Managing News Channel Subscriptions


This article will explain how to subscribe and unsubscribe people from news channels.


How to subscribe to a channel

There are four ways to subscribe someone to a channel:

  1. Add them manually

  2. Invite them to subscribe by sending them the channel’s subscription link.

  3. Set the channel to be an auto-subscribe channel so that all people added to your database will automatically be subscribed.

  4. Let the toggle the subscribe button on the mobile app under the News Options. 


Let’s look at each in turn.


1) Subscribing people manually

  • Open the News module and click the More button next to the channel.
  • Click View Subscribers. This will open a page showing you all people subscribed to this channel.
  • Start typing their name in the text box provided. GoDoChurch will auto-suggest people. Select the correct person and click Add. Note: To add a person they must first have a profile in your database.

  • The person will now appear in the list of people subscribed to this channel.

  • Note: they will not receive any notification that they have been subscribed.


2) Use the channels unique subscription URL

Each channel comes with a unique ‘subscribe' and ‘unsubscribe' URL (a URL is another name for a link). If you send the subscribe link to a person (via email or SMS) and they click on it they will be subscribed to that channel. This can be very useful if you create a new news channel for something like a building project and would like to invite your whole congregation to sign up for news updates. Simply copy the URL and paste it into an email or SMS along with a message inviting people to sign up for news from that channel.


To copy a channel’s subscribe URL:

  • Open the News module and click More next to your channel.

  • Click Subscribe URL. This will open a little pop up from where you can copy the subscribe URL to your clipboard.

  • You can now paste that link into any message you send, onto your website, or share it via social media.

  • Note: if someone tries to subscribe to a news channel and the system can’t find them in your database, they will be given an opportunity to fill out their info and be added to your database.

3) Subscribe people by setting a channel to auto-subscribe

You may wish to auto-subscribe people to a channel like “General announcements” whenever they are added to your database.


You can only do this for one channel in your database, and you can deactivate this feature if you wish.

Note: if you are capturing people’s info using first-time visitors cards and intend to have them be auto-subscribed to a news channel when they are added to your database, then we highly recommend making a note on the visitor's card so people can know this upfront.


If you do auto-subscribe people remember that people are added to your database in numerous ways: visiting parents signing kids in at kids church, people being added to the follow-up module, people signing up through the app - and all of these people will be subscribed to auto-subscribe news channels.


To set the default auto-subscribe news channel:

  • Open Settings >> Database Settings >> General from the main menu.

  • Look for Default News Channel setting and select your auto-subscribe channel from there.


How to unsubscribe people from a channel

There are three ways to unsubscribe people from a channel:


1) Use the mobile app

Congregants can manage their own news subscriptions via the mobile app by going to ‘More (...) >>Manage Subscription' on the news section of the app.


2) Unsubscribe them manually

You can unsubscribe people manually by opening the list of subscribers for a channel, clicking More next to their name, and then clicking Unsubscribe.

You can also unsubscribe people in bulk by ticking the boxes next to their names, clicking Bulk Action, and then clicking Unsubscribe. Note: this cannot be undone.


3) People can unsubscribe themselves.

A person can unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of posts or emails.


Subscription options

When a person subscribes to a channel they are, by default, subscribed to receive news for that channel via email and via the app. Some people, however, might prefer to opt-out of receiving emails and instead only get news via the app.  To unsubscribe someone from email while keeping them subscribed to the channel, open the list of subscribers for a channel and un-tick the checkbox in the 'Send email’ column.  



Do you have any feedback regarding the News Channel feature? We would love to hear from you!

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