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V3: How to use Data Capture to keep your Church Directory up-to-date
V3: How to use Data Capture to keep your Church Directory up-to-date

Here's how to easily keep your staff and member personal data current by using an automated data capture campaign.

Anne Heath avatar
Written by Anne Heath
Updated over a week ago

Keeping your staff and member personal data current is quite important...and it can be quite a headache, too. That’s why we recommend using a data capture campaign to do it for you. Once you ‘set it and forget it’, your people can update their personal information anytime and from anywhere.

Whenever a member needs to update their information, they can text your keyword, and the update is done automatically for you!

Currently, we integrate with your contacts’ names, phone numbers, and emails and can collect and update that information for you through our integration with your ChMS. The ability to also integrate with birthdays and addresses is coming soon!

Let’s look at what such a campaign might look like from your church member’s point of view…

To make things more relevant, let’s pretend we are Jane Smith, born on May 12, 1987. Jane recently remarried. Her previous last name was ‘Doe”. Her phone number is the same (555-4444) but her email ([email protected] instead of [email protected]) and home address (111 Tree Lane instead of 222 Oak Drive) have changed. 

To begin...Jane texts the campaign keyword ‘Update’ to your church number.

Step 1: She receives a welcome message which thanks her for her participation and tells her how many steps she will need to complete. Then she is guided to begin with the first step. Something like, “Thank you for taking a couple of minutes to help us update our church directory! This will just be a quick, 4-step process. Step 1: Please reply with your full name.”

Why full name? People’s names change for a variety of reasons. We suggest that it is always a good idea to include this step just to be on the safe side.

Jane texts her name.

Step 2: She receives a personalized ‘thank you’ + the next step. Perhaps, “Thanks, Jane. Step 2: Please reply with your email address.”

Jane enters this information.

Step 3: The next message reminds her that she is almost finished + the following step. A message such as, “Just a couple more steps to go! Step 3: Please reply with your address.”

Jane does.

Step 4: The last message is about her birthday. Maybe, “Last one! Please provide your birthday in YYYY-MM-DD format.

Jane enters this.

To finish… the system sends Jane a message of the information it has for her with the option to make changes if needed. Something like:

“Thank you, Jane. We have the following information saved for you:

Name: Jane Smith

Address: 111 Tree Lane

Birthday: 1987-05-12

Need to make any changes? Just reply with the word UPDATE.

How to set up an Update Campaign

Check out this article HERE for a step by step on how to create this exact campaign.

This Help Center article walks you through the steps needed to create an automated messages campaign. There are the basic steps used for any automated messages campaign.

You can also see our Facebook post on this topic. The video shows the creation of this specific type of campaign.

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