People

Your church directory

Find people, keep households straight, record who may pick up each child, and tidy up duplicates.

The directory

Open People on the web. Owners, admins and staff see everyone. Group leaders see the people in their groups on each group’s roster instead.

  • Search by name, email, phone, household or address.
  • Switch between All people, Adults, Kids and Archived.
  • Use Filters to narrow by membership, gender, campus, age, group, care tag, birthday month and more, or to find people missing an email or not in a household.
  • Choose Save as list… to keep a filtered list. Select people to add them to a list, email them, or export them.

Vessel Ministry, the staff app for iPhone, iPad and Mac, has the same directory. It’s available on request — email support@vesselworship.org.

Screenshot to come: the People list with filters.

Add and edit people

Owners and admins can always edit people. Staff need the Edit people permission (see roles and permissions).

  1. In People, choose New person.
  2. Choose adult or kid, and type their name. Add email, mobile, birthday, gender, grade, membership and campus if you have them.
  3. Choose a household: start a new one, join one, or (for adults) none. For a kid, add their parents and guardians.
  4. Save. If someone similar is already in Vessel, it asks “Is … already here?” first, so you don’t make a duplicate.

To change someone’s details, open them and choose Edit on the card you want, like Name, Contact or Church life.

If two people edit at once. If someone else changed this person while you were editing, Vessel doesn’t save over their work. It shows Someone else changed this person, loads their changes, and marks each field they changed. Check yours against theirs, then save again.

Households

Everyone has one main household. Someone can also be listed in extra households, for example a child with two homes.

Add someone to a household

  1. Open the household and choose to add someone.
  2. Choose Their main household or An extra household.

If you choose main household, they move here and are taken out of their old one. If you choose extra, they stay in their main household and are listed here too.

Move someone

Open the person, choose More, then Move to Another Household… (or Put in a Household… if they have none). Moving someone’s main household takes them out of the old one. Their extra households don’t change.

Adults can have no household. Kids always need one.

Primary contact

Each household can have a primary contact, chosen in Edit household. It has to be an adult in that household. It’s shown with a star.

Safety details and pickups

Open the person and choose Edit on their Kids safety card (Safety for adults).

Emergency contacts

Choose Add an emergency contact and type their name, how they’re related, phone and email.

Who may pick a child up

  1. Under Who may pick them up, choose Add someone from People to pick an adult from your church’s directory, or Add someone by name.
  2. Set each person to May pick up or Must not pick up.
  3. Add a note if it helps, like a custody arrangement or a time limit.

Anyone you add from People must be in your church; Vessel won’t link a contact or pickup to someone at another church.

Parents and guardians can always pick up. Check-in stations show these notes when a child is checked out. See checking out.

Notes, and who sees them

WhatWho sees it
Staff notesOwners, admins and staff.
Medical notes, and photo and medical releasesOwners, admins, and staff with the Kids’ medical permission.
Care tagsOwners, admins, and staff with the Care notes permission.
Emergency contactsAnyone who can see your whole directory, plus the person and their own household.
Who may pick a child upAnyone who can see your whole directory, and people who manage check-ins.

To change notes, you need permission to edit people.

Archive or merge

Archive someone who has left

Open the person, choose More, then Archive…. They leave the People list and can’t be picked for anything new, but their history stays. To bring them back, switch to Archived, open them and choose Restore.

Merge duplicates

Only owners and admins can merge. Vessel looks every night for people with the same name and birthday, email or phone.

  1. In People, choose More, then Duplicates. (Or open a person and choose Merge with Another Person….)
  2. For each pair, choose Not the same person or Merge….
  3. Pick which record to keep, and which details to keep where they differ.
  4. Confirm.

Groups, households, notes, attendance, forms and giving move onto the record you keep. The other record is archived. A merge can’t be undone, so archive instead if you’re not sure.

Merging is on the web only.

Bring people in from Planning Center

Owners and admins can bring in Planning Center’s People export, or any spreadsheet saved as CSV. See Bring your people in from Planning Center for the steps.

Back to the top · All help

Still stuck?

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