verify it, and the old one gets a notice. An owner’s email can only be changed by that owner. And you can’t change the email of someone who has a role you couldn’t give them, even if they don’t use the app yet: their invitation would go to the new address, and whoever accepts it would have that role.

To remove it, use Remove email, with the same permission. It’s only possible while the person doesn’t use the app: if they had a pending invitation, it’s cancelled.

Active and inactive

A member’s status is Active or Inactive:

• Active: the person takes part as usual and, if they have access, signs in to the app.
• Inactive: they lose access to the app, leave the cell groups they were in and stop being responsible for their contacts. Reactivating them doesn’t undo those changes.

An inactive member still takes up a spot in your plan’s limit. To free the spot, archive them: Archive, restore and delete.