Set up serving areas and teams

In Serving, an area is a team with a director: Kids, Coffee, Production, the parking lot. Each area has positions (the jobs inside it), a roster of the people who serve there, and one or more directors who run it.

The office sets areas up. In Trellis, the office means admins, staff and anyone with the Serving role. A director can change the positions and the roster of the areas they direct. Serving has to be on for your church: see Turn parts on.

Who sees what

• The office sees every area, adds and removes areas, and names the directors.
• A director sees only the areas they direct. In them, they can edit positions, put people on the roster, schedule, and keep notes and tasks. They can't add an area or change who directs it.
• Volunteers don't open the Serving part. They see their own serving under Your serving. See How volunteers answer.

Add an area

1. Open Serving, then Areas.
2. Press New area.
3. Give it a Name. If you like, add What the team does and When they serve, for example "Sundays, arrive by 8:45".
4. Under Directors, press Add a director and find them by name. Press it again to add another.
5. Press Add the area.

The area opens. Add its positions next.

Add positions

Positions are the jobs inside an area, like Sound, Slides and Camera, each with how many a normal service needs.

1. Open the area.
2. Under Positions, press Add positions (or Edit positions once there are some).
3. Type a position's name and how many each service needs. Press Another position for the next one.
4. Press Save positions.

An area with no positions is scheduled as a whole, one person per service. A position set to 0 shows as "as needed": people can still be asked for it, but new services don't start with a seat for it.

Directors and their sign-in

A director signs in with their own email and sees only their areas, unless they're also in the office. On the area's page, a director without a Trellis sign-in shows "no login yet".

To give them one, staff and admins press Send an invitation beside their name on the area's page (it shows once their person record has an email), or open People, then Invite to Trellis, and tick them. They sign in with the email on their person record, and the area knows them as its director. See Invite members by email.

Put people on the roster

1. Open the area.
2. Press Add someone to the roster.
3. Find them by name.

The office can place anyone in the church's people list. A director can place people already on the roster of another area they direct. Placing someone takes them off the waiting list. Someone new to Serving, or who was Interested, Onboarding or Stopped, becomes Serving. Someone Taking a break keeps that status when placed: change it on their volunteer page when they're back.

To change someone on the roster, press Edit beside their name. You can set:

• Status: Training, Active or Taking a break. Someone taking a break isn't offered for open seats.
• Can do: the positions they can fill. With none ticked, they can fill any position.
• A note for the schedule, like "first service only".

Press Take off the roster to remove them from this area. They stay in Serving. Someone taken off every roster goes back to waiting to be placed, unless they're Stopped.

Notes and tasks for an area

Under The director's desk on an area's page, the office and the area's directors keep a running log:

• Write a note for what worked, what to change, who to train next. Tick Keep at the top to pin it.
• Add a task, with Who and By when. Open tasks show under To do on Serving's This week page, and on the Calendar on the day they're due.

Pause or remove an area

To rest an area for a season, press Edit area and set Status to "Paused: kept, but not scheduled". Its roster and notes stay. New services don't start with its seats.

To remove it, press Edit area, then Remove this area and Remove it. The people on its roster stay in the people list and keep any other areas.

Next

• Schedule volunteers
• Take in a new volunteer

Still stuck? Ask Silas