More granular and consistent permissions

Posted 2 weeks ago

More granular and consistent permissions screenshot

We've expanded the permission settings in Church Social to give churches more fine-grained control over who can create and manage content within the app. This update applies to the following areas:

  • Messages (sending messages)
  • Schedules (creating schedules)
  • Groups (creating new groups)
  • Files (creating top-level folders)
  • Photos (creating new albums and uploading to existing albums)

Previously, these settings only had two options: Everyone or Administrators. We've now expanded them to include the following list of options, making them consistent with other modules in the app that already had these settings:

  • Guests
  • Members
  • Baptized Members
  • Professing Members
  • Office-Bearers
  • Administrators

These work on a minimum access required basis, meaning anyone with a "higher" role in the list automatically has access as well.

The main motivation for this change came from churches asking for more control over what Guests can do. While many churches are happy for guests to log in and view content, they often want to prevent guests from creating or sending content—such as events, messages, or groups.

We've set the default for these new permissions to Members, as this felt like a sensible starting point for most churches. Just be aware that guests who previously had access to create content may no longer be able to, unless you update the setting to include Guests.

Finally, this update also impacted who can send new messages. Previously, it was possible to send messages without being a guest or member. However, for consistency with the rest of the app, you must now have at least a Guest membership type in order to send messages.