Select Currency
Canadian Dollar
US Dollar
Your Connection Card Pro dashboard gives you a quick view of the information that matters most to your church.
Instead of running a report every time you want to check attendance, giving, new guests, event registrations, or another ministry metric, you can create widgets that keep that information available on your dashboard.
Widgets can show a single important number, track a trend over time, compare categories, show detailed information in a table, and more.
From the main menu, select Home to open your dashboard.
Your church can have more than one dashboard, so different dashboards can be created for different purposes. For example, you might have a general church dashboard along with another dashboard focused on attendance, finances, or a particular ministry.
The controls available for creating or editing dashboards and widgets may depend on your user permissions.
Each user may set a different dashboard as their Preferred Dashboard, meaning that dashboard is what will be visible whenever logging in or clicking Home.
Select the + Add Widget button near the top-right of the dashboard.
There are two different ways to add something to your dashboard:
Preset widgets are special Connection Card Pro widgets that are already configured for a particular purpose.
Available presets currently include:
Select one of these options to add it directly to the current dashboard.
Choose Create a Widget when you want to create a reporting widget from your church's own data.
The widget builder walks you through four steps:
As you work, the Live Preview on the right shows the structure and formatting of your widget, while the Widget Summary explains what the current settings will produce.
The preview uses sample information while you are building the widget; it does not load your actual report data.
The first step determines what the widget measures.
For many common needs, the easiest option is to start with a template.
Templates automatically fill in a useful combination of data, date range, and display settings that you can then change as needed.
Examples include:
Use the template search or select Show All Templates to browse additional choices.
Choosing a template does not lock the widget. You can continue through the builder and change any of its available settings.
If you already know what you want to build, you can skip the templates and configure the widget yourself.
Enter a descriptive Widget Title.
Connection Card Pro may also suggest a title based on the settings you choose. A clear title such as Attendance — Last 8 Weeks or Giving This Month makes a dashboard much easier to understand at a glance.
The five main data sources are:
| Data Source | Examples of what you can measure |
|---|---|
| Attendance | All attendance, unique attendees, average attendance, or unique attendees averaged over time |
| Finance | Income, expenses, net income/loss, or balances |
| People | New guests, first attenders, active people, new records, total records, custom lists, custom fields, or profile fields |
| Forms | Form submissions, started applications, completed applications, or activity for a specific form |
| Events | Event registrations or participants across all events, an event category, or a specific event |
Additional choices appear after you select a data source.
For example, an Attendance widget can be filtered by classification or group. A Finance widget can focus on your entire organization, an account, Fund, or applicable tag. A People widget can be filtered to a particular group or use fields such as age, grade, birthday, classification, gender, family position, marital status, school, or T-shirt size.
The options displayed in the builder are based on the type of data you choose.
Some widgets can include more than one data source.
This is useful when you want to compare related information, such as different attendance measurements, or compare the same measurement from different periods.
Select Add Another Data Source and configure the additional data.
Not every data source and display combination supports multiple sources. If a combination is not compatible, the widget builder will restrict the available choices or alert you.
Select Advanced Options when you need more control over a data source.
Depending on the data you are using, advanced options can include settings such as changing the label used for that data or offsetting the dates being measured.
A date offset is particularly useful for comparisons. For example, you could configure one data source for the current period and another for the corresponding period one year earlier.
The Date Range determines which records are included in the widget.
Common shortcuts include:
Choose Custom when one of the shortcuts does not match what you need.
With a custom range, two settings work together:
For example, a date range of 8 weeks grouped by 1 week gives you eight weekly results. That works well for a Trend Line showing whether attendance has been increasing, decreasing, or remaining consistent.
For weekly widgets, your church's dashboard settings determine whether a week runs Sunday through Saturday or Monday through Sunday.
The Display step determines how the results will be presented.
Shows one important value prominently.
This works well for questions such as:
Big Number widgets can also be combined with comparisons, goals, or targets.
Shows how a value changes over time.
This is useful for attendance trends, giving trends, new guests, form activity, registrations, and similar measurements where the direction of change matters.
Compares values over time using vertical columns.
This can be useful when you want the difference between individual weeks, months, or other periods to stand out clearly.
Compares categories using horizontal bars.
This is particularly useful when the category names are more important than a continuous timeline.
Shows how a total is divided among categories.
Use this when the question is less about when something happened and more about what makes up the total.
Shows detailed rows and totals rather than primarily visualizing the information.
A table is useful when you need the underlying information and not simply the overall pattern.
Additional Display Settings, including number formatting and decimal places, appear below the display choices.
Some settings and display types are only available when they make sense for the data you selected.
The Compare & Style step provides additional ways to make the result meaningful.
For a Big Number widget, you can choose how the current value should be interpreted.
Use a previous-period comparison when you want to know whether the current result is higher or lower than the comparable earlier period.
For example, a monthly giving widget could compare this month with the previous month.
Choose Fixed Goal when your church has a specific target.
Enter the Goal Amount, then choose whether the primary percentage should represent:
You can also choose the available goal or target presentation, such as a Progress Bar.
This works especially well for contribution goals, attendance goals, registration targets, or other measurable ministry objectives.
Choose no comparison when the number itself is all you need.
Additional style controls may appear based on the selected widget and display type. Select Advanced Options when you need the additional presentation choices.
When you are satisfied with the setup, select Create.
Connection Card Pro adds the new widget to your dashboard.
You can return later and edit its settings without rebuilding it from the beginning.
Select the Edit Dashboard button to change the dashboard itself.
While editing, you can move and resize widgets to organize the page around the information you use most often.
Widgets can also be:
Duplicating can be particularly helpful when building comparisons. For example, create one attendance widget, duplicate it, and then change the second widget to another ministry, classification, group, or date range.
You can also change the dashboard's name while editing.
Use Remove empty space to compact the dashboard layout, then select Save Dashboard or Done Editing Dashboard when finished.
Select Manage Dashboards from the dashboard controls when you want to create, open, or manage additional dashboards.
Multiple dashboards can help keep information focused. Instead of placing every statistic your church tracks onto one page, you might create separate dashboards such as:
Your preferred dashboard is the one Connection Card Pro uses as your primary dashboard.
Dashboard widgets may use recently calculated results instead of rerunning every underlying query every time the page loads.
When applicable, the dashboard shows Data as of near the top so you can see how current the displayed widget data is.
If you have just entered or changed information and need the dashboard recalculated immediately, select Force Refresh Data.
This may take a few seconds for dashboards containing more complex widgets.
Users with the appropriate organization-settings permission can open Dashboard Settings.
Two important defaults are available:
Choose whether dashboard weeks run:
This affects widgets that group information by week.
Choose how long Connection Card Pro can reuse recently calculated dashboard results before loading fresh data again.
A 5-minute refresh interval is the recommended setting for most churches.
You can always use Force Refresh Data when you need an immediate update.
To create a basic weekly attendance trend:
You now have an at-a-glance attendance trend without needing to run an attendance report each time.
To create a monthly contribution goal:
This gives your church leadership a quick progress indicator without replacing your detailed financial reports.
A dashboard works best when it answers questions your team asks regularly.
Instead of trying to place every possible statistic on one dashboard, focus on information that helps someone notice a change or decide what needs attention.
For example, a church leadership dashboard might answer questions such as:
Detailed investigation can still happen in the corresponding People, Attendance, Accounting, Forms, Events, or reporting tools. The dashboard is designed to help you see what deserves a closer look.