How People Records (Profiles) Are Created

While it’s exciting to begin compiling your people records and ensuring your database is complete, it’s super important to understand how people records are created in Nucleus. (This will help ensure you don’t end up with a bunch of duplicate records that you need to deal with later down the road.)

So if you don’t want to make work for yourself later on, follow along. You’ll be thankful you did 😊

In this guide, we'll cover the following topics. Click on any one to jump ahead.

Digitally Created Records

The most common way people records are created is digitally.

Whenever someone submits a prayer request through the PrayerFlow, submits a gift through the GivingFlow, or completes a submission through a custom Flow where they provide their email address - not only will that submission be recorded in its corresponding product in your Dashboard, but a person record will automatically be created for that person as well. This record will appear in both that specific product and in your Nucleus People database.

Note: If no email address is provided, that submission will remain anonymous. For Giving & Payments, (donations), it’s possible for someone to later claim the anonymous gift to their account, or for an admin to assign an unclaimed gift to a person record on their behalf.

Once a person record is created from the email address, the Flow will suggest to the person to create a password to finalize the creation of their personal My Nucleus account. For more information about congregation accounts, how they can manage their own information and records, click here.

From there, our system will send them an email to verify their email address. Once verified, any and all submissions associated with that email address will be properly filed in their person record in your database. (For this reason, verifying email addresses is a very important step for admins and congregation members alike when creating accounts. Click here to learn more.)

Digitally created records will always say Created under the Nucleus Login column in your People database. Additionally, while viewing a digitally created account, you will notice the Nucleus logo beside Account Created. Manually created records will showcase neither and instead, will show “Offline Record” near the top of the page, when viewing someone’s profile.

When updating/upkeeping a digitally created person record, no edits you make will be shown to the person in their My Nucleus account. Any changes they make, however, will automatically update in your people database. This allows admins to update records and make notes without worry of people seeing those changes on their end.

Manually Created Records

Another way to create people records is manually in Nucleus People. This is a great option for those people in your congregation who you know will never create a digital record or submit a Flow of any sort. (You know who they are 😉)

To create an offline Person, under People, click the + Add Offline Person button in the upper right hand corner.

Note: You cannot delete records once they are created; however, you can hide them if you have the highest level of people database admin permissions. Hiding them prevents searches from showcasing their record. We have an entire walkthrough dedicated to rolling out Nucleus to your congregation, complete with a strategy to nudge people to create their own My Nucleus account, thereby creating their digital record in your people database. Click here to learn more about that.

Because it’s possible to create manual gifts in Nucleus Giving, the only activity card you’ll see active for an offline person is Giving records (if they have any).

Submissions & Activity In Other Products

When a person record is created, you’ll be able to see an activity tab under the People profile for that person. This shows a summary and link to the products where this person’s activity is. For example, if a person has interacted with your PrayerFlow and a custom Flow, you might see a link out to both of those products; but if they haven’t interacted with your GivingFlow, you won’t see a link out to that product.

You can view any person's activity by clicking the View button beside them in your People list, and then choosing the Activity tab in their People record.

Out of respect for each person’s privacy, we don’t showcase people’s submissions directly in their person record in Nucleus People. This is because, while an admin might have access to view people records in Nucleus People, they might not have access to other products where a person’s submissions reside. So instead, we provide the link out to a person’s record directly within the corresponding app. If you have access to that product, you can then view those submissions associated with that particular person.

Admin People Database Permissions

Because people records are available in most products, there are various levels of permission every admin can be granted, regardless of what products they have access to:

  • View
  • View & Edit
  • View, Edit, & Create

On top of this, if an admin has the highest level of people database permissions (View, Edit & Create) you can also give them the permission to hide people records.

If you don’t have the ability to manipulate a person record, it’s likely because you haven’t been granted the permission to do so, and you’ll need to request permission, which a higher level admin (or account owner of your Nucleus) can do. (If you’re the account owner, you can make this change to your own account.)

Note: These permissions are different from general admin access to Nucleus People. Nucleus People is a product within your Nucleus Dashboard, but viewing and/or adjusting people database records can be done at some level in most Nucleus products. To learn how to invite people to access Nucleus People, click here.

No Need To Import Records

While other platforms may allow you to import people records, Nucleus does not for the following reasons:

  1. Importing records would leave you with a bunch of manually created records that are disconnected from a real person’s My Nucleus account or login. So even if someone were to later digitally create a record, it would be a completely separate record, leaving you with duplicates to manage in your database.
  2. Because each church system interprets information differently, usually imported people records require a bunch of manual edits afterwards, cross referencing the information in the old ChMS with what’s now populated in your Nucleus People database, to ensure the data is accurate. This often eats into time and energy admins can be using in more productive ways when setting up their Nucleus account.
  3. It’s rarely (if ever) a good experience for admins or your congregation. For example, some other church software might allow you to import your old person records. However, if you want them attached and activated with real people, it then requires your congregation to follow a set of instructions to accept invitations and create logins in order to convert those offline records into digital ones. And since not everyone will follow those instructions and will create new digital records, you’ll be in the same situation as Point #1, where you have duplicate records to manage. Or you have a lot of chasing down of people to do, which we’ve experienced personally and it’s a real headache for everyone involved - staff and congregation and causes a lot of friction.

In short, it always seems like importing records is an amazing shortcut, but the reality is rarely so smooth and often the work is just hidden. So, instead of importing a bunch of manually created records and dealing with all the issues that come along with that, it’s best to start fresh and let people records populate automatically as you need them. 

If you need to handle and transfer your communication into Nucleus Messages, you can very easily bulk import email addresses to rebuild your email lists from your previous platform, as Audiences in various Campaigns you use regularly. 

A great way to automatically get people to help you with this transition to the new people database is to setup a Nucleus Messages campaign, with instructions on how your congregation can create their own My Nucleus account - and use the bulk email list audience builder to leverage your existing email list to jumpstart things! This helps fill your database with fully functional, digitally created people records, instead of being half full of manually created records you have to maintain.

We explore this in depth in our Nucleus Rollout Guide here, complete with email copy for your Message Campaign. Click here to learn more.

No Merging Or Deleting Records (With Exceptions)

As mentioned above, admins do not have the ability to delete people records. This is a safety precaution put in place to avoid any possible loss of important submission data (such as giving records). Admins can, however, with the correct permissions, hide unwanted people records. ( Click here to learn more about admin access and permission levels.)

Admins also do not have the ability to merge people records, regardless if one is manually created and one is digitally created; both are manually created; or both are digitally created. This is to avoid any accidental mergers that would be super tricky to untangle.

That being said, if you have any transaction records that need to be reassigned, you can use the Bulk Reassign Tool. This is really helpful if an offline-only person starts to give through your GivingFlow, or interacts with your other Nucleus products and creates an online/digital person record. In this case, you can easily move all giving transactions from their offline person record to their new, real digital person record.

Click here to learn more about the Bulk Reassign Tool.

Should you have specific people records that, on rare occasions - emphasis on the rare 😉 - you need deleted or merged, contact us at hello@nucleus.church and we’ll see if one of our developers can carefully combine or remove person records with care to ensure the task is completed without errors.

What Next?

Now that you understand how people records are created, it’s time to begin curating your lists and adding people to them so that everyone belongs to at least one list, whether it’s a custom list or a Connection Type. And from there, what better transition than to dive into Messages, where you can learn all about email Campaigns. Click any guide below to continue on:

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