People Directory & Profiles

The People directory is your church’s central record of the individuals in your congregation—members, regular attenders, first-time visitors, children, and former or deceased saints whose history with your church still matters.

In Parsonage, directory records are separate from login accounts. Adding someone to the People directory never sends them an email or requires them to sign in. That means children, nursing-home residents, occasional visitors, and members who prefer not to use computers all belong in your directory alongside staff and volunteers.

Opening a person in the directory shows their contact strip and status badges at the top, followed by up to four tabs that keep their record organized without endless scrolling:

• Overview: Shows church and life events (membership status, date of birth, baptism date, and date of death if marked deceased), plus any pinned care notes and open follow-up tasks for that person.
• Notes: Appears for church owners and administrators. Holds pastoral and office notes written directly on this person, along with notes shared from any household they belong to.
• Tasks: Lists open and completed follow-up tasks attached to this person or their households, with a badge showing the count of open tasks.
• Family & groups: Shows the households they attend with, their multi-generation family connections and interactive family tree, and the church groups, classes, or teams they belong to.

Because the directory is connected to the rest of Parsonage, keeping a person’s profile up to date helps across your week:

• Sunday bulletins: Recorded birth dates and married couples’ wedding dates automatically power upcoming birthday and anniversary suggestions in the bulletin editor, and people in your directory appear as quick suggestions when filling in the preacher or service leaders.
• Church email broadcasts: Email addresses, membership statuses, and group memberships let you address messages to the whole church, specific membership statuses, or individual groups while automatically skipping duplicates and opted-out people.
• Printed directory: The printable directory formats your congregation’s names, contact information, and households into a clean booklet layout.

Every signed-in member of your church workspace can browse the directory, while editing and pastoral notes are reserved for church leaders:

Owner

Full access. Can view and search the directory, add and edit people, update statuses and communication preferences, view and write Notes, manage Tasks, and edit family connections, households, and groups.

Admin

Same People directory access as Owner: can view and search everyone, add and edit profiles, view and write Notes, and manage Tasks, family connections, households, and groups.

Member

Read-only access to directory profiles, life events, family connections, households, and groups, plus access to Tasks. Cannot add or edit people and cannot see the Notes tab or pinned notes.

Searching, sorting, and filtering

The congregation list sits on the left side of the workspace (and stays pinned as you scroll through a person’s profile on wider screens):

• Quick search: Press Cmd+K (Mac), Ctrl+K (Windows/Linux), or / from anywhere on the People page to jump straight to the search box. You can search by legal name, preferred name, email address, or any 3 or more digits of a mobile or home phone number.
• Sort order: Switch the sort menu between Name (A–Z) (sorted by last name, then first name) and Recently added (newest records first, showing the date each person was added).
• Status filter: Narrow the list to All statuses, Member, Regular attender, Visitor, Inactive, or No status. Click Clear filters anytime to return to the full congregation.

Adding and editing a person

1. 1

   Start a new record or open an existing one

   Click Add person in the top-right corner to create someone new, or select a person from the list and click Edit details in their profile header.

2. 2

   Enter their name and preferred name

   Only First name and Last name are required. If someone goes by a nickname or middle name (such as “Bill” for William), enter it in Preferred name (optional)—Parsonage will display “Bill Bennett” throughout the app while still showing their legal name on their profile and matching both names in search.

3. 3

   Fill in contact details and address

   Add an email address, mobile phone, home phone, and mailing address as you have them. If another family or household member is already in the directory with an address, use the Copy address from picker to fill in street, city, state, and ZIP code in one click instead of retyping.

4. 4

   Record church and life events

   Choose a Membership status (Member, Regular attender, Visitor, Inactive, or leave as Not recorded) and enter an optional Baptism date and Date of birth. If someone has passed away, check Deceased to reveal the optional Date of death (optional) field.

5. 5

   Save your changes

   Click Save person (when adding) or Save details (when editing) in the sticky bar at the bottom of the form.

Every person’s profile includes three contact preference checkboxes—Do not email, Do not text, and Do not mail—along with a Deceased checkbox under Church & life events.

When checked, clear rose badges (such as Do not email, Do not text, or Do not mail) appear right beside that person’s contact information on their profile so pastors, staff, and volunteers always see their wishes before reaching out—even if no email address, phone number, or street address is currently on file.

How preferences and deceased status affect the rest of the app

• Do not email: Automatically excludes the person from all church email broadcasts sent through the Messages workspace, even if they belong to the selected group or membership status filter.
• Do not text & Do not mail: Displays a prominent warning badge next to their mobile phone number or mailing address on their profile so staff and leaders know not to send text messages or physical mail.
• Deceased records: Marking someone Deceased keeps their record, notes, and place in multi-generation family trees intact while automatically excluding them from church email broadcasts, Sunday bulletin birthday and wedding anniversary suggestions, and the printed congregation directory.