Whether it's collecting contact details, parental permissions or a simple survey, there are loads of different reasons that a Church may need to gather information. For many years the easiest way to do this has been printed sheets of paper, which inevitably get crinkled, coffee mug stained and eventually lost. Or they just sit in a cupboard and take up space. But what if you could digitise the process, making collecting information quicker and easier, making storing of the collected information more secure and traceable and meaning that you’re being more environmentally friendly by not needing countless sheets of paper!
With iKnow Church, you can do all of that. The ‘Custom Forms’ tool within iKnow allows you to create an online form for as many questions as you need. Once you’ve created the form, you can either embed it on your Church’s website, provide a direct link to it for use on Social Media and direct communications or, if you wished, print blank copies out so that they can be filled in by hand.
The digital forms within iKnow can be used to trigger a particular Process within iKnow, to allow for follow ups to take place. Certain people can be notified when a form is filed in, and any answers which are added to a form can even be mapped into your People database, to make it even easier for you to manage your Church members. It really is the perfect way to collect information!
So how about some examples to help us see how these can be used:
- Welcome / ‘Contact card’: Create a simple form to collect the information you'd need to follow up with a guest to the church (maybe just name, email address and phone number… keep it simple). Embed the form on your website, and perhaps have a banner in your Church foyer or entrance with a QR code which links to that form… This allows people to fill the form in when they’re ready.
- Parental Consent form: Maybe your Youth and Childrens department are taking a trip and you need to collect permission from Parents so that their child can attend. Simply create the form within iKnow and then email a link to all of the parents. You’ll be notified when a form has been completed, and you can even export and print all of the responses if needed, or access them from your laptop or mobile device simply by logging into iKnow!
- Church Survey: Do you run surveys regularly throughout the Church? If so, you can really easily create these and send them out throughout the Church. Simply copy the link, and then find your group, team or circle and send them the link through the communications suite!
It really is that simple! If you want to know more about Forms, you can find our tutorials on our support website by clicking here