Service attendance: one list the group's leaders share

Who can take service attendance?

Two doors open onto the same list. Staff with Groups access can take service attendance for any group. And the leader of a group can take it for their own group, even if they hold no other church-wide access at all, because leading the group is itself the authorization.

That second door is the point: a volunteer care partner who leads the Wednesday group can take that group's service attendance without being handed anything broader. A leader outside both doors simply cannot open the page.

Anyone who holds care assignments also gets a list of their own: the people in their care, whether or not those people are in a group. It opens from Home. A member in no small group is covered this way: give them a care partner, an elder for example, and they appear on that person's list.

• Group leaders take service attendance for their own group; staff with Groups access can take it for any group.
• Anyone who holds care assignments gets a weekly list of the people in their care, so members in no group are covered too.
• Each group has one list per Sunday that its leaders share, with photos or initials. Mark who was there; save; done in about a minute.
• When you save, your marks and removals change the list for everyone who shares it. Re-saving replaces the record, never duplicates it.
• A Sunday-afternoon reminder arrives by email, push, or both. Each leader picks the channel in Settings.
• On iPhone, push requires the app on the home screen first, and the setting says so honestly.
• An optional switch sends one weekly Last seen at service date to Planning Center for linked people. It stays off until your church turns it on.

How does the shared list work?

Open your group on a Sunday and the list is already pointed at that Sunday's service. Each member is a tile with their photo, or their initials when no photo exists yet, and a tap marks them present. Tap again to unmark. Save, and the Sunday is recorded.

Each group has one list per Sunday. The group's leaders share it, and so do staff who take service attendance for that group: when you save, your marks and removals change it for all of them. Re-saving replaces the list rather than doubling it, so a leader who fixes a missed tap ten minutes later has corrected the record, not duplicated it. Photos arrive with Planning Center imports where your church uses them; initials carry the grid fine without them.

How does the Sunday reminder work?

On Sunday afternoon, church-local time, leaders and anyone with people in their care get a nudge: a card in the app, plus one email naming each of their lists with a link to each, or a push notification that opens the list waiting (Home, when several are). Each person chooses the channel in Settings under Notifications: email, push, or both.

Push has one honest caveat on iPhone: it requires the app added to the home screen first, and the setting says so plainly rather than failing silently. A leader who skips a Sunday is nudged, not nagged; the reminder is once per Sunday, not a drip campaign.

Sunday is the default. A church whose services meet on other days picks them in Settings under Church profile: one list then covers the week's services, and the reminder comes on the afternoon of the last one. A church that doesn't take service attendance switches it off there, and nobody is reminded.

Can service attendance flow back to Planning Center?

Optionally, and off until you choose it. In Settings under Integrations, an account owner, or a church leader whose permissions include managing integrations, can turn on Send service attendance to Planning Center. When it is on, FlockConnect keeps one custom date field in Planning Center People, named Last seen at service, up to date once a week, and only for people already linked to Planning Center.

Nothing else is written: no events, no check-ins, and never any notes. Turn the switch off at any time and the writing stops. The Planning Center sync guide covers the rest of what moves between the two systems.

What does the church get out of it?

A record of presence that feeds the same signals the rest of FlockConnect uses: a person's profile reflects when they were last seen at a service, and patterns of absence can surface for follow-up while they are still small.

If someone is on two lists the same week, two groups' or a group's and a care partner's, they are marked once: a mark on one list shows on the other, with the first name of whoever made it. The list measures who was there, not how many taps happened.