People, groups, teams, and songs

Owners and admins fully maintain People and Songs. Volunteers have a read-only People directory and can browse, add, or edit shared songs from their portal; they cannot edit People or archive People or Songs. Editors can use these records while planning events but do not see those management destinations.

Add and maintain people

Open People and choose Add person, or press N while you are on the People page. Enter the first name, last name, and any available email, phone, or group memberships. Save & add another keeps the form open for the next person.

Keep email addresses current: availability requests, roster invitations, access invitations, and reminder emails depend on them. Before sending, an owner or admin must complete the organisation’s email privacy settings. An address in People is not evidence of permission to contact that person, and resending does not override an unsubscribe.

Use the send action beside one person to choose between a personal roster overview and an availability request. The dialog shows the recipient and requested period before sending. Availability mail reuses the current Rostering request, so contacting one person does not replace the request for everyone else. When there is no current request, choose the period for the new one-person request in the same dialog.

People can be shown as a list, cards, or a map. Open a person with their name, avatar, or chevron; contact links and group controls work separately. Select people with the amber checkboxes for member actions, or include archived people to restore someone. Contact QR opens a dialog with a contact card QR and PNG actions. The contact QR does not grant Connect access.

Use the bell beside a person to review a phone reminder for their next service. Connect reports whether notifications were queued, no connected phones have notifications enabled, or there is no upcoming service.

In the volunteer portal, People is an active-person directory without management actions. Another person's email is visible only when they enabled Share email with team in Profile; phone is independently controlled by Share phone with team. These settings are applied before the directory is sent to the browser.

Use Table options for importing members, CSV tools, and opening availability requests in Rostering. Use Member actions for selected people, including creating a group, granting Editor access, and sending access invitations.

QR Invite is enabled when one or more active members are selected. Opening the dialog automatically prepares a separate personal QR code for each selected member. If preparation fails, choose Retry.

A QR Invite signs in as the selected volunteer. Treat it as private, do not reuse it for another person, and generate a new one if it has expired.

Import people from CSV

For the complete move from WorshipTools, Planning Center, ChurchTools, or a spreadsheet, start with Migration to Connect.

Choose Table options → Import members on the People page. The preparation dialog offers Download CSV template and Choose CSV or TSV.
Select the file, then match each spreadsheet column to first name, last name, full name, email, phone, skills/tags, or Do not import.
Check the live preview. You can map several email or phone columns; Connect uses the first filled value from left to right.
Continue to the people review, resolve invalid rows, and check records marked as duplicates or archived.
Import only after the review is correct.

CSV import creates new people only from rows marked ready. It does not update duplicates, restore archived people, or send invitations. Handle duplicate or archived records separately, then send access or roster invitations when you are ready.

An imported person with an email address can request a volunteer portal login at that address. Import does not grant Editor or Admin access.

Archive someone when they should no longer be scheduled but their history must remain. Archived people can be restored. Permanent deletion is available only from the archived state and cannot be undone.

Create and manage groups

Select at least two people in People, then use Member actions to create a group. To open an existing group, press Command+K or Ctrl+K, search for the group name, and select the group result.

In the group manager you can:

Rename a group.
Add people or a subgroup.
Choose group leaders with the crown control.
Use Make team (schedulable in Rostering) when the group should become a scheduling pool.
Delete a group after confirming the action.

Connect prevents a group from being nested inside itself. Every non-empty group keeps at least one leader; the first person added becomes a leader automatically. Deleting a group is permanent, so remove people from the group instead when you only need to change membership.

Manage teams

Teams are managed from Rostering. Click a team name to open Who can serve. Search to add people or groups; use the remove control beside a person to remove their membership without leaving Rostering. For shared or nested memberships, review the affected groups before confirming. If the person is the last leader of a group with other members, choose a replacement in the same panel first. Individually saved service assignments remain; group assignments follow the group's current membership.

To organise a Kids main team with Kids Blue, Kids Yellow and Kids Red subteams:

Create Kids using Add team in Rostering.
In Groups, use the + beside Kids to link each existing child team, or create a subgroup there.
For a new subgroup, open its action menu and choose Make team (schedulable in Rostering).
Return to Rostering. Kids and all three subteams remain separate rows, so you can schedule each independently.

You can also use a team's Move to… action to place it under Kids. Nesting keeps its members, leadership and service history. A child team's additional linked pools remain its own scheduling pools; they are not automatically inherited by the parent.

If Kids is only an umbrella team, click its name in Rostering, open its settings beside the title, and choose Hide from Rostering. Kids disappears for all organisers while Blue, Yellow and Red keep their own rows. Members and existing assignments stay saved. To bring Kids back, open the team filter, expand Hidden teams, and choose Show Kids in Rostering. Hiding and showing teams requires owner or admin access.

A team's colour is shared with its linked group. Removing a team deactivates it from future Rostering planning while retaining past roster history.

Add a song

Open Songs and choose Add song → Write or paste lyrics.

Put the title on the first line.
Put the author on the second line.
Separate song sections with blank lines.
Use labels such as [Verse 1] or [Chorus] at the start of a section.
Add chords inside lyric lines, for example [C]Every eye on [F]him.

