Product Updates | Shepherd’s Staff Blog

The Shepherd’s Staff 2020 software will work on the premise that everyone in a congregation has a household. For this reason, when a person is created, selecting or creating a household will be required. Earlier versions required you to create a household first, then add people to the household. This updated module streamlines this process by creating both households and people in the same window.

People

To add a person:

1. Go to the People Tab in Membership. It should automatically default to the Individuals section.
2. Double-click the Add button.
3. The pop-up window gives you the choice of using an existing household name or to create a new one. If you choose to create a new household, you will be prompted to create a household name. The household name you create will automatically populate the last name field, but you are free to change it. If you do not know the person’s address you can check Address Unknown.
   Note: Fields with an asterisk in the title are required. You can change the optional fields shown when adding a person in the Tools / Settings Tab.
4. Click Save
5. If you go to Edit window after save is checked, an additional window will pop up for you to add more information for that person’s profile.

Households

You can also create a household and add people to it, like earlier versions.

To add a household:

1. Go to the People tab in Membership.
2. Click the Households sub tab.
3. Click the Add button.
4. Type in the household name and enter a member of the household. The household name you type in will automatically populate the last name field, but you are free to change it.
   Note: Fill in as much or as little information you prefer.
5. Click Save.
6. If you go to edit window after save is checked, an additional window will pop up for you to add more information for that household’s profile including adding more members.

Non-Households

This new Membership module also introduces the option to create a non-household for individuals. Non-households can be churches, businesses, or organizations. The work flow is similar to the steps for adding a household with individual. The difference is the user starts from the Non-households sub tab and the Non-households Box will be checked by default when the Add a Non-household window appears.

Visitors

To add a visitor:

1. Go to the People tab in Membership.
2. Double-click the Add button.
3. The pop-up window gives you the option of using an existing household name or creating a new one. If you choose to create a new household you will be prompted to create a household name. The household name you create will automatically populate the last name field, but you are free to change it.
4. Click Save
5. If Go to Edit window after save is checked, an additional window will pop up for you to add more information for that person’s profile.
6. In this additional window, you can denote that a person is a visitor by expanding the Church section. Then select that this person is a Non-Member. Then use the Participation drop down menu to Visitor.

Navigating through Your Membership Records

Similar to the way the dashboard can be used to show your membership activity at a glance, the household tree is also available to show your member information at a glance.

• You can access this tree by double-clicking a person or household in a grid. A record will appear.
• The tree to the left depicts your households. The numbers in parenthesis show the number of members in each household or non-household.
• You can click on a household to view members. Next to their names, there is an avatar colored according to their participation in the church.
  • If the person is green, they are a full member.
  • If the person is blue, they are a visitor.
  • If the person is yellow, they are inactive.
  • If the person is red, they are deceased.
• You can click the household name again to hide individual information.

Defaults When Adding New People

Most of your congregation will most likely be in the physical vicinity of the church and our new version helps fill in defaults for your convenience.

• In the Membership module, go to the Tools/Settings tab.
• By checking the Defaults box when adding new people, you will be allowed to put in a default location to expedite entering in new people.
• In addition to location, you can also choose correspondence defaults for newsletters, cutoff dates for grades, and name format. The fields you choose will appear when adding new people.
• Checking the Include in Church360° Unite allows this information to be sent directly to your Church360° Unite website.

For an overview of how to use Shepherd's Staff 2020, or to see demonstrations on how to use these new features, please watch the video below.