To get to the Web Terminal Settings, go to the Web Terminal pane on the left hand side of the MSP program. Then click the “Web Terminal Settings…” button under the Home tab.
The Web Terminal settings window has several panes, or headings, running along the left hand column. By clicking on each pane, you can see the settings that correspond to that particular function of the Web Terminal. The following is a discussion of the nine different panes.
General
Terminal URL
The General pane of the “Web Terminal settings” dialog contains the URL or web link that points to the Web Terminal login page for your church. You can change the end of this URL by clicking “Change” and choosing a new Church Web Identifier. Note if you have already sent information to volunteers and change the web identifier, they will not be able to access their account until you send them the updated URL.
Church Name
The name of your church is displayed here and can be changed using the “Change” button.
Allow volunteers to log in to the Web Terminal at this time
The first checkbox allows you to turn off the Web Terminal so that your volunteers may not log on. This control is helpful when you are updating the Web Terminal’s contents or settings, and wish to review your changes before granting your volunteers access.
Allow direct links to live schedule posts (so full schedules can be viewed without logging in)
The second option should be checked if you plan on posting the live schedule on your church’s website. You can also enable the option to allow family members (see Family Groupings) to log on to each other’s Web Terminal information.
Send me an email daily that lists any pending web forms that need to be processed
This option will send a daily email if you have any unprocessed web forms in the Web Forms pane. The email will list the type of web forms pending as well as the number.
Show a header image at the top of the Web Terminal (for custom branding)
The last option in the General pane is helpful if wish to display your church’s logo at the top of the Web Terminal. Posting a logo to the Web Terminal gives volunteers the feeling that they are still on your church’s website.
Enrollments
The Enrollments pane has a number of subheadings related to enlisting new volunteers online.
Allow volunteers to submit enrollment forms
The main Enrollments pane controls whether volunteers may sign up to for a ministry online. You can select later how new volunteer forms that come in over the internet will be processed.
Enrollment URL
The second item on the Enrollments main pane is the Enrollment URL. You can effectively recruit new volunteers simply by having them click on some embedded text (i.e., Click here to get involved in ministry) on your church’s website. Click the “Copy URL… “ button to copy the web address so you can paste it into an email to your Webmaster for posting.
Put a “Sign up now” link to the enrollment form on the Web Terminal login page
This should be checked if you want new volunteers who don’t have a username and password to be able to register when from login page.
Customize the text at the top of the enrollment page…
Allows you to personalize the text above the enrollment form to give volunteers more information (such as who to contact with questions) and style it to match your church brand.
Automatically process enrollment forms (i.e., create volunteer or re-activate existing)
This should not be checked if you screen volunteers or need them to go through a training process before getting involved in ministry. If you want new volunteers to be automatically added to the database and scheduled by the auto-scheduler, check this box. For more information about automatic versus manual processing, please refer to Web Forms.
Send an email when an enrollment form is processed to the volunteer who was enrolled
When an enrollment form is processed – whether it be automatically or manually – you’ll most likely want to send the volunteer an email confirming the enrollment. To personalize the email that is sent, click the “Edit Email Body…” button. You can get a copy of those sent emails by checking the “BCC to me” option, allowing you to track processed enrollment forms in your email.
General Info
Click on the “General info” subheading in the Enrollments pane to customize the contact information and settings you want your volunteers to submit when enrolling online. You can require volunteers to provide basic contact information by checking the box “and require that volunteers fill it in” next to type of contact information you wish to collect. When these options are checked, any volunteer who doesn’t fill in that information will not be able to submit an enrollment form.
Ministries
Click the “Ministries” subheading to customize whether volunteers can sign up for particular ministries while enrolling online. Note that volunteers will not be scheduled in a ministry until their enrollment form has been processed.
Show ministry descriptions
You can include ministry descriptions by checking the box “Show ministry descriptions,” selecting a ministry from the list and typing in a description in the text box that appears to the right. This is helpful in making sure volunteers know what they are signing up for and explaining the gifts or qualifications required in order to participate in this ministry.
Only allow volunteers to request the following ministries
By checking the box “Only allow volunteers to request the following ministries:” you can hide certain ministries or positions (like deacons or clergy) from appearing in the list.
