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The Basics

New User Account

To access the system, you must create a new account.

Step 1: Browse to Platform

Each church has its own site where you can access the Platform. You may need to contact your church if you don't know where to access it. When you get there, you'll see the Log In window. Some options may or may not display depending on your church's setup.

The Login window showing options for signing up or logging in

Step 2: Create an Account

These steps are specifically for staff members and volunteers accessing the Platform, Widgets, Life Apps, and the Batch Manager Tool (BMT). Congregants and parishioners should create a new account through your widget or Portal.

Regardless of where you create your account, you'll use the same login for all applications.

  1. Click Sign Up.
  2. Enter your First Name.
  3. Enter your Last Name.
  4. Enter your Email Address or Mobile Phone Number.
    1. If you enter an email address, you'll receive an email with a link to verify your account.
      Tip: When you create your account, use a unique email address. If you use a shared email address, you can't use the Forgot Password option. Learn more about dealing with Multiple Users.
    2. If you enter a mobile phone number, you'll receive a text message with a link to verify your account.
      Note: Not seeing the text option? There are two possible reasons for this:
      1. A SPoC hasn't enabled this option, or
      2. You opted out of receiving text messages. If you've opted out of receiving text messages sent from the Platform, you won't receive the verification text and you'll need to create your account through email.
  5. Click Create Account.

Sign Up Using a Social Login

  • A SPoC must enable the social login option.
If your SPoC enabled this feature, you may sign up using login credentials from one of your social media accounts.
  1. Click the third-party provider to link to your User account. Identity Providers your SPoC configured determine while options are available.
  2. Follow the prompts of the third-party provider to grant permission and share authentication details.

Once linked, a confirmation displays.

Step 3: Confirm Your New User Account

You should see a confirmation in the Platform and receive an email or text within a few minutes. If you used a shared email address to set up your account, you'll receive an error rather than a confirmation message. To resolve this issue, use a unique email address.

This message contains a verification link where you can confirm your account.

Note: Hey SPoCs, you can customize the content of the New User Account Confirmation message. See Domains and Accounts for details.
  1. Open your email or text message application.
  2. Locate and open the New User Account Confirmation message.
  3. Click or tap the verification link.
    Note: For security, this link is valid for 10 minutes.

Step 4: Set Up Your Username and Password

Once you've confirmed your account, you can set up a username and password. Use these credentials to log in to MinistryPlatform.

  1. Enter a username. If you set up your account by email, your username is the email address you provided. Feel free to change it to a username that works for you.
  2. Enter a password.
  3. Confirm your password.
  4. Click Save.

    The Complete Sign Up screen with a sample email entered in the Username field

Permissions

When you log in for the first time, you may not have permission to do anything in the system. Your SPoC or administrator will assign a Security Role to your User account so you can access areas of the Platform.

A SPoC can determine what each user sees in MinistryPlatform based on Security Roles and what each user sees in your online directory based on Participant Type or Member Type. Make sure you understand who can see what based on these settings and apply the correct permissions to each user.

CAUTION: Be sure the people who sign up are who they say they are. If your church website is public, anyone can sign up to be a user. If you don't pay attention, you might accidentally allow access to data they should not be able to view or change.

We recommend that churches thoroughly understand their responsibilities in protecting the privacy of their church data. To do that, make sure you understand how people can misuse others' information. Visit our Trust Center for more details.

Tips to Prevent Scams and Phishing

If your church website is public and has a way to sign up for a MinistryPlatform User account, you need to be aware of a sad but true reality: the church is a popular playground for scammers. If a scammer gains even limited access to the Platform, they may gather enough information from a trusted platform to launch some very successful social engineering scams. A scammer works to be more believable, more legitimate, and poses as someone who wants to "help" their church. Allowing an impostor to access your church directory could disrupt your church community.

Is it a scam or a legitimate request?

If your church receives a request for a MinistryPlatform account by email or through the account request process, how do you know if the person is real? It's not always easy to determine.

Example scam email asking you to send an invitation to set up a new user account

Ways to verify a request:

Bill's email and email address look a little suspicious, but is it possible that he visits your church? You can't know from that email, but there are a few ways you could handle this:
  1. Delete the email and see if he sends another email.
    • This won't necessarily resolve anything.
    • If Bill is actually phishing, he may continue to email you. The same would be true for an actual person.
  2. Reply and tell him that he doesn't need an account to give online. Direct him to request an account on your church website.
    • If he does this, your church must still determine how to verify if this is a legitimate request or a scam.
  3. Reply and say you're sorry you haven't met him yet.
    • Ask him something about your church that he can only know by visiting - something that isn't posted online.
    • Or you could ask him to meet you at the next service. It would be unlikely that a "phish" would try to meet you in person.

Other considerations:

To keep MinistryPlatform as secure as possible, we do not allow unauthenticated people to add or update email addresses or phone numbers. For example, let's say you created a Household and Contact record for someone with just their phone number and no email address. Later, that person decides to create a User account, and they include their email address on the Sign Up form. The new User record will be linked to the matching Contact record, but the email address will not be added to it.

This is because the person who signed up for a User account may not be the actual person. If a scammer has access to a person's contact information (which is incredibly common with data breaches these days), they could attempt to sign up as that person and gain access to other things, such as donor information. So, the Platform only allows email and phone information to be added by an authenticated user or someone with admin permissions.

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Last updated: July 12, 2024