Member Portal Guide - Church-Owned Mobile Experience

Welcome to the member portal guide. This manual helps church members, regular attenders, and volunteers use their church-owned portal to update personal details, give, request prayer, watch sermons, handle tasks, and stay connected on mobile.

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Table of Contents

1. Portal Access, Installation & Offline Readiness
2. Updating Your Personal Profile & Viewing Household Details
3. Online Giving (Mobile Money MTN & Orange)
4. Submitting and Tracking Prayer Requests
5. Reading Devotionals, Sermons & Alerts
6. Using Church Forms, Share Links & QR Codes
7. Tasks, Chat & Volunteer Follow-Through
8. Interacting with the Portal AI Assistant

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1. Portal Access, Installation & Offline Readiness

The member portal is designed first for mobile devices. It can be installed as a Progressive Web App (PWA) directly onto your Android or iOS smartphone home screen.

Accessing the Portal

1. Open your mobile web browser (e.g., Chrome, Safari).
2. Enter your church's portal URL: /m/{church-slug}/portal.
3. If your church has published the portal publicly, you can open public areas such as the home page, sermons, events, giving, prayer intake, forms, and active custom pages without signing in.
4. Sign in when you need member-only tools such as profile management, chat, alerts, tasks, service assignments, private prayer tracking, or other personal records.
5. If your church has enabled self-registration, use Register to create your account from the same portal entry point.

Note Public portal mode does not make member data public. It only opens church-approved public pages and still requires login for personal, messaging, notification, task, and profile features.

Installing the PWA App

• Android: Tap the Add to Home Screen banner that pops up at the bottom of the screen. If it doesn't appear, tap the browser's menu (three dots) and select Install App.
• iOS (iPhone): Tap the Share button in Safari (square with up arrow), scroll down, and select Add to Home Screen.

Visual note: Smartphone showing Add to Home Screen install steps for Safari and Chrome

Preparing the Portal for Weak Internet or Offline Moments

1. While you still have internet, open the pages you use most often: Dashboard, Profile, Prayer, Tasks, and Sermons.
2. Leave the app open for a moment so the device can store the latest portal shell and key content.
3. Watch the portal status strip. It will let you know when the device is ready for lower-connectivity use and when queued updates are waiting to sync.
4. If the network drops later, the portal can still keep recent pages available and queue safe actions such as:
   • new prayer requests
   • prayer updates
   • text-only profile edits
   • task accept, decline, and complete actions
   • text-only chat messages, which send automatically after the connection returns
5. The following still require a live connection:
   • live chat updates, typing indicators, and attachment delivery
   • push notification delivery
   • Mobile Money checkout and payment confirmation
   • profile photo uploads
   • password changes

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2. Updating Your Personal Profile & Viewing Household Details

Keep your contact records up to date to help pastors stay in touch with you.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Navigate to Profile from the portal menu.
2. Under Edit Info, review and update:
   • Phone & WhatsApp numbers.
   • Quarter/Neighborhood and Home Village, or the local location fields your church uses.
   • Occupation & Employer (helps with career networking within the church).
3. Under Profile Photo, upload a clear image of yourself.
4. Review the Family & Household section to see the household record your church has linked to you.
5. If a household relationship or family detail is missing, contact the church office so the official church-side record can be updated safely.
6. Click Save Changes.

Tip If your connection drops, the portal can queue text-based profile updates and sync them later. Photo uploads still need a live internet session.

Visual note: Profile Edit page showing quarter, home village, and photo upload fields

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3. Online Giving (Mobile Money MTN & Orange)

You can give tithes, offerings, and designated donations securely through the giving methods your church has enabled, including supported Mobile Money options and other local payment methods.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Go to the Giving tab in the portal menu.
2. Select your Giving Category (e.g., Tithe, Thanksgiving Offering, Building Project Fund).
3. Input the Amount in CFA Francs (e.g., 10000).
4. Enter the Payer Phone Number (the active MTN or Orange phone you wish to pay with).
5. Select the network medium (MTN Mobile Money or Orange Money).
6. Click Pay Now.
7. Reconciliation Check:
   • A secure prompt will show on your phone.
   • Enter your Mobile Money PIN code to approve the transaction.
   • Wait for the portal screen to keep checking until the gift becomes Completed or clearly Not completed.
8. Review the Giving History area to track completed, pending, or failed payment attempts.

Note Giving forms and history can remain visible on weak networks, but the actual payment handshake still depends on a live connection to the payment gateway and mobile network.