Allow volunteers to request that they be flagged as substitutes in some ministries
Allows volunteers to indicate they would like to be a substitute in a ministry. Substitutes will not be placed on the schedule by the auto-scheduler, but you can manually schedule subs, and they will get all swap request emails for that ministry.
Service Preferences
Under the “Service preferences” subheading, you may specify which options volunteers have access to relating to service preferences.
Serving Frequency
The “Serving frequency” subheading controls whether volunteers can request changes to their preferred serving frequency. It’s not recommended to permit volunteers to change this information because tampering with volunteers’ serving frequency can lead to large disparities in the distribution of services among volunteers.
Can’t Serve Times
In the “Can’t serve times” subheading, you will find options regarding what kind of can’t serve information volunteers can submit during enrollment. Depending on the type of services your church schedules, you may or may not want to allow volunteers to submit can’t serve times for monthly/yearly services, can’t serve dates that repeat or can’t serve dates that are bound to a particular ministry (i.e., I can’t serve Saturday 5:00 pm as a Lector).
Notes
The “Notes” subheading should be checked if you want to allow your volunteers to submit free form notes or comments when enrolling online.
Require manual (versus automatic) processing of all enrollments forms that include notes
Since volunteers may request special items in the “notes” section that affect their participation, the option “Require manual (versus automatic) processing of all enrollments forms that include notes” option is available to ensure volunteers’ Web Forms with comments are reviewed before processing. This option is only applicable if you’re using automatic processing of enrollment forms.
When a form with notes is processed, append the notes to volunteer’s “Comments” field
If you want the notes submitted upon enrollment to be included in a volunteer’s profile in the “Comments” section, make sure to check the last box.
Assignments and Swap Requests
The Assignments and Swap Requests panes are where you can control the settings related to Assignments, Swap Requests, Swap Accepts and Trades . The settings in these panes determine what happens when a volunteer signs up for an unfilled position, requests a swap, accepts a swap requested position, or proposes a trade.
Allow volunteers to submit…
The first option in each pane is to “Allow volunteers to submit…” for the types of forms select. If this box is checked, your volunteers will see “Request a sub” links next to their assigned positions, and “Volunteer now” links for open positions.
Only allow … in these ministries
The next option on both of these panes is, “Only allow self sign up/swaps in these ministries:” and allows you to specify that volunteers can sign up or swap only in certain ministries.
Automatically process
Next, you will see the “Automatically process …” the particular type of request. If this box is checked, the change will go through without any manual intervention. If this box is not checked, you will want to review the change in the Web Forms pane of MSP’s main screen and manually process the form before the change submitted takes effect. If you have automatic processing on and the database is open on an administrator’s computer, automatic processing changes will not take effect until MSP is closed or until the administrator refreshes the Web Forms pane by clicking the circular arrows in the upper right corner of the Web Forms pane.
Send an email…
The next option in the Assignments and Swap Requests panes relates to what happens once the form has been processed. You can select whether emails are automatically sent to your volunteers alerting them of the assignment, swap requests or swap accept once the forms have been processed. You can turn on automatic processing of one type of form and not another (i.e., swap requests are automatically processed, but swap accepts are held for manual approval). To do so, make sure to check the appropriate setting in the pane relating to each type of change.
Don’t allow assignments that would schedule a volunteer for over ___ service in a week
You can also optionally limit the number of positions a volunteer can sign up for in a given week by using the, “Don’t allow assignments that would schedule a volunteer for over ___ service in a week” option. This option is located in the Assignments and Swap Accepts sections of the Web Terminal Settings window,
Allow volunteers to cancel…
This will allow a volunteer to cancel a swap request or assignment if they find they can make the service and no one has taken the position already.
When the Swap Requests heading is highlighted, you will see sub-headings for Swap Accepts and Trades on the left side of the window.
Swap Accepts
In the Swap Accepts section, you will be able to set these forms as being automatically processed, edit the email body, and specify any volunteers who should not receive these types of emails.
Trades
From the Trades section, you will be able to turn on trades, which allows volunteers to offer one of their assigned positions to a volunteer when accepting a sub request from them.
