Attendance

Headcounts and attendance

Count each service, let volunteers type the numbers from a link, and see the trend over weeks and months.

Who can see and enter numbers

  • Owners, admins and staff see Attendance and can enter headcounts.
  • Members can be given Headcounts only in Church settings › Staff & roles. They can type headcounts and see nothing else.
  • Only owners and admins can change the attendance settings.

Set up your headcounts

All three pages are in Church settings, under Attendance.

Headcount categories

These are the numbers people type for each service, like “Adults”, “Volunteers” or “YouTube”.

  1. Open Headcount categories and choose Add a category.
  2. Give it a name (up to 40 characters).
  3. Choose whether it counts as In person or Online. Online numbers are shown next to in-person numbers, never added to them.
  4. Choose the service types it’s typed for: every service type, or only some. Service types come from Vessel Worship.

Drag the grip, or use Move up and Move down, to change the order people type them in. A category that already has numbers can’t switch between in person and online, and can only be archived, not deleted. Archived categories keep their numbers in your history and reports.

Main services

Main services are added together for your weekly attendance number. Open Main services, tick only the services you’d report as your weekly attendance, and choose Save main services. Until you pick some, the dashboard adds up every service.

Campuses

If your church has two or more campuses, the dashboard lets you look at one campus or break the numbers down by campus.

Enter headcounts

  1. On the web, open Attendance and choose Enter headcounts.
  2. Pick the Service time. You’ll see today’s times, and times from the last 7 days that are still missing a number.
  3. Type each number, or use the plus and minus buttons.
  4. Choose Save headcounts.

Vessel Ministry has the same screen. The app is available on request — email support@vesselworship.org.

Screenshot to come: entering headcounts.

Headcount counters

Counters are people who type the numbers on Sunday without signing in or having the app. Before each main service, Vessel emails each counter a private link for that day.

  1. Open Church settings › Headcount counters.
  2. Choose Add a counter and pick an adult with an email address. Children can’t be counters.
  3. Choose whether they count every main service or only some service types.

Links go out by themselves about 2 hours before the first main service. A link only works for its church and day, and the counter can come back and change the numbers until the next night.

  • Someone lost their link, or the time changed? Choose Send the headcount link now…. Vessel shows who will get it before it sends.
  • To stop someone for a while, choose Pause their links. To stop them for good, choose Remove from counters…. Their links stop working straight away.

Kids checked in

Kids checked in with Vessel Check-Ins are counted for you, for each service time. You don’t need to count them by hand.

On the dashboard, kids are kept separate from your headcounts. To include them, tick Add kids checked in to the totals. On a phone, it’s under the More choices menu.

Careful not to count kids twice. If you also have a headcount category for kids, and you tick the box, those kids are counted twice. Vessel warns you when it spots this.

Under Attendance › Check-ins, you can see the kids checked in at each service, with a grade filter. First-time guests shows kids’ first check-ins, group visitors and connect cards over the last 8, 26 or 52 weeks.

Still stuck?

Email support@vesselworship.org and tell us your church’s name and what you were trying to do.