Overview

Staff and group or team leaders (serving/volunteer teams) with permissions have a number of ways to communicate with members including email, text messages, chat, and newsfeed posts.

For example, a leader may need to send communication to all members about a change in meeting plans, the illness of a member, updated study topics, or volunteers needed for unplanned events, etc. Depending on the types of communication in use and the permissions that the group inherits from the ministry area, communication could land in a member's email, in app (the inbox), in a group or team newsfeed, or chat.

Some things to keep in mind with emails:

• An email can't be saved as a draft, though you can schedule it to send later.
• Leaders are automatically included in the recipient list. The staff member or administrator sending the email is also included, whether or not they're a member of the group.
• To review an email after you send it, go to My Communications. See View My Email History
• If you are drafting a rather long email, or feel like you will need extra time to write, consider drafting the email in Microsoft Word or some other word processing program then cut and paste it into Realm.

Ministry Area Communication Settings

There are two levels of group communication settings. One is at the ministry area level and the other is at the group leader level. Volunteer/Serving team communication preferences are not impacted by ministry area communication settings.

The settings you select at the Ministry Area level determine the communication settings for all groups under that Ministry Area. Enabling group communication allows group members to create their own posts, share photos, message people in a group, and start group events. You can select whether these communication features are available for no one, group leaders, or for everyone in the group.

Only administrators and staff with the Manage Ministry Areas permissions can change the communication settings at the ministry area level. When you edit these settings, you change which communication methods are available to all groups within this ministry area.

If you disable a communication method at the ministry area level, no groups under that ministry area will be able to use it. Group leaders can't override the ministry area settings.

A less restrictive option is to enable a communication method but set it so that no one can use it until a group leader enables it for their group. Each time you enable group communication options, you can select who can use each method. Group leaders can change these settings, enabling or disabling the communication methods that work best for their group. To enable communication in ministry areas, see Enable Communication for Ministry Areas

Group Level Communication Settings

Each group inherits the communication settings from the ministry area that it's a part of.

For example, a Women's Group is a part of the Small Groups ministry area. If chat is disabled for the Small Groups ministry area, then the chat option won't display at all in the Women's Group communication settings.

The group leader can control who has access to each communication setting that's enabled for their group.

If you want to turn off a communication method at the group level, selecting No one disables that method for everyone in the group. You can also set a method to be available only to group leaders if you don't want everyone in the group to have access to it.

This will only modify communication settings for the one individual group. If you are a group leader over several groups, you can modify these settings differently to fit the needs of each group. Enable Group Communication

Team Level Communication Settings

When you set up a volunteer/serving team, you have similar communication options as groups. At any point, you can return to the team and update communication settings to disable, enable, or just re-enable communication settings.

Volunteer/Serving Teams can often benefit from specialized communication around recruitment. To accommodate these particular needs, you can also create newsfeed posts seen in the Connect web browser or pushed to mobile devices. You can also create physical handouts to distribute.

Create newsfeed posts & handouts for recruiting	Customize the handout before downloading or printing

What Leaders Can Do in Connect App

Based on ministry area and group or team settings, leaders manage their own communication settings in the Connect app, send and receive emails, chats, post attachments, or post to the group's newsfeed. These resources are written for leaders, but they show you what a leader can see and change. If your leader cannot see options for communicating with their group or team, see Troubleshooting Leader Communication.

• Group Communication for Leaders — what the group leader sees and controls.