Events & Service Management
Events are your regular services — Sunday morning worship, Wednesday night, Saturday evening, youth group. They tell Vitals when to expect data and when to sync from your integrations.
Think of events as the backbone of your data in Vitals. Every number you track — attendance, giving, volunteers, salvations — is tied to a specific service or event. Setting up your events correctly means your data entry is organized, your integrations know when to pull numbers, and your reports accurately reflect what is happening at your church each week.
What Are Events in Vitals?
An "event" in Vitals is any gathering where you want to track metrics. For most churches, that starts with weekend worship services, but it can include midweek services, youth nights, prayer meetings, or anything else that happens on a regular basis.
When you go to Enter Data, Vitals shows you the services scheduled for that week based on your event setup. No more wondering "did we already enter numbers for the Saturday night service?" — Vitals knows what to expect and presents a clean checklist.
Common event types
Setting Up Recurring Services
Recurring services are the bread and butter of your event setup. These are the gatherings that happen every week (or on a regular schedule) and form the baseline for your weekly metrics.
- 1Go to Settings → Events.
- 2Click Add Event.
- 3Enter the event name (e.g., “Sunday Morning Worship” or “Wednesday Night”).
- 4Set the recurrence: Weekly, Bi-Weekly, or Monthly.
- 5Select the day of week and start time.
- 6Assign the event to a campus (if you have multiple campuses).
- 7Choose which metrics to track for this event — attendance is the most common, but you can also track giving, volunteers, and more.
- 8Click Save.
Each event creates a slot in your weekly data entry form. Set up all your regular services and your team will always know exactly which numbers to enter.
If a service is cancelled for a specific week (like the Sunday after Christmas), you can skip it in data entry — Vitals will not count it as a zero.
Service Times Per Campus
Multi-site churches often have different service schedules at each campus. Your downtown campus might run three Sunday services while your suburban campus runs two. Vitals handles this by letting you assign events to specific campuses.
Example setup for a multi-site church
Tip: If your campuses are in different time zones, make sure each campus has the correct timezone set in Settings → Campuses. Vitals uses this to schedule syncs and display times correctly.
How Events Connect to Data Entry
Your event setup directly controls what you see in the Enter Data screen. This is one of the biggest time-savers in Vitals — instead of a blank spreadsheet where you have to remember what to enter, you get a pre-filled form based on the services that happened that week.
The data entry flow
- 1You open Enter Data and select the week.
- 2Vitals checks your event schedule and shows each service that was scheduled for that week.
- 3For each service, you see fields for the metrics you chose to track (attendance, giving, etc.).
- 4Fill in the numbers, click Save, and you are done.
- 5Vitals automatically totals up all services into your weekly dashboard numbers.
If you have a Planning Center integration, many of these fields are pre-filled automatically. You just review and confirm.
Missing an event from your data entry form? That usually means it needs to be added in Settings → Events.
Special Events vs. Recurring Services
Christmas Eve, Easter sunrise, VBS week, a community outreach event — these are not your typical Sunday services, and you do not want them mixed into your regular weekly averages. That is why Vitals lets you add one-time special events.
- Recurring Service
- Happens every week (or on a regular schedule). These form your baseline metrics and weekly averages. Examples: Sunday morning worship, Wednesday night service.
- Special Event
- A one-time or annual event that you want to track separately. Special events show up in data entry for that specific date but do not affect your rolling weekly averages. Examples: Christmas Eve, Easter, VBS, community block party.
- 1Go to Settings → Events.
- 2Click Add Event.
- 3Enter the event name (e.g., “Christmas Eve Service”).
- 4Select “One-Time Event” as the recurrence type.
- 5Set the date and time.
- 6Choose whether to include this event in your weekly totals or track it separately.
- 7Click Save.
Why this matters: If you add Christmas Eve as a regular service instead of a special event, that 1,200-person attendance will spike your weekly average and make every other week look like a decline. Marking it as a special event keeps your trend lines clean while still recording the data.
Speaker / Preacher Tracking
Track who preached each week and spot patterns — does attendance change based on the speaker? This is not about pitting pastors against each other. It is about understanding your congregation and planning wisely.
- 1When entering data for a service, look for the Speaker field.
- 2Select the speaker from your team list, or type a name for a guest speaker.
- 3Save your data entry as usual.
What speaker tracking reveals
Tip: Review speaker data quarterly, not weekly. One week of lower attendance when the youth pastor preaches does not mean anything — but a consistent pattern over six months is worth paying attention to.
Sermon Series Tracking
Tag weeks with the current sermon series to see which series resonate most with your congregation. Over time, this data helps your teaching team plan content that connects.
- 1When entering data, look for the Sermon Series field.
- 2Select an existing series from the dropdown, or create a new one by typing its name.
- 3The series tag is applied to that week’s data across all services.
- 4View series-level reports in your dashboard to compare attendance and engagement across different series.
Questions series tracking can answer
Tip: Name your series consistently. "Red Letter Living" and "Red Letter Living 2024" will show up as two different series. Pick a naming convention and stick with it.
Putting It All Together
Example: Crossroads Church
Crossroads Church runs 3 regular services — Saturday at 6pm, Sunday at 9am, and Sunday at 11am — plus a Wednesday night service for midweek worship. Here is how they configured events in Vitals:
When Christmas Eve came around, they added it as a one-time special event. That service drew 1,200 people — double their normal weekend of about 600. Because it was marked as a special event, their weekly trend line stayed clean, and they could still celebrate the amazing turnout in their reports.
They also track the speaker each week. After six months, they noticed that their Sunday 11am service consistently had the highest attendance regardless of speaker — which told them it was the time slot, not the preacher, driving the numbers. That insight helped them decide to add a second 11am service at their new campus.
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Still have questions? Email us at support@vitals.church — we usually reply within a few hours.