Sunday attendance: leaders tap the faces they saw

Who can take Sunday attendance?

Two doors open onto the same grid. Staff with Groups and Ministries access can take 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 mark Sunday faces for that group without being handed anything broader. A leader outside both doors simply cannot open the page.

• Group leaders take attendance for their own group; staff with Groups and Ministries access can take it for any group.
• The face grid shows photos or initials. Tap the people you saw; save; done in about a minute.
• One session per group per Sunday. 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 an owner turns it on.

How does the face grid work?

Open your group on a Sunday and the grid 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 seen. Tap again to unmark. Save, and the Sunday is recorded.

There is one attendance session per group per Sunday, and re-saving replaces it 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 get a nudge: a card in the app, plus an email or a push notification, one tap from the face grid. Each leader 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.

Can attendance flow back to Planning Center?

Optionally, and off until you choose it. In Settings under Integrations, an owner can turn on Send Sunday 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 marked in two places for the same Sunday, say by their group leader and by staff, FlockConnect counts the person once for that day. The grid measures who was seen, not how many taps happened.