Family Management

Families in TimelyChurch connect individual person records into household units. This makes it easy to see who lives together, share addresses, manage check-in permissions, and communicate with entire households. A person can belong to more than one family if needed.

Why Use Families?

• See the full picture -- View all members of a household together on one screen.
• Share addresses -- When a family member inherits the family address, you only need to update it in one place.
• Check-in safety -- Family roles determine who can pick up children and who is listed as a guardian or emergency contact.
• Communication -- Send mail or messages to entire households rather than individuals.
• Directory -- Families view in the People directory shows your congregation organized by household.

Viewing Families

1. Go to People from the left sidebar.
2. Click the Families view mode button at the top of the page.
3. You will see family cards showing the family name, members, and their roles.

You can search for families by name or by the name of any family member.

Creating a New Family

From a Person's Profile

1. Open the person's profile and go to the Family tab.
2. Click Create New Family.
3. Enter the Family Name (for example, "The Johnson Family").
4. Assign a Role for this person (see role options below).
5. Optionally, search for and add other existing people as additional members, assigning each a role.
6. Click Create Family.

From the People Directory

1. Go to People and switch to the Families view.
2. Click Create Family.
3. Enter the Family Name.
4. Search for and add members from your existing directory, assigning each person a role.
5. Click Create Family.

Family Roles

When you add someone to a family, you assign them a role that describes their relationship within the household:

Tip: Roles are more than labels. TimelyChurch uses them to automatically set guardian and pick-up permissions for check-in. Head of Household, Spouse, Parent, Step Parent, and Guardian roles are automatically marked as legal guardians who can pick up children.

Adding Members to an Existing Family

Add an Existing Person

1. Open the family (either from a member's profile Family tab, or from the Families view by clicking the family name).
2. Click Add Member.
3. Search for the person by name, email, or phone number.
4. Select them from the search results.
5. Choose their Role in the family.
6. Click Add.

Create a New Person and Add to Family

If the person does not exist in your directory yet:

1. Open the family.
2. Click Create & Add Member.
3. Fill in the new person's details:
   • First Name and Last Name (required)
   • Email, Phone, Date of Birth, Gender (optional)
   • Role in the family (required)
4. Optionally check Inherit Address to copy the family's address to the new person.
5. Click Create & Add.

The new person will be created in your directory and immediately linked to the family.

Tip: When "Inherit Address" is checked, the family's address is automatically copied to the new person's profile. This saves you from entering the same address multiple times for each family member.

Managing Family Members

Updating a Member's Role

1. Open the family.
2. Find the member you want to update.
3. Click the Edit button next to their name.
4. Change their Role, Primary Contact status, Receives Mail, or Inherits Address settings.
5. Click Save.

Guardian and Check-in Permissions

For families with children, you can configure these important settings for each adult member:

• Legal Guardian -- Is this person a legal guardian of the children?
• Can Pick Up -- Is this person authorized to pick up children during check-in?
• Emergency Contact -- Should this person be listed as an emergency contact?
• Emergency Priority -- If there are multiple emergency contacts, what is the priority order? (1 = first to call)
• Custody Notes -- Any important custody or safety information

These settings are automatically assigned when you set a parent/guardian role, but you can override them manually.

Tip: Only adults (age 18+) can have guardian, pick-up, and emergency contact permissions. These options will not appear for children.

Removing a Member from a Family

1. Open the family.
2. Find the member you want to remove.
3. Click Remove from Family.
4. Confirm the action.

Removing someone from a family does not delete their person record. It only removes the family connection. Their individual profile and all other data remain intact.

Updating Family Details

1. Open the family (from the Families view or a member's Family tab).
2. Edit the family-level information:
   • Family Name
   • Family Email
   • Home Phone
   • Address (line 1, line 2, city, state, zip, country)
   • Envelope Number (for giving tracking)
   • Anniversary Date
3. Click Save.

Deactivating or Archiving a Family

Deactivating a Family

1. Open the family.
2. Click Deactivate from the Actions menu.
3. The family will be marked as inactive. It will no longer appear in the default Families view but the record is preserved.

Archiving (Deleting) a Family

1. Open the family.
2. Click Archive from the Actions menu.
3. You must remove all members from the family first before it can be archived. If members remain, you will see an error message.

To restore an archived family, find it using the archived filter and click Restore.

Family Join Requests (Member Portal)

Members can ask to be added to a family from the member portal. Each request goes into a queue for staff or the family's primary contact to approve or reject -- nobody can quietly attach themselves to another household.

How a Member Submits a Request

1. The member signs in to the member portal and opens their profile.
2. They search for an existing family by name.
3. They pick the Role they are requesting (spouse, parent, child, or other).
4. They optionally include a Message explaining the request (e.g., "Just got married, joining the Smith family").
5. They click Send Request. The request is saved with a Pending status.

A member cannot have more than one pending request to the same family at the same time.

How Staff Review Requests

1. From the admin portal, open the family or the Family Join Requests queue.
2. Each pending request shows:
   • The person who sent the request
   • The family they want to join
   • The role they are requesting
   • Their optional message
3. Choose one of three actions:
   • Approve -- The person is added to the family with the role they requested. Spouse, parent, child, and "other" requests map to the matching family role; in the case of a "child" request the system also marks Receives Mail as false (children do not get mailings by default). The request is timestamped and the reviewer is recorded.
   • Reject -- The request is closed without changing the family. You can include review notes explaining why.
4. Optionally add Review Notes -- these are saved to the request record for accountability and audit purposes.

Status Reference

For a deeper walkthrough of the member-side experience, see Family Join Requests.

How Families Work with Other Features

• People Directory -- Switch to Families view to browse your directory by household.
• Check-In -- Family roles determine pick-up authorization and guardian status for children's check-in.
• Import -- When importing from another church management system, TimelyChurch can automatically create families and link members based on household data in your CSV file.
• Merge -- When merging duplicate person records, family memberships from both records are combined.
• Member Portal -- Members can submit Family Join Requests to be added to an existing family; staff approve or reject these from the admin portal.

Related Articles

• Managing Your People Directory
• Person Profile Overview
• Adding People
• Importing and Exporting Data
• Family Join Requests
• Portal Self-Service