Quick start guides
The following quick start guides have been designed to help you get your Congregate site up and running, provide a brief understanding of Congregate Admin, and offer recommendations to get your membership engaged on your site.
An Introduction to Congregate Admin
The Congregate platform has been designed to allow churches to setup and manage their own public and member website, in addition to providing member management functions to church leadership.
It’s important to note how access is controlled within Congregate:
- Nearly every feature/module in Congregate can be enabled or disabled at anytime
- Access to nearly every feature/module can be controlled by a user’s account permissions
- There can be an unlimited number of permission groups you can assign to any user account
- The directory is the “hub” of Congregate and user accounts are paired to members in your directory
It’s important to note where and how you access/login to your account:
- Administrators (those who will use Congregate Admin to manage the site/member management tools) login to Congregate Admin online by adding “/admin” to your URL (e.g., http://www.your-church-site.com/admin)
- Members (those who will use the member-only features of your website) login by going to your website and clicking on the “Members” section or by using the Congregate Members app.
Nearly all features/modules follow the same management structure in Congregate Admin:
- “New” – a page or link dedicated to adding or creating a new entry in the feature/module.
- “Manage” – a page listing all the entries in a module with the ability to edit, delete, or make bulk changes to items.
- “Options” – a page dedicated to the configuration of a feature/module, its settings, and its display page.
- [Other Pages] – pages dedicated to specific functions or attributes utilized by the feature/module.
Initial Setup in Congregate Admin
Access our complete documentation and tutorial videos for additional information and support regarding each feature and module within Congregate Admin.
1. Logging in for the first time and changing your default password
Your default admin account (provided to you when your development site was setup) is an all-access account and can access everything inside of Congregate Admin. For better security, you’ll need to change the default password on this account as soon as possible.
After logging into Congregate Admin, click Church Membership > User Accounts > Manage. Here is where you will manage all of your user (member and admin) accounts on your site. Click the the edit (pencil) icon next to your admin account name, then enter a new password in both the Password and Confirm Password fields. After clicking Save, logout using the link at the top of the page and log back in using your new password.
2. Configuring your website’s basic settings
Inside Congregate Admin, click Configuration > General Settings. Here you will need to complete important fields like your website’s address, preferences, header/footer text, and your default email addresses. Ensure you have your website URL and default email addresses entered to fully utilize all of Congregate’s features.
IMPORTANT: Do not change your website URL and/or secure website URL until your site has launched and your domain name has already been configured. Do not change your website status in the “website status” field to “live” until your site has launched and your domain name has already been configured. You will no longer be able to access your website if its status is “live” and your domain name is not already configured.
View our documentation on launching your website and follow its instructions before changing your website URL and website status.
3. Setting up your pages/navigation menu
You can move, edit, delete, and add pages to your site by clicking on Website CMS > Pages > Manage. From here you can drag pages up and down to reorder and organize pages as they appear in the navigation menu. Clicking the New button will allow you to create a new page and clicking the Edit button will allow you to edit a page’s content and/or temporarily disable it by unchecking the Active option.
4. Setting up your homepage
Depending on your template, your homepage’s content may be coming from the “home” page inside the page manager or it could be made up entirely of homepage widgets found inside the widget manager (Website CMS > Widgets Manager). Widgets can include images, HTML code, or any of our built-in widgets such as recent sermons or upcoming events.
5. Understanding how features/modules are displayed
Congregate’s features/modules (e.g., sermons, news, blog, directory, etc.) all work by having their own dedicated page on your site. You will need a separate page for each module you wish to use. You assign each module to a specific page within the Options page of each module inside Congregate Admin. If you do not wish to use a module, simply deactivate (or delete) its assigned page and that page/module will no longer show on your site.
For example, if you want to have a public sermons page on your website, ensure you have a [blank] page created called ‘Sermons’ or similar. Place the page where you want it to appear on your site in the page manager. Then, in the Options page of the Sermons module, select your ‘Sermons’ page as the page your sermons should appear on. If in the future you no longer wish to use or display the sermons feature/module, simply select “None” as the display page and delete the ‘Sermons’ page in the page manager.
6. How permissions work
Congregate uses permission-based access control for members and administrators. Administrators have full control over what members and other administrators can view and/or edit. Click Church Membership > User Accounts > Permission Groups to see the permission groups already added to your site. You can create an unlimited number of groups and members/administrators can be assigned to multiple groups. To create a custom permission group, click New. Give the permission group and name and select the features you want users in this group to have access to.
It’s typical for a church to have several basic groups, including one for “regular” members, one for “advanced” members or members who are allowed to view/access additional content, one for leaders, and one for administrators.
7. Populating your member directory
Congregate uses the member directory as the “hub” for all member-related features, including user accounts. Having members in the directory is required if you plan to use any member-related feature/module. Members can be easily added to the directory by clicking Church Membership > Directory > Manage (or Church Membership > Directory > Import if you plan to upload your member directory in bulk).
8. Creating user accounts
To create a new user account, click Church Membership > User Accounts > New. Complete the required information and select Member if the account is for a church member. Then select a member from the directory via the drop-down menu and select the permission group(s) for the account. Selecting an Administrator (instead of Member) account will allow access to all of Congregate Admin and permission groups will not apply.
If you are not using Congregate’s member-related functions/do not use the directory, you can select None as the member paired to an account.
You can always create user accounts and pair them to members in the directory later. This is ideal for creating multiple administrator accounts during your site’s setup and allows administrators to keep their same account username and password.
9. Configuring features/modules
Now that you have the basic configuration – settings, pages, permissions, and user accounts – you can begin the configuration of each of Congregate feature/module you wish to use. See our additional support content for details and configuration of each module.
Initial Login for Members
Access our “Member Website Feature Tour” tutorial video for additional information and support on all portions of your member website.
1. Requesting an account (optional)
If you allow members to request/register for an account, simply instruct them to go to the members section of your website and click Register. After they complete the form and verify their email address, an administrator will be notified and he or she can approve or deny the request.
2. Logging in for the first time
If an administrator has already created a user account for a member, the member can go directly to your members section and login using the username and password provided to him or her.
If the member’s account request was approved, the member can return to your members section and login using their username and password.
3. Confirming his or her directory listing and account settings
After logging into his or her account, it is advised that he or she go directly to the My Account Settings page where he or she can review his or her directory listing (if the user account has permission to do so) and account preferences (such as job assignments, volunteer tasks, communication, etc). This will allow the member to see and learn where these types of settings and preferences are controlled so if in the future he or she wishes to make changes, he or she knows where they are located.
4. Accessing member-only features/module pages
Members can then view pages inside the members section of your website based on the permission group(s) they are included in.
Mobile App Deployment
1. Launch/ensure your website is already launched
Your website must be launched and live at your domain name before members should access your content through the mobile app.
2. Have members download the Congregate Members app after your site has launched
Members can search for and download the “Congregate Members” app from their device’s app store (Apple App Store or Google Play Store). Members will then enter the URL of your website and log in using their user account.