Profile Changes
The Profile Changes pane allows you to control exactly what information your volunteers are able to view and change from the My Profile tab online. This pane contains sub-headings similar to the Enrollments pane that allow you to set up each component of the volunteer profiles. The Profile Changes main pane determines whether volunteers can make changes to their profiles. Check the second option if you want these changes submitted online to be automatically processed without any manual intervention.
General Info
In the “General info” subheading, you can set whether volunteers can request changes to the general personal information. If you check the box, “Allow volunteers to view and request changes to their general personal information,” you can then specify exactly what type of information they can view and update.
Ministries
The “Ministries” subheading gives you control of whether or not volunteers can view and request changes to their list of qualified ministries. If you turn this option on for your volunteers, you can specify which ministries they may request online. The check boxes at the bottom of the “Ministries” subheading give you control of whether volunteers can flag themselves as substitutes, remove themselves from a ministry and whether to manually process requests that involve changes to a volunteers’ ministry qualifications.
Service Preferences
The “Services preferences” subheading manages whether volunteers can view and request changes to their services preferences. If you allow them to view and request changes to their service preferences, the options in the dialog boxes below allow you to specify exactly which changes they can make related to service times.
Serving Frequency
The “Serving frequency” subheading allows you to give your volunteers access to adjusting their serving frequency. In general, it’s not recommended to permit volunteers to change this setting because it can lead to an unfair distribution of services.
Can’t Serve Times
The “Can’t serve times” pane allows volunteers to view and request changes to their can’t serve times. If you want volunteers to be able to submit can’t serve times, which is extremely helpful in reducing micromanagement and making sure volunteers show up for services, use the options in this dialog to customize which types of can’t serve times your volunteers can submit.
Notes
The “Notes” subheading should be checked if you want to allow your volunteers to submit free form notes or comments when updating their profile. Since volunteers may request special items in the “notes” section that affect their participation, the option “Require manual (versus automatic) processing of all profile change forms that include notes” option is available to ensure Web Forms with notes are reviewed before they are processed. This option is only applicable if you’re using automatic processing of profile change forms. If you want the notes submitted to be included in a volunteer’s profile in the “Comments” section, make sure to check the last box, “When a form with notes is processed, append the notes to volunteer’s “Comments” field.”
Auto Reminders
Use the Auto Reminders pane to turn on or off automatic email and SMS (text message) reminders for your volunteers. (Note that the automatic email reminder and the automatic Available Positions email – discussed below – are turned on for your license by default.) This is also where you can specify the number of days in advance an email reminder should be sent.
Edit Email Body
To customize the email that gets sent out, click on the “Edit Email Body…” button and make the desired edits. It is important that the {{AutoEmailReminderServices}} token is included in this email for it to function properly.
Don’t include positions that have been flagged as swap requested
If you do not want volunteers who have requested a swap that has not been filled yet to be reminded of their scheduled service, check this box and reminders will not go out to those volunteers.
Only send reminders for these ministries
If you don’t want to send reminders to all ministries, check the “Only send reminders for these ministries” box and select the desired ministries.
But don’t send such automatic email reminders to these volunteers
If you have any volunteers with email addresses in their profile who prefer not to receive email reminders, you can exclude them by checking the option, “But don’t send such automatic email reminders to these volunteers…” and select their names from the list. You can also do this from a volunteer’s profile.
Text Reminders
You can turn on SMS reminders by checking the appropriate box and setting up an SMS account online. Once the account is set up, the controls for the automatic SMS reminders are the same as those for the automatic email reminders, and you can specify that they only go out for certain ministries, or exclude volunteers who wish not to receive them from the send list.
To change the number where text replies are sent, use the “send replies to this number” area.
Please note:
- Replies sent from the same number as the reply to number will result in nondelivery.
- To reply to a reply you will need to start a new message to that volunteer using the text messaging app on your phone.
Available Positions
You can also activate automatic emails to remind volunteers of any open, available positions by clicking the Available Positions sub-heading on the left side of this window. These emails can be configured to be sent on a particular day of each week and will go out to any volunteer available to fill unfilled positions or swap requested positions they are qualified to fill. Similar to email reminders, you can edit the email body, limit these to particular volunteers (which can also be done via a volunteer’s profile), or limit these emails to only being sent for particular ministries.
