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 Deleting a Family

Deactivating a Family

1. Open the family.
2. Click Deactivate, next to the family name.
3. The family is marked as inactive. It drops out of the default Families view (and the active family count) but the record and all of its member links are preserved. Click Activate on the same page to bring it back.

Deleting a Family

1. Open the family.
2. Click Delete, next to the family name.
3. Confirm by clicking Delete Family in the dialog.

Deleting a family is a single, unconditional step: every member is unlinked and the family grouping record is removed immediately. There is no check for remaining members and no error message to block you -- nobody's person record is deleted or removed from your directory. Everyone who was in the family stays in People; they are just no longer grouped into that household.

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

Family Join Requests (Member Portal)

Members without a family can ask to join an existing household from the member portal: they search by name and click Join. There is no staff-side queue for this -- only the target family's own head of household or spouse can see the request and approve or decline it, from their own My Family page.

For the full member-side and family-side walkthrough, 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; the family's own head of household or spouse approves or declines these, not staff.

Related Articles

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