Add New Family

IN THIS ARTICLE:

Adding a New Family Record
Adding Associated Member Records

Prior to adding a new family, open your Family Explorer screen and use the default layout. Then, ensure that the family you are trying to add does not already exist within your church by searching in the Family Name column. If the family currently exists you can update the Family and Member Records. If the family does not exist follow the instructions below.

If you are part of a Diocesan initiative or a Cluster and/or Collaborative then you would search across all the churches to ensure the family record does not already exist. If the family record exists in another church add them to your church and assign the appropriate family status. Following this practice will prevent you from creating duplicate family/member records.

Adding a New Family Record

Click Familiesvia the top navigation bar and select Family Explorer in the secondary navigation bar. Then click on the New Family button near the top.

On the New Family page enter any available information for the Family. Please note the following:

Only the Last Name field is required. All other fields are optional.
You may use one name or multiple names for the First Name field.
When entering Family Email or Telephone the drop down arrow is used to specify families' contact preferences.
The Mailing Name field is used by Church Budget for envelope integration, and it's an available option for printing labels. The integration will first look in the Mailing Name field. If it contains data, the value in the Mailing Name field will be the first line on the budget envelope or mailing labels. Contrarily, if there is nothing in that field then it will default to Salutation + First Name + Last Name.

Check the Has Envelopes box if you are going to use Church Budget Envelope Integration and/or the parishioner receives giving envelopes. Then be sure to assign a unique Budget Number to the family.
The Family ID is extremely beneficial when contacting our support team about a Family Record. There is only one family assigned to each Family ID, and no two families have the same Family ID number.

For families that were converted from a previous system the fields System and System Family contains a previous system designator and family system ID# it was converted from.

Once you have entered all of the information you desire, click Save in the bottom right corner of the page. Congratulations! You have now added a Family Record.

Adding Associated Member Records

Once you have saved the new family record the Members tab is now available. Click New Member.

A pop-up will appear, enter the First Name and click Save.

You will be taken to the Member Information tab. Here you can enter any information about the Member you have. To create a member record you only need the First Name and Last Name.

Note: If the member has a different last name than what is in the Family Record you can edit the Last Name field while in the Member Record. Additionally, there are 8 additional member tabs to enter additional information about the member.

Once you have entered the desired information, click Save.

You can continue to add additional Members to this Family by clicking on the New Member button at the top left of your screen, or by clicking on the triangle to the right of the Save button and selecting Add New Member.