In the admin workspace, Connect saves while you edit. Before opening another song, leaving the page, changing organisation, importing a file, or signing out, Connect finishes any pending save. If it cannot save, you choose whether to stay and correct or retry the song, or discard the unsaved changes. A new draft needs a real title in place of Song Title before Connect can save it. More actions provides Save now, Re-parse text, and Archive song. You can also drag in or select a .txt song file.

In the volunteer portal, choose Create song or Save changes explicitly. If somebody saved a newer revision, your text remains in the editor while you choose whether to load the latest version or deliberately keep yours. The portal never offers archive or delete.

The structure preview starts with lyrics only. Choose Show chords to include recognised chords. The copyright information is shown separately from the lyrics.

Organisers can open Song history to see who saved changes, compare added and removed lines, and read saved versions. On a phone, find it under More actions. History starts when recording was enabled; it does not recover earlier edits or automatically restore a version.

Import a song sheet

Choose Add song → Import photo or PDF to read a printed sheet. An active Complete subscription is required. Select or photograph the sheet, crop to one song, and exclude neighbouring text. Add continuation pages or photos in reading order before recognition.

Review the recognised lyrics, chords and section breaks, then choose Open in song editor. Recognition produces an editable draft and does not save a song. Connect reads digital PDF text locally; images can use Connect’s recognition service, with local recognition as a fallback. Check the result against the sheet before saving. Closing or cancelling the import keeps your existing editor text.

Edit lyrics, translations, and the default key

Click the title or author above the editor, or the copyright shortcut below it, to jump to that text. Show chords / Hide chords controls the editor and preview without removing stored chords. On a phone, use Edit / Preview; selecting a stanza in the preview returns to its source text.

Choose 2nd language to open a second editor, then select a saved translation or drag a song into it. Original and translated stanzas appear together in the preview. Check warnings about different stanza or line counts. Administrators autosave both drafts; volunteers save explicitly. Replacing or unlinking a translation first finishes its pending save. The pairing syncs to Presenter with the songs; final slide layout remains a Presenter setting.

Default key changes the shared song’s key. With a known key, its minus/plus buttons or direct key choices transpose the stored chords. An estimated key is marked ≈: check it before saving. If no source key is known, first choose the key the existing chords are already written in; that choice labels them without transposing. New setlists use the saved default. Existing setlist occurrences with their own saved key keep that key.

Create and share setlists

Open Songs → Setlists, or Setlists from the Connect menu. This church setlist library opens in Connect on the web and in the native app without running Presenter.

Choose Create setlist and enter a name.
Search the library and select songs. Selected shows their order; drag to reorder and confirm removal to remove an occurrence.
Choose Save setlist to open the setlist in WorshipAssist. Back or Cancel keeps a recoverable private draft without publishing your changes.
Use the overview to open, edit, copy, share, archive or restore a setlist. My setlists filters by creator; other church lists remain available.

Share setlist chooses existing groups and teams and optionally sends email. Check the delivery result for skipped or failed messages. Recipients still need church access to open a shared library link. Removing a song occurrence from a setlist does not delete the library song.

Opening a setlist starts independent practice. Choose Start setlist or Live for the focused lyrics/chords reader. Switch saved lists with the compact Setlists menu. Adjusting a song’s key changes your practice arrangement; Save for setlist stores the key for that occurrence. Practice tempo adjustments stay local and do not rewrite the song or setlist. In Live, tap the pinned band key for My chords, a personal transposition that resets when you leave Live and never changes the band’s key.

Play together

Choose Play together to explicitly join an active band session. Organisers and authorised team leaders can use Start with team, choose a service or an unscheduled rehearsal, and follow either a Band leader or Presenter as the song source. The session can include extra people without changing saved team membership or sending invitations.

Following shares the current song. Selecting a different song pauses following on your device; Jump to song moves once, while Resume following follows subsequent changes too. Presenter can supply its active lyric cue or follow a leader-led session for its musician screens; this does not change stage output.

A session manager can open Session: team name → Show QR for guests. Guests scan it to follow that session without an account. They can read its songs and use personal keys, but cannot browse or edit the church library. The link expires with the session, within twelve hours; Create new QR replaces it and Stop sharing revokes it. Closing the QR dialog leaves sharing active.

See Remote and WorshipAssist for the Live reader and Presenter QR flow.

Why a song does not appear under Chords

The Chords filter does not treat every word in square brackets as a chord. It shows songs with either:

valid inline chord markers in the lyrics, such as [C]Amazing [G]grace;
a chord-only or chord-grid line made entirely from valid chord symbols, such as C G Am F or || C . . . | G . . . ||; or
a saved chord-analysis revision.

A section label such as [Chorus] is not a chord. A line that mixes chord symbols with ordinary words is not a chord-only line; put chords in square brackets at the points where they change instead.

If a song is missing from Chords:

Switch to All and open the song.
Add a valid inline marker directly before the lyric where the chord changes, or add a chord-only or chord-grid line made entirely from valid chord symbols.
Choose Save now and wait for the saved state.
Return to Chords. Opening this filter also finishes a pending auto-save for the current song.

Search in Songs checks the title, author, and lyric body. Use Newest or Oldest to sort by the last update. Archive duplicates instead of keeping two competing versions.