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4. Submitting and Tracking Prayer Requests

Share your prayer items with the pastoral team.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Navigate to the Prayer tab in the portal menu.
2. Click Submit Prayer Request.
3. Choose your category: Healing, Finance, Family, Deliverance, or Thanksgiving.
4. Input your request text in detail.
5. Set your Response Preference:
   • Just Pray: Keep in the pastoral prayer list without follow-up messages.
   • Call Me: Request a pastoral phone call.
   • Schedule Visit: Request a home visit.
6. Set Anonymous to Yes if you want the prayer cell to see the request without your name.
7. Mark the request as Urgent if it needs quicker care-team attention.
8. Click Submit Request.
9. Return later to track prayer status, see follow-up moments, or update the same request instead of starting a duplicate one.

After submission, Church-Ops sends you a receipt confirmation and alerts the authorized care team without exposing your request text in notification previews. If a caregiver is assigned, they receive a secure assignment and must accept it before opening the protected care brief.

Pastoral appointment requests work similarly: the selected pastor is notified, you receive confirmation that the request was received, and Church-Ops sends another update when the appointment status changes.

Visual note: Prayer Request form showing anonymity toggle and follow-up preferences Tip If the internet drops after you fill the form, the portal can queue the prayer request and send it automatically when the connection returns.

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5. Reading Devotionals, Sermons & Alerts

Engage with daily reflections and catch up on missed teachings.

Daily Devotionals

1. Navigate to the portal Dashboard.
2. Click Read Daily Devotional.
3. Review scripture readings, reflections, and closing prayers written by the pastor.
4. Use the reaction and comment tools to add a short encouragement or reflection if your church has that engagement turned on.

Commenting and Replies

• Reactions can stay open to guests on the shared devotional page, but commenting requires a church-linked member or staff account.
• If you do not have an account yet, use the devotional sign-in or account request links. A church admin may need to approve the request before comments and portal sign-in are enabled.
• Replies are threaded like a conversation, so you can answer a specific reflection without losing the flow.
• When someone replies to your devotional reflection, Church-Ops can notify you in the portal and by email.

Tip Open devotionals, sermons, and alerts while connected if you expect poor signal later. The portal keeps recently opened content available on that device more reliably after it has been visited once.

Sermon Library

1. Select the Sermons tab in the portal menu.
2. Select a sermon from the list.
3. Click the Play Video button.
4. Best Practice: Double-tap the video window to activate the Mini-Player. This keeps the video playing in a small floating box at the bottom right corner, allowing you to browse devotionals or review event announcements at the same time.

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6. Using Church Forms, Share Links & QR Codes

Churches can publish selected forms directly into the member portal so members can respond without leaving the app shell.

Opening Portal Forms

1. Navigate to Forms from the portal navigation or a dashboard shortcut.
2. Select the form you need, such as a volunteer interest form, member update form, or ministry follow-up form.
3. Review the instructions, complete the questions, and tap Submit.

Sharing a Form

Each available form can expose up to three sharing tools:

1. Portal link for signed-in members who should open the form inside the church portal.
2. Public website link for forms that are also open to guests or the wider community.
3. QR code for quick scanning during announcements, printed notices, or on-screen presentations.

Tip Use the portal link when the church wants members to stay inside the branded member experience. Use the public link only when the form is also meant for non-members.

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7. Tasks, Chat & Volunteer Follow-Through

If your church uses tasks, volunteer assignments, or portal chat, the Tasks page shows work assigned either to your member profile or directly to your staff/user account.

Steps to Manage Assignments

1. Navigate to Tasks in the portal. If it is not one of the bottom tabs, open More and choose Tasks.
2. Open any assignment to view its details, deadline, and priority.
3. Choose Accept, Decline, or Complete depending on the task state.
4. If you complete a task, submit the requested completion report so the church team has a clear ministry record.

If the signal drops during task follow-through, those task responses can queue and sync later.

Using Portal Chat

1. Open Chat from the portal navigation if your church has chat enabled for your account.
2. Select the right person, room, or ministry thread.
3. Send text, reactions, and supported attachments as allowed by your church setup.
4. Use the message ticks to distinguish Pending, Sent, Delivered, and Read messages.
5. Open the conversation menu to search inside the chat, view starred messages, pin important conversations, mute alerts, mark a conversation unread, or archive it.
6. Drafts are kept per conversation on the current device. Text-only messages written while offline remain pending and retry automatically when the connection returns.

Note Attachments, typing indicators, delivery updates, and live incoming messages still need a connection. Muting a conversation suppresses its push alerts without deleting its messages.

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8. Interacting with the Portal AI Assistant

If your church has enabled the portal assistant, you will see an assistant button in the portal layout.

Interactive Steps

1. Tap the floating chat button.
2. Type questions like:
   • "What time does the youth retreat start?"
   • "Show me sermons preached on forgiveness."
   • "Where can I download the public welfare guide?"
3. The assistant will answer using public event schedules, teachings, and public documents.

Warning The member assistant is restricted from exposing private member records, finance logs, staff-only notes, or other protected church data.

Note The assistant requires a live internet connection.