Service Definitions

Service Definitions are the backbone of your weekly schedule. Each definition represents a recurring service — Sunday morning worship, Wednesday night prayer, Saturday evening service — along with the default staffing your Safety Team needs to cover it.

What Are Service Definitions?

A Service Definition describes a recurring weekly gathering and its staffing needs. You define the service once, and the Rotation Engine uses it to automatically generate calendar events on an ongoing basis.

Think of it this way: the Service Definition is the template, and the calendar events are the instances.

Accessing Service Definitions

1. Navigate to Admin in the sidebar.
2. Click on Services or Service Definitions.
3. The list displays all configured services for your organization.

Creating a Service Definition

1. Click Add Service (or the + button).
2. Fill in the service details:

Field	Required	Description
Name	Yes	Display name (e.g., “Sunday 9:00 AM Worship”)
Day of Week	Yes	Sunday through Saturday
Start Time	Yes	When the service begins
Duration	Yes	Length in minutes (15 to 480 minutes)
Required Posts	Yes	Post and count pairs defining your default staffing

3. For each Required Post, select a post from your configured posts and specify how many Safety Team Members you need at that post. For example:

   • Pastoral Protection: 2
   • Service Left: 1
   • Service Right: 1
   • Foyer / Welcome: 2
   • Kids Ministry: 1
   • Parking Lot: 2

4. Click Save to create the service definition.

Editing a Service Definition

1. Find the service in the list.
2. Click Edit (or the pencil icon).
3. Modify the name, day, time, duration, or required posts.
4. Click Save.

Post requirement changes are applied as a transactional update — all post requirements are saved together to keep your staffing template consistent.

Deleting a Service Definition

1. Find the service in the list.
2. Click Delete.
3. Confirm the deletion.

The platform verifies that you own the organization before allowing deletion. Deleting a definition does not remove events that have already been generated from it.

How Services Become Events

Service Definitions do not create events on their own. The Rotation Engine reads your definitions and generates calendar events based on your configured schedule:

1. You define services here (the “what” and “when”).
2. You configure the Rotation Engine (the “how far ahead” and “which squad”).
3. The engine generates events with open post slots matching your required posts.
4. Squad members are assigned to those posts based on the rotation cycle.

This separation gives you a clean workflow: define your services once, and let the engine handle the week-to-week scheduling.

Best Practices

• Name Services Clearly — Include the day and time in the name for easy identification (e.g., “Sunday 11:00 AM Worship” rather than just “Second Service”).
• Review Staffing Quarterly — As your ministry grows, your staffing needs change. Revisit required post counts regularly.
• Start Conservative — It is better to start with fewer required posts and increase as needed than to overcommit your team.

Next Steps

• Rotation Engine — Configure how services become scheduled events.
• Posts & Zones — Define the posts referenced in your service staffing.
• Admin Panel Overview — Return to the full list of admin areas.