Keep families together with one shared address. Add a whole family at once, move people between households, and see where households are used.
A household is a family, or anyone who lives at the same address. It keeps parents and children together, holds the one address and home phone they share, and ties together the places a family shows up: check-in, giving statements, mailing labels and the member portal.
Everyone on your team can add and edit households. Administrators and staff can delete them.
What a household holds
Open People › Households and select a household to see:
- People: everyone in it, with their role, age, membership status, and a Head badge on the head of household.
- Details: the Mail addressed to name, the address, the home phone and any notes.
- Household giving: this year's and last year's total, for people who can manage giving.
- Pickup restrictions, shown in red at the top when there are any.
The address lives on the household, not on each person. Change it once and it changes for the whole family. Someone without a household has no address in Phyle.
Roles in a household
Each person has a role: Adult, Child or Other (a grandparent, a lodger, anyone else). One adult can be marked Head of household.
The Mail addressed to name is worked out from the adults, with the head of household always named first. It's used on envelopes, mailing labels and household giving statements.
- Two adults with the same last name: "John & Mary Smith".
- Two adults with different last names: "John Smith & Mary Jones".
- One adult: that person's full name.
- Anyone else: "The Smith Household" (the household's name).
Add a family
The quickest way to start a household is to enter the whole family at once.
- Go to People › Households and select Add a family. (You'll also find Add a family on the People page.)
- Under Who's in the family?, fill in each person's First name, Last name, Role, Gender and Birthdate. Adults can also have an Email and Mobile phone.
- Use Add an adult or Add a child for each extra person, up to 20. Select Remove to take a row away.
- Under Household and address, check the Household name (Phyle suggests one from the last name) and add the Street address, City, State, ZIP and Home phone.
- Select Add family.
Everyone added this way starts as a Visitor, with today as their first visit. The first adult becomes the head of household. Any workflow you've set up for new people starts for each of them; see Care.
Bringing in many families from a spreadsheet? The importer keeps families together for you. See Import your people.
Add or remove people
Add someone new to a household
On the household's page, select Add person. The new person's form opens with the household already chosen.
Move someone who's already in Phyle
- Open the person and select Edit.
- In the Household card, search for the household in the Household field.
- Choose their Role, and tick Head of household if it applies.
- Select Save changes.
Take someone out of a household
Edit the person, clear the Household field so it reads No household, and select Save changes. They stay in Phyle, without a household or an address.
Edit or delete a household
On the household's page, select Edit to change:
- Household name, Street address, Apartment, unit, etc., City, State, ZIP, Country and Home phone.
- Notes: anything your team should know about the family.
- Pickup restrictions: custody orders, or anyone who must not pick up the children. Volunteers see this at check-in and checkout. It never shows on the kiosk or on name tags.
Select Save changes when you're done.
Administrators and staff can select Delete on the household's page. The household goes, but the people in it are kept, without a household. Their shared address goes with the household, so move anyone you want to keep an address for first.
Combining two households
Phyle doesn't have a button to merge households. If a family was entered twice:
- Pick the household you want to keep.
- Edit each person in the other household and choose the household you're keeping.
- Delete the empty household.
If the same person was entered twice, merge the people instead: open one of them, select the menu button (three dots) next to Edit, then Merge with another person. You'll compare the two before anything changes. People › More › Find duplicates lists people who share an email address or a name.
Where households are used
- Giving statements: under Giving › Statements, One per household is on to start with, so a couple receives one statement for their gifts together, addressed to the household. Emailed statements go to the first adult in the household who accepts email. See Giving.
- Mailing labels: on the People page, More › Print mailing labels prints one label per household with an address, using the Mail addressed to name. People without a household address are counted as skipped.
- Check-in: searching at the check-in station shows each household together, so parents and children appear side by side. Pickup restrictions appear for volunteers. A new family added at the welcome desk gets its own household. See Check-in.
- Member portal: members see their household on the Family page. Adults can update the address and home phone and add or edit their children. Other adults in the household can be seen but not changed; for those, members ask the church office. See The member portal and directory.
- Serving: on the portal's Serving page, members can record time away for anyone at home. See Serving.
- Directory: when the member directory is on, each listing shows the person's household name.