Plan a special service
You can create a one-time special service for events like Christmas or Easter. Services, Check-Ins, and Calendar all allow you to create new special events through a new service type or an existing service type, depending on what works best for you.
New service type
If your special service is more like a special event, create a service type where you can schedule all special services and set the frequency to none.
Here are some examples of when to use a new service type.
if your teams are different for your special services
if you are doing a Christmas musical, a prayer night, or a night of worship where your teams are very different than your normal service.
if you have multiple special event services per year and want to group them together more easily.
if you want to set this up once and then use it each time.
if you have different staffing needs, such as allowing kids volunteers to sign up anywhere.
Existing service type
Most of the time, you will want to create a plan within an existing service type.
This includes when you want to:
add an extra time to your normal services time, like a Sunrise Easter service.
have your regular service at a different time, like a Christmas Eve service on Friday night instead of Sunday morning.
have a service any other time where your teams are mostly the same or are an extension of your regular service.
use the same team structure and volunteers as your weekly services.
Use the sections below to create a special service in your existing service type.
If you want to use a plan similar to what you used for a special service in the past, you can copy the times from that plan to create your new plan.
Go to the past plan, and then create the new plan by copying those times.
Tip
Create a template for special services that happen each year, like Christmas or Easter.
The times in your special service plan can be completely different from the other plans in that service type.
For example, if your Christmas Eve service is on a Friday night and has its own rehearsals, delete all the other times from that one plan and add in the correct times.
Most of your teams should be the same, but if your special service needs additional teams (for example, an orchestra at a Christmas service), you can do one of the following:
Create a new team: If the additional team doesn't exist in any other service type, you can create one from scratch.
After the service is over, you can archive the team and then restore it whenever you need it again. You can also leave the team in your service type and ignore it in future plans, since only teams with people scheduled to them are seen in the plan.
Copy an existing team: If the additional team is similar to an existing one, but you need to make some changes, copy the existing team as a starting point.
Assign an existing team to this service type: If the additional team already exists in another service type, and you can use all the same members and positions, assign that team to this service type on the team settings page.
If your regular service typically has only one service time, but your special service has two or more, you can temporarily split your teams to schedule different people for each time. Check out the article on how to set up split teams to learn how to convert an existing team into a split team.
Important
If the additional service times apply only to your special service, you don't need to add split team time preferences to that service type's settings page.
Once the split team setting is enabled, you must add needed positions for the new service times in your plans before you can schedule people for those times.
After your special service is over, you can un-split the team by unchecking the box on the team settings page. The special service plan will no longer display split teams, but you can still review each person's previously assigned times by selecting their name from the plan's Teams tab.
If you re-split the team again in the future, the old plan will go back to how it looked when you originally set it up.
In your regular plans, it's best to assign people to a team before scheduling them. In a one-time service, though, you can schedule people who don’t serve regularly without adding them as team members.
For example, if you have an expanded choir for the Christmas Eve service, you might not have enough people on your regular choir team to fill all the positions. To schedule people to a team for just one plan, you can schedule them as guests.
Tip
You can also assign tags to people to identify them more easily without adding them to a team.