Administration

Best Practices: Adding and Removing Users

The top two sections below (New Staff Users and New Lay Leaders) are directed at the staff members that will typically request new user accounts - either for new staff members (or interns) or Lay Leaders.

The last section (regarding when users leave) also is directed at staff members that have information regarding a staff member/intern that is leaving or a Lay Leader that is leaving. That section also contains information for the Admin user about which roles to remove for previous users.

New Staff Users

Before the System Admin can create a user account for a new staff member, the following things should happen and the following and the following information be communicated directly to the Admin user:

  1. This new staff member needs a People Record in the Database.

  2. The email address at the church this person will use should be on the record as the Primary email address. When a new user account is created, the Admin triggers the New User Welcome email to the user. So, you want the email the person can access to be on his record.

  3. Communicate the People ID# to the Admin to ensure he finds the correct person.

  4. Decide which user roles that person needs. If he is replacing someone that has already left, those roles have been removed from the previous staff member’s account. So, specifically name the roles instead of saying ‘give him what Joe had’.

By following the steps above and communicating completely with your Admin users, you ensure that the new staff member’s user account gets created promptly and that he is notified at the correct email address.

Note

The only time you need to submit a Support Request for new users is if you have a new staff member that needs the Finance role and your Admin does not have that role.

New Lay Leaders

Typically, all new lay leaders will already be in the Database, unlike new staff members that might be new to the church. So, there are just a few requirements that you should check before requesting a Lay Leader be given access:

  1. Is this person a Leader in the Involvement he needs to access?

  2. Is the email address on the leader’s people record a valid address? In other words, check the Email > Failed tab to see if his emails are failing. Fix that problem before requesting a user account.

  3. Does he need anything other than just Access and OrgLeadersOnly roles? Most lay leaders does not need Attendance or Edit, so be sure to let the Admin know if the user does needs those extra roles.

  4. What is the PID# for this person? That is the best information to send to your Admin users to ensure that the correct person has an account created.

These requests should go directly to your System Admin user, not as a TouchPoint Support Request.

See also

Manage Users when Their Position Changes

Every church has a certain amount of turnover, whether it is staff members, seasonal interns, or even lay leaders. So, the question becomes this:

How does the System Admin handle user roles when someone leaves their position at the church?

Let’s look at this based on the user roles of those involved.

Staff Users (including Interns)

This requires that someone in the ministry this person works for or the HR person notify the System Admin user at your church that this person is leaving his/her job. There are other bits of information needed:

  • People ID# (or a definite way to identify this person in the database, especially for large churches)

  • Date the person no longer needs his current access to TouchPoint (he may need access a few days after his end date).

  • Will that person continue to be a Lay Leader?

Once you have that information, on the date given, you will make that person either a My Data user or an OrgLeadersOnly user. Just click one or the other of those roles and that will remove all other roles.

Lay Leaders

Because OrgLeadersOnly role is dependent on the person having a Member Type that makes him a Leader, once he is removed from that position (either dropped from the Involvement or Member Type changed to Member) you do not have to make any change in his access. He will not be able to access the Involvement if he is no longer a leader.

However, you can make him a My Data user, especially if he is leaving the church.

If the person is still a church member, you can just leave his access as it is, so that when he becomes a leader once again, he will already have the access he needs.

My Data Users

If a person leaves the church, you will want to leave his My Data account. He may still want to receive certain emails such as newsletters, register online for activities, or even give online until he finds a new church.

So, My Date users can retain their user accounts whether or not they are church members.

Communication with New Staff

When you create a new user account (or add new roles to an existing account) you have the option to check a box that will send the New User Welcome email. You always want to do that for a new user. This is the email the user will receive that contains his username and a link for him to set his password. If you want to alter this email, you can do that in Special Content.

See also

Special Content

Tip

In addition to that standard welcome email you might also want to create an email and save it as a Draft in TouchPoint and, in this email, send some links to help this new user get started using TouchPoint. See Sample Email below. Send that email from that user’s people record and he can always return to his record and be able to view it under Communications > Received.

You might want to include basic staff information as well as links to the TouchPoint Documentation, links to some specific articles based on the person’s job, and information about the TouchPoint Mobile App. Your church may have a branded version of the app that is in the App Store under the name of the church instead of just TouchPoint.

Sample Email to Staff

{first},

Welcome! I just gave you the access roles you will need in TouchPoint.
Very shortly, you should receive a New User Welcome Email with your login information.
Let me know if you need anything else.
I assume someone in the department where you will be working will give you some training.
If not, please let me know.

You will be able to view Involvements as well as people.
You also have Access, Edit, and Attendance roles.
The blue Toolbar that you see on various pages is where you will go for reports,
to send emails, etc. So, you will be able to email an individual
or an Involvement right from TouchPoint.

Please take a look at the system and let me know if you need anything.
We have help documentation. So, if you are looking for something,
use the ?Help link in the top right corner of any page in the database.
From there you can search the help documentation, the news blog, or even submit a support request.

Here are a few links:

TouchPoint Help Docs - https://docs.touchpointsoftware.com/
This is the home page of our help articles, so you can see how it is laid out
and see some of the main categories/features.

Getting Started with TouchPoint - https://docs.touchpointsoftware.com/GettingStarted/NextSteps.html/
This link is to the Next Steps articles, initially for new TouchPoint clients,
but there is some helpful information for new users as well.

TouchPoint News Blog - https://blog.touchpointsoftware.com/
You will want to Subscribe to this in order to keep up with the latest features.

Again, welcome to the staff! Let me know when you need anything related to TouchPoint!

Your TouchPoint Administrator