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See practical dashboard and widget examples for tracking attendance, giving, new guests, follow-up, registrations, ministry activity, and other important church trends.
A customizable dashboard is most helpful when it does more than display statistics.
A good dashboard helps your church notice what is changing, recognize where attention may be needed, and keep frequently used ministry information visible without repeatedly running reports.
This guide gives practical ideas for dashboards and widgets you can adapt to your church.
For instructions on creating a widget, choosing its display, or managing dashboards, see Using Dashboards and Creating Widgets.
Before creating a widget, decide what question someone should be able to answer by looking at it.
For example:
Once you know the question, choosing the data and display becomes much easier.
As a general rule:
| Display | Works well for... |
|---|---|
| Big Number | Something you want to know right now. |
| Trend Line | Determining whether something is moving up, down, or remaining steady. |
| Vertical Bars | Making individual periods easy to compare. |
| Horizontal Bars | Category comparisons. |
| Breakdown | Understanding what makes up a total. |
| Table | Seeing the underlying detail when it matters more than the visual trend. |
A church-wide leadership dashboard does not need dozens of widgets.
A useful starting point might include six:
| Widget | Suggested Setup | What It Answers |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance This Week | Attendance > All Attendance > This Week > Big Number | How much attendance activity have we recorded this week? |
| Unique Attendance Trend | Attendance > Unique Attendees > Last 8 Weeks > Trend Line | Are we reaching more or fewer different people? |
| Contributions This Month | Finance > Income > This Month > Big Number | How much income has been received this month? |
| Contributions Toward Goal | Finance > Income > This Month > Big Number + Fixed Goal | Are we on pace toward our monthly goal? |
| New First Attenders | People > New First Attendance > Last 8 Weeks > Trend Line | Are new people actually attending? |
| Upcoming Event Participants | Events > Participants > Specific Event > suitable date range > Big Number | How many participants have registered? |
Several of these already have templates in the widget builder, including Attendance This Week, Attendance Over 8 Weeks, Unique Attendance Over 8 Weeks, Contributions This Month, and Contributions Toward Monthly Goal.
That makes them especially good starting points.
Use: A fast weekly pulse.
Suggested setup:
Attendance > All Attendance > This Week > Big Number
This answers a very straightforward question: how much attendance activity has been recorded this week?
There is also an Attendance This Week template that can give you a head start.
Use: See whether the number of different people attending is changing.
Suggested setup:
Attendance > Unique Attendees > Last 8 Weeks > Trend Line
This can be more informative than total attendance when people may attend multiple gatherings.
A built-in Unique Attendance Over 8 Weeks template is available.
Use: See the direction of overall attendance activity.
Suggested setup:
Attendance > All Attendance > Last 8 Weeks > Trend Line
Instead of reacting to one unusually large or small Sunday, the eight-week trend gives leaders more context.
Use: Give a ministry leader a focused view.
Suggested setup:
Attendance > Unique Attendees > Filter By Group > Last 8 Weeks > Trend Line
For example, this could become:
This is often more actionable for a ministry leader than organization-wide attendance.
Use: Understand the difference between overall attendance activity and reach.
When the selected configuration supports multiple data sources, add both:
to the same trend widget.
A widening gap can indicate that the same people are contributing multiple attendance records, while Unique Attendees gives a clearer picture of the number of different people represented.
Use: See whether guest activity is increasing or slowing.
Suggested setup:
People > New Guests > Last 8 Weeks > Trend Line
Do not interpret this as the number of person records created. New Guests and New Records measure different things.
Use: Track people who actually attended for the first time.
Suggested setup:
People > New First Attendance > Last 8 Weeks > Trend Line
For many churches, this is one of the most meaningful guest-related metrics because it focuses on someone's first recorded attendance rather than simply when their database record was created.
Use: See whether your guest-card process is being used.
Suggested setup:
People > Digital Guest Card Completions > Last 30 Days > Big Number
or, when you want to see movement over time:
People > Digital Guest Card Completions > Last 8 Weeks > Trend Line
This can help distinguish between a lack of new guests and a situation where guests are attending but not using the Digital Guest Card.
Use: Monitor how many new people are entering through the kiosk.
Suggested setup:
People > New Kiosk Registrations > Last 30 Days > Big Number
This can be especially useful for churches using kiosk registration heavily in children's ministry or other check-in environments.
Use: Keep an actionable list count visible.
Suggested setup:
People > Custom List Count > choose the applicable Custom List > Big Number
This becomes especially powerful when your church has a Custom List representing a real ministry process, such as:
The widget does not replace the list itself. It simply keeps the current count visible so your team notices when work is accumulating.
Finance widgets are only available to users who have permission to see the applicable financial information.
Use: Keep current-month income immediately visible.
Suggested setup:
Finance > Income > This Month > Big Number
The built-in Contributions This Month template is a quick way to create this.
