Users, Roles & Permissions
There’s an important difference between a Member (a person in your congregation) and a User (someone with a login to this app). Most members never log in; a user is a member of your staff/volunteer team who needs access to HolyCRM itself.
Inviting someone
Section titled “Inviting someone”Settings → Users → Invite user. Search for and pick an existing Member first (if they’re already in your directory) — this links their login to their existing record instead of creating a duplicate person. If they’re not a member yet, you can invite them with just a name and email instead.
Linking matters most for the Member role: it’s what lets someone see their own contact info and giving history (see My Profile and My Giving) — a Member invited without a linked record just sees an empty Profile page.
Pick their role:
| Role | What they can do (by default) |
|---|---|
| Administrator | Everything, including users, custom permissions, Data & Privacy and billing. |
| Coordinator | Day-to-day ministry and administration: people, small groups, ministries and rotas, events, attendance, finance, email and church settings. Can’t change permissions, Data & Privacy or billing, and can’t promote anyone to Coordinator/Administrator. |
| Volunteer | Hands-on serving at the door and in services: welcome visitors, take attendance and run check-in, finding people by name only. No access to the member directory, finance, prayer requests, small groups, ministries, rota planning, email or reports. |
| Member | Self-service only: their own profile, their rotas, availability and giving history. No access to anyone else’s data. |
These limits are enforced by HolyCRM’s server, not only hidden from the menu, so someone can’t reach data their role doesn’t allow by any other route. A suspended user loses all access to the church immediately.
Most people who serve on rotas only need the Member role: being on a rota depends on Serves on rotas in their member record, not on their login, and Members already see their own rotas and availability.
Leading a small group or ministry adds access to that team — see My Teams.
An invited person receives an email with a link to set their password. The link works for 7 days. Until they use it, their status shows as Invited with the date the link is valid until; once they set a password — or sign in with Continue with Google using that same email — they become Active automatically. If the link runs out, the status shows Invite expired: click Resend invite to send a new one.
Inviting several people at once
Section titled “Inviting several people at once”Invite several lets you paste a list, one person per line: email, first name, last name (copied from a spreadsheet works too), or choose a CSV file. Pick one role for everyone and click Send invites. Anyone who is already a member with that email is linked to their member record automatically. You see the result for each person; the ones that couldn’t be invited stay in the box so you can fix them and try again. Up to 100 people at a time.
Managing existing users
Section titled “Managing existing users”From the Users list you can change someone’s role, suspend them (they lose access without deleting their account or history), reactivate them, remove them from the church entirely, resend an invite that hasn’t been accepted yet, or edit their login email.
The Status filter above the list shows only Active users, Pending invites (everyone who hasn’t accepted yet), expired invites or suspended users.
History shows the last 100 changes to your church’s logins — who was invited or added, role and status changes, email changes and removals — with when and who did it.
A few built-in safety rules: you can only assign or manage roles below your own (a Coordinator can’t touch an Administrator or another Coordinator’s access), you can’t edit your own row from this screen, and a church always keeps at least one Administrator — the last one can’t be removed or demoted.
Linking a login to a member
Section titled “Linking a login to a member”A login works best when it’s linked to the person’s member record: their name, My serving, My giving and My availability all come from it. In the Users list, people without a link show Not linked to a member.
- Click Link member (or Change member) on their row, search the member and Save. Unlink removes the link without deleting anything.
- You can link your own login too, from your row.
- Each member can be linked to only one login. Members that already have one show already has a user in the search.
Custom permissions
Section titled “Custom permissions”Each role comes with HolyCRM’s recommended access. An Administrator can change it for your church under Settings → Custom User Access:
- Pick the role at the top (Coordinator, Volunteer or Member). A number next to a role shows how many screens you’ve customized for it.
- Each screen has up to four boxes: View, Add, Edit and Delete. A dash means that action doesn’t exist for that screen. Ticking Add, Edit or Delete also ticks View; unticking View clears the rest.
- Changed rows are marked; nothing applies until you press Save changes. Changes apply to everyone with that role, and HolyCRM enforces them everywhere, not just in the menu.
Some screens share one setting — for example, Check-in and Kids Check-in follow Attendance — and are listed as “Also applies to” under it. Restore default undoes one screen; Restore all defaults undoes everything for that role.
Two things can’t be changed here: the Administrator role always has full access (so nobody locks the church out of this screen), and Billing, Data & Privacy and Custom User Access stay with Administrators (Users with Administrators and Coordinators).
My Profile vs. Users
Section titled “My Profile vs. Users”My Profile (under Account) is where anyone manages their own login — name, avatar, password, and email. The Users screen is where an Administrator/Coordinator manages everyone else’s access. See My Profile.