Creating a church and inviting its owner

A super admin creates a new church from the control plane: its name and address, its plan, its time zone, and its first owner. On the church’s page you can then see everyone who can sign in to it, invite an owner, and send an owner’s invitation again.

Create a church

1. In the control plane, open Tenants and choose Create church. Only super admins see the button.
2. Enter the Church name. The Address fills in from the name; change it if the church prefers something shorter. It is the name in the church’s three addresses (website, staff dashboard, member portal), and it cannot be changed later. As you type, the form says whether it is available, reserved for HoW’s own addresses (such as support or admin), or already taken by another church.
3. Choose the Plan (Core, Pro or Elite), the Time zone (New York unless the church is elsewhere), the Country (two letters, such as US) and the Language (such as en-US).
4. Enter the Owner’s email: the pastor or administrator who will run the church’s account.
5. Choose Create church.

The page then shows the church’s three addresses and what happened to the owner:

• “… is the owner”: that address already has a HoW login (from another church, for example). They are the church’s owner now and can sign in to the staff dashboard straight away.
• “Invitation sent to …”: the address is new to HoW. They get an email to set up their login, and become the owner when they accept.
• “The church was created, but the invitation was not sent”: the church exists; open it and use Invite an owner to try again.
• “This email can’t get staff access here. …”: that address has staff access at another church. Nothing was created. Ask the owner for a different email address and create the church again.

Choose Open the church to go to its page, or Create another church.

See and manage a church’s owners

Open Tenants, then the church. Owners and staff logins lists everyone who can sign in to the church: their email, name, roles (Owner, Administrator, Staff…) and status (invited, active or suspended), owners first.

• Invite an owner sends an invitation to another address, as an owner. Someone who already has a HoW login finds the invitation waiting the next time they sign in to the staff dashboard.
• Send the invitation again appears beside an owner who has not accepted yet. A person who never set up their login gets the invitation email again; someone who did gets a sign-in link to the dashboard, where the invitation waits.

Good to know

• Super admins only, with two-step verification. DCX support sees the church list and a church’s page, but not the Create church button or the logins list.
• Nothing destructive here. Suspending, removing or changing someone’s roles is done by the church in Team in their staff dashboard. If a church has lost every owner, invite a new one here.
• One minute between emails. Sending the same invitation twice in quick succession is refused; wait a minute.
• Recorded. The new church, its owner and each new invitation are in the church’s audit log with your name.
• Children’s logins show only the first letter and domain of the email.
• Compared with Planning Center: a church creates its own Planning Center account, and Planning Center’s support replaces an organization administrator only on request. At HoW, DCX sets every church up; afterwards the church manages its own team, and DCX steps in by invitation when it cannot.