Services & Service Types
This section provides an overview of the Event Services and Service Reservations pages in MinistryPlatform, including the fields you'll encounter, what they mean, and different service types you can create.
When you create an Event record, there are three categories of setup items that you may need to reserve or book: rooms, equipment, and services.
Rooms should represent real rooms within your property. Equipment should include any available equipment that people can reserve at your church. You can use Services multiple ways. A service is an activity that might require one ministry to support another ministry's Event with personnel or services.
Typically, the people providing the service are not directly part of the team or department organizing the event. Using Event services, the event organizer can have a list of options to pick from and a consistent system to communicate what is expected on the day of the event. For example, you know you'll need food and beverage services for your church's annual Christmas Village, but you'll also need tech services to help you play festive music during the event. Use services and service types to differentiate the expectations for these two different event roles.
Event Services Page
This page defines in detail all the services someone can request for an Event.
- Service Name
- The friendly name for your event service.
- Service Type
- The type of event service it is (childcare, food, and so on). Use this field to group similar services together on views. You can edit service types in Lookup Values.
- Unit
- The unit of measure for this Service (kids, cups of coffee, and so on). Descriptive to help the user know what it is they are requesting.
- Price
- The cost, if any, related to this service.
- Description
- A brief description of your event service.
- Team Group
- The Group that oversees the coordination of the service.
- Contact
- The staff or volunteer who oversees the coordination of the service.
- Standard Service
- This is an optional field that you can use with a Process or custom view. Set to Yes if this Service is standard in a reservation, meaning it does not vary or require additional services or details based on the Event.
For example, you could create a Process that emails and creates a follow-up task for the Service Coordinator whenever someone submits a Service Reservation for a non-standard service to follow up with the Event Primary Contact and make any needed arrangements.
- Auto Approve
- Set to Yes if you want the reservation of the Service to skip any approval Process. You Processes must observe this.
- Days to Remind
- This is an optional field that you can use with a Process or custom view. The number of days before the service that someone will receive a reminder for that service.
For example, you want to confirm your childcare service three days before the event. So, you create a Service Reminder Email view on the Service Reservations page using the Days to Remind field as a filter. Your Service Coordinator is notified with a View Notification that there is a reservation in three days that someone needs to confirm a service for. They go to the view, select the record, and use an email template to send a reminder to the childcare coordinator.
Setting up the event service options on this page is probably the most difficult part of setting up your facilities system. We recommend that you review samples from other churches. Here's an example.
You can create a lot of detailed event services, but it may not be helpful in your church. For example, you may have ten distinct options in the Beverage service type (water pitcher, coffee pot, teach pitcher, five-gallon Gatorade, and more). These many options may help the people providing the service, but it may be tedious to those creating the event.
Service Reservations Page
This page lists the actual services requested for a specific event.
- Event
- The specific Event the request is for.
- Service
- The specific item required for this Event. The list of items comes from the Event Services page.
- Quantity
- The number of the service you need.
- Location for Service
- Tells the service provider where you need the service.
- Notes
- Use this to explain the need for this service in detail.
- Cancelled
- Set to Yes to cancel the request.
- Approved
- Set to Yes if the Service Request has been approved. This is a read-only field that is set by a Process.
Service Types
Service types define the general categories of services your church offers. You can create or edit service types in the Advanced menu under . Some examples of service types include:
- Beverages (Pitchers of Water, Coffee, Soda).
- Food (Luncheons, Desserts for funeral receptions, and so on).
- Childcare (Some evening events we may have where kids ministry does not have services).
- Service Element (baptism, communion).
- Tech (Used to request computer or A/V expertise for an event).