Administrators
Inside of MSP, you can optionally specify certain volunteers as being Leaders or Web Admins, which will add a special Admin view when logged in to the Web Terminal. Leaders and Web Admins can communicate and assist volunteers through their web browser or mobile device, without needing to download MSP program.
Note: Ministry Leaders are only available with the Plus Edition of MSP.
New Web Admin
To declare a volunteer a WA, click the “New Web Admin…” button on the right side of the window. Web Admins have full access to all volunteers, ministries, and settings in the program, just as if they had MSP installed on their computer.
New Leader
To declare a volunteer a Leader, click the “New Leader…” button on the right side of the window. You can then specify which ministries they are the leader of using the appropriate controls. (Note that if you have set up ministry folders, it is easy to assign a Minister Leader to all the ministries in a single folder at one time.) Ministry Leaders can also optionally be restricted to only manage certain service times. A Ministry Leader’s group of “managed volunteers” consists of any volunteers who belong to at least one of the leader’s managed ministries and whose service preferences indicate that they can be scheduled for at least one of the leader’s managed services. Through this view the Leader can modify schedules for the ministries they are set as the leader for, send emails and text messages to their managed group of volunteers, request subs on their behalf, edit volunteer profiles, and edit notes and resources.
Remove Access
Use this option to remove admin access from the selected volunteer, thereby removing the administrator view and all administrative capabilities when they log in to the Web Terminal.
BCC on emails from related Web Forms
BCCs will be sent whenever a web form for a volunteer is processed. If the one being BCC’d is a Leader, they will only be BCC’d on web forms in their assigned ministry. This includes swap requests, swap accepts, trades, and assignments in the ministry.
From Address
The “From” Address pane allows you to specify the email address for any automatic emails that are sent from the Web Terminal including notifications for swap requests, swap accepts, assignments, trades, and auto reminders. This “From” address is separate from the “From” address in the Announcements pane.
A unique email address can be entered for each ministry which is useful if you have different people in charge of each ministry. When volunteers reply to auto-reminders, the replies will go to the “From” address assigned to the ministry that positions are being swapped or assigned to.
Sign-in Kiosk
Note: Kiosk is only available with the Plus Edition of MSP.
Track attendance easily and accurately with MSP’s Sign-in Kiosk – accessible on both tablets and computers. Volunteers can sign in when they show up to serve with just a few clicks. Leaders can see exactly who has checked in, both at the service and after the fact, for simple reporting and follow up.
Enable the Sign-in Kiosk (to track attendance)
This first check box allows you to turn on the kiosk so it is available to use. No additional set up is required!
Kiosk URL
This is the web address you will use when accessing the kiosk via the internet on any computer or tablet. Click the “Copy” button to copy the URL so you can paste it in an email for use on any device.
Allow sign-ins up to [x] minutes before and [x] minutes after the start of each service
The default is to allow sign up starting 60 minutes before and 10 minutes after any service, but you can customize these settings here.
Do not flag volunteers who have requested swaps as “No Shows”
This allows you to consider volutneers who requested a sub as no longer being responsible for filling the position. Alternatively, leaving this box unchecked will marked swap requested volunteers as No Shows if they do not sign in or have someone volunteer in their place using the kiosk.
Put all un-checked-in positions up for grabs [x] minutes before each service starts
The default setting for this option is 10 minutes. This allows positions that do not have a volunteer signed in (whether they are flagged as swap requested or not) to be able to be filled in by any volunteer who is qualified for the position in MSP.
Enable the kiosk only for these ministries
This allows you to let the ministries selected use the kiosk, but for those ministries not listed, no attendance data will be taken.
Enable the kiosk only for these services
This allows you to let the services selected use the kiosk, but for those services not listed, no attendance data will be taken.
Use clipboard mode when there is just one service open for sign-in
This default is for the kiosk to open to clipboard mode. However, if you want to default to self-sign-in, uncheck this box. Note: If you have multiple services at the same time, the kiosk will go back to the sign-in station mode.
Dead end message
The default for this section reads: “Sorry, we can’t find the position for which you are attempting to check in. Please contact your coordinator for assistance.” Type in the text field to customize this message.
This will be displayed whenever the kiosk cannot check a volunteer in for a particular position.
