Your church calendar: make an event, and who sees it

Events is your church's calendar: the events you make and your service times, in one place. A public event also goes on your church site's Calendar, where people can sign up or get tickets. Events is free while PraisePad is in beta; an owner turns it on in Settings › Modules.

Owners and admins can make events, and so can anyone given Events access as an editor or manager under Settings › Access. Events is in their menu (on a phone, in the account menu). Everyone's Home shows the church's next event under Coming up.

Make an event

1. Open Events and press New event.
2. Type the Title, and Add the title in Spanish if your site has Spanish readers.
3. Under When, choose One date, Several dates or Repeats, with times or All day. Pick a start time and the end fills in an hour later; move the start and the end moves with it. An end earlier than the start is the next morning (a lock-in); Ends on a later day is for a camp.
4. Add where it is, a picture, who it's for (and, for your site's Spanish readers, who it's for in Spanish) and its organizer, then press Save draft. From then on it saves itself.

Repeats writes the dates out for you: Every week, Every other week or monthly on a weekday, up to 52 times, each at the same time of day on your church's clock, even across a clock change. Change one of them lets you edit any one. With no picture, your site shows your color and the title. Once it's saved, book its room under Where: see Rooms and resources.

Under Sign-up, choose Free sign-up or Tickets and people can sign up, with places and a waitlist: see Sign-ups and Who's coming, Tickets, and questions and an agreement. Once it's out, the Check-in card beside it counts who's in on each date, and people are checked in at the door on a check-in station.

Write it for me

Type a line in In one line, what is it? and press Write it for me. PraisePad drafts the description in English and Spanish for you to read first; change anything, then Keep it. It costs a fraction of a cent from your church's AI allowance. The Español tab holds the Spanish.

Who sees it, and publishing

• Public: on your church site's Calendar, and search engines can find it.
• Members: for members who sign in on your site, people whose status in People means member.
• By link: only people you give the link to. It's on no calendar.

A draft is only here in Events. Publish asks once, saying what it means; an event with tickets needs one first, and people can pay as soon as it's out. Then the Share card has Copy the link, a QR code for the poster, and Download a poster (PDF). With Present, the booth can send a public event's sign-up to the phones following along during the service.

Change it later

The ⋯ at the top of the event holds Duplicate (its tickets with their deposits, questions and agreement come too; never its sign-ups, rooms or discount codes), Back to a draft (before anyone signs up), Cancel event… and Delete… (a draft, or an event nobody signed up for). A cancelled event stays on the calendar marked Cancelled, everyone signed up hears by email, and its rooms are free again. Cancelling refunds nobody: refund each paid sign-up from Who's coming (Ticket money). Once an event is out, each date has its own ⋯: Move this date… or Cancel this date… for a snow day, and the people signed up hear by email.

The month, and the office

List shows what's coming up and what's past; Month shows events as chips and service times as dots, and a day's list when you choose it; Week shows your church's rooms and resources day by day (see Rooms and resources). Under the calendar are two prints for the office, named for the month showing: "November on one page" prints the month's public events with a QR code to your site's calendar, for the lobby board, and "Copy November for the bulletin" gives the same events as plain text, with "Sign up at" or "Tickets at" and the link.

Events managers set Settings › Events: The calendar's name, Show service times on the calendar, Who gets a copy of each sign-up (up to five addresses) and The name emails come from. There too, under Rooms and resources they list the rooms people book, and under Stations they pair the iPads and phones for an event's door. For sign-ups, see Sign-ups and Who's coming.