If your church records other kinds of income in addition to contributions, use the appropriate Account, Fund, or Tag filter when you need the widget to represent only a particular type of income.
Use: Show progress rather than simply a dollar amount.
Suggested setup:
Finance > Income > This Month > Big Number
Then under Compare & Style:
Compare Value With > Fixed Goal
Enter the goal amount and choose the goal presentation you prefer, such as a Progress Bar.
A Contributions Toward Monthly Goal template is already available.
Use: Make spending pace easier to see.
Suggested setup:
Finance > Expenses > This Month > Big Number + Fixed Goal
The Expenses Against Monthly Target template provides a ready-made starting point.
This can be useful for an overall budget target or, with a financial filter, for a specific ministry, Fund, or account.
Use: Give finance or executive leadership a quick operational picture.
When the selected display supports multiple data sources, add:
for the same period.
A Trend Line or bar-based display can make it easier to see how those two measurements are moving relative to one another.
Use: Keep one restricted financial area visible without building a church-wide finance widget.
Suggested setup:
Finance > Income > Filter By Fund or Tag > This Month > Big Number
For example:
Using a filter is preferable to trying to infer a ministry's results from organization-wide income.
Use: See whether registrations are gaining momentum.
Suggested setup:
Events > Registrations > Specific Event > Last 30 Days > Trend Line
This can help answer whether registrations are arriving steadily, accelerating as the event approaches, or have stalled.
Use: Focus on how many people are actually represented by the registrations.
Suggested setup:
Events > Participants > Specific Event > All Time > Big Number
This can be more useful than registration count when one registration can contain multiple participants.
For example, a family event may have fewer registration records than actual participants.
Use: Track a series of related events together.
Suggested setup:
Events > Registrations > Category > appropriate date range > Trend Line
This could be useful for a recurring event category or a ministry that runs several related events.
Use: Monitor an important ongoing form.
Suggested setup:
Forms > Submissions > choose a specific form > Last 30 Days > Big Number
For a regularly used connection, volunteer, or ministry form, this gives staff a quick indication of incoming activity.
Use: Determine whether use of a form is increasing or decreasing.
Suggested setup:
Forms > Submissions > choose the form > Last 8 Weeks > Trend Line
This is particularly useful when a form is part of a process you are actively promoting.
Use: Notice interest before an application is fully completed.
Suggested setup:
Forms > Started Applications > choose the applicable form > suitable date range
Comparing started activity with completed activity can help your church recognize when people are beginning a process but not finishing it.
Be careful not to interpret Started Applications as “currently incomplete applications”; the metric tracks applications that were started, including ones that may later have been completed or submitted.
Use: Understand the age makeup of your church or a particular ministry.
Suggested setup:
People > Field > Age Group > Breakdown
Add Filter By Group when you only want to examine one ministry.
For example, a student or children's ministry could use this to understand the age ranges currently represented.
Use: Help children's and student ministries see how people are distributed by grade.
Suggested setup:
People > Field > Grade > Breakdown
Filtering the widget to the applicable group keeps the result relevant to that ministry.
Use: See the current makeup of people according to your church's classifications.
Suggested setup:
People > Field > Classification > Breakdown
The meaning of this widget depends entirely on how your church uses classifications, so it is most useful when classifications have been kept consistent.
Use: See how many people have actually been participating recently.
Suggested setup:
People > People Active > This Month > Big Number
This can provide a different perspective from Total Number of Records, which tells you how many person records exist rather than how many people have had qualifying recent activity.
Use: Keep your current database size visible.
Suggested setup:
People > Total Number of Records > Big Number
This is mainly an administrative metric. It is generally less useful as a ministry-health measurement than attendance, active people, or first attendance, but it can still be useful for understanding the scale of your database.
You do not need to make one dashboard serve every staff member.
Connection Card Pro supports multiple dashboards, so a focused dashboard can often be more useful than one enormous page.
Consider widgets for:
The goal is a quick organizational pulse, not every available statistic.
Consider:
This keeps the dashboard centered on people who may need attention or a next step.
Consider:
A ministry leader usually does not need an organization-wide dashboard if the decisions they make are ministry-specific.
Consider:
Financial permissions determine which of these options and underlying financial records a user can access.
More widgets do not automatically create a better dashboard.
A widget earns its place when someone can explain what they would do differently after seeing it.
For example:
The dashboard should help reveal those situations. The detailed records, reports, People lists, financial tools, and ministry workflows remain the places where your team investigates and acts.
If you are starting from a blank dashboard, don't try to build the perfect dashboard all at once.
Start with a handful of questions your team asks every week. Add widgets for those.
After using the dashboard for a while, remove anything no one pays attention to and add a widget only when there is a recurring question it can help answer.
A dashboard that contains six useful widgets is much more valuable than one containing thirty statistics that have become background noise.