As churches grow and evolve, managing your team information shouldn’t feel like a chore. Whether you’re migrating from another platform, onboarding a large volunteer team, or simply need to update dozens of staff profiles, we’ve all been there—staring at a spreadsheet wondering if there’s a better way.
Today, we’re excited to announce a feature that many of you have been asking for: People CSV Import. This isn’t just another data import tool; it’s a complete solution designed to make managing your church team as seamless as possible.
Why This Matters for Your Ministry
Think about the last time you needed to add 50 volunteers to your website, complete with photos, contact information, and team assignments. Or when you switched from another church management system and faced the daunting task of recreating all your staff profiles. These moments shouldn’t derail your ministry focus—they should enhance it.
Our new People Import system transforms what used to be hours of manual data entry into a simple three-step process that actually makes sense. Upload your CSV file, map your columns to the right fields (we’ll even suggest the best matches), and watch as your entire team directory comes to life with proper organization and tracking.
Built for Real Ministry Needs
We didn’t just build another CSV importer. We built a system that understands how churches actually work:
- Smart Field Mapping: The system recognizes common column names like “first_name,” “email,” or “teams” and automatically suggests where they should go
- Team Integration: Assign people to multiple teams during import, and we’ll create the team categories automatically if they don’t exist yet
- Import Tracking: Every import is tracked with a unique batch ID, so you can easily see which people were added when
- Immediate Results: After import, you’re taken directly to a filtered view showing only your newly imported people—no hunting through long lists
The Details That Make the Difference
What sets this apart is the attention to real-world scenarios. The interface shows you a live preview of your data as you map fields, so you can see exactly what you’re importing before you commit. Error handling is comprehensive but friendly—if something goes wrong, you’ll know exactly which row needs attention and why.
The responsive design works just as well on your phone as it does on your office computer, because we know ministry doesn’t always happen at a desk. And for those late-night volunteer database updates, this pairs perfectly with the Dark Mode we introduced earlier this year.
Building in Public, Growing Together
This feature represents months of feedback from pastors, administrators, and volunteers who’ve shared their real-world challenges with us. From the small church needing to import their core volunteer team to the multi-site congregation managing hundreds of staff members across locations, we’ve designed this system to scale with your ministry.
As always, we’re building in public and learning from your experiences. The People Import system is launching first in our alpha testing environment, where our most engaged churches help us refine new features before they roll out platform-wide.
Ready to Experience the Difference?
If you’re managing a church website and spending too much time on data entry instead of ministry, it’s time to see what Digital Church can do for your community. Our 45-day free trial at digitalchurch.com gives you full access to not just the new People Import system, but our entire suite of ministry-focused tools.
Your feedback continues to shape everything we build. As you try the new import system, we’d love to hear how it impacts your workflow and what we can improve next.
Join us on this journey of making church technology actually work for ministry, not against it.