Trellis

Add your people

Every way people get into Trellis, from a spreadsheet or one at a time, and how they then sign in.

Everything in Trellis hangs off the people record: groups, teams, email and giving. So the first job is to bring your people in. Staff and admins can add people. Group leaders can add people to their own group.

Getting someone onto the list and letting them sign in are two separate steps. Most people on your list will never sign in, and that's fine. The second half of this page covers sign-in.

Where to start

A new church opens on Bring your people, with three ways in: Upload a spreadsheet, From Planning Center and Type a few in. Until there's anyone in People besides you, Bring your people in the Getting set up checklist on Home brings you back to it.

After that, everything is in People: Add a person for one, and Add many for a list.

Add one person

  1. Open People and press Add a person.
  2. Fill in their First name. Everything else is optional: last name, phone, email, household, neighborhood, birthday and address.
  3. Pick their Status: Member, Attender, Visitor, Child or Inactive.
  4. Press Add.

Add them to a group from their page afterwards, or from the group's roster.

Add many at once

Use this for a spreadsheet, an export from another church system, or a list of names.

  1. Open People and press Add many.
  2. Paste the list into the box, or choose a CSV file. A list of names, one per line, works too.
  3. Check What each column is. Trellis matches columns by their heading. Change any that are wrong, or pick Skip this column.
  4. Tick First row is a heading if your first row is headings, not a person.
  5. Under Then, pick a Status for anyone without one, and, if you like, Put everyone in a group.
  6. Press Add with the number of people, for example Add 212 people.

Trellis shows the first few rows before anything goes in. One column must be Full name or First name; rows without a name are skipped.

From Planning Center, Breeze or a spreadsheet

Export your people as a CSV file from the other system, then upload it with Add many. Exports from Planning Center, Breeze and spreadsheets all work. If your file has a household column, map it to Household: people with the same household name are put in one household.

Other ways people arrive

People also land on the list as your church uses Trellis.

  • A group's roster: a group's leaders and staff can add someone new straight to a group.
  • A guest at a meeting: a leader taking roll can add a guest who isn't on the list yet.
  • Visitors: staff can add a visitor under All visitors in Groups. See Visitors.
  • A new group leader: naming a leader and their sign-in email on a group adds them if they're new. See Group leaders.
  • A new volunteer: taking someone in on Serving can add them by name. See Take in a volunteer.
  • A sign-up: someone who signs up for an event and isn't on the list is added as a Visitor. See Create a sign-up.
  • An online gift: someone who gives online and isn't on the list is added, so their statement has somewhere to go. See Gifts and funds.

With people arriving from several places, some will turn up twice. Check Duplicates in People now and then, and merge any you find. See A person's page.

Let people sign in

Anyone on your list with an email can sign in, once they're invited or use the member link. There are no passwords to hand out: Trellis emails them a link. See Signing in.

Invite members by email

  1. Open People and press Invite to Trellis.
  2. Under Invite by email, everyone ready for an invitation is ticked. Untick anyone you'd rather leave for now, or search by name or email.
  3. Press Email with the number of invitations, for example Email 40 invitations.

Each invitation goes from your church's address. The person signs in with the email it went to and finds their week. One press sends up to 100.

People who already sign in aren't listed, and nor are people marked Inactive or anyone removed from the team (invite them again from Team). Anyone invited in the last week shows but can't be ticked. People with no email can't be invited; add one on their page first.

Invite to Trellis also has The member link: one link for everyone, with a QR code. Anyone on your People list who isn't marked Inactive or removed from the team types the email you have for them and gets a link that signs them in. It opens Sunday's order of service when Worship planning is on, and their week when it isn't.

Press Copy for the link, or download the QR code as PNG for a bulletin or slide, or SVG for print. Put it on a slide on Sunday, in the bulletin, in a group text or on the church website.

Anyone else gets nothing, and the page says the same either way. So the link is safe to share widely.

Invite your team

Staff, leaders, finance and the other roles are invited from Team, where you pick their roles. See Invite staff and leaders.

Groups and the free allowance

Groups is free for up to 25 people in groups. People on the list who aren't in a group don't count, and nor do guests. Past 25, an admin turns on More group members before more people can join groups. See Turn parts on and off and Pricing.

Next in Start here: Signing in

Still stuck? Ask Silas

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