The Complete Elvanto Syncing Set Up Guide

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Elvanto syncing is one of the great features of Safe Ministry Check. This guide will take you through the What’s and Why’s of Elvanto syncing. If you require further assistance, please feel free to reach out to the Safe Ministry Check team.

Elvanto isn’t a requirement for the Safe Ministry Check system. If you don’t use Elvanto as your church management software, there’s no need to start. If you do use Elvanto as your church management software, syncing is a great way to make administration simpler.

Preparation – Custom Fields

To make sure Elvanto syncing works correctly, and that the right data is moving between to two platforms, you need to set up some Elvanto Custom Fields.

Start by logging into your Elvanto account. You’ll need to have all editing and access privileges to set up Elvanto syncing. On your Elvanto profiles, you’re going to need at least one of the following custom fields.

  • Overall Screening Status
    This needs to be a text field. This will store whether a person’s overall training and screening status is CLEARED, PENDING or ERROR
  • Screening Status Description
    This needs to be a text field. This will store a short description of why a person is marked as PENDING or ERROR.
  • NSW Working with Children Check Status
    This needs to be a text field. This will store whether a person’s State based Working with Children status is CLEARED, PENDING or ERROR
  • Working with Children Check number
    This needs to be a text field. This will store a person’s Working with Children Check number for your records.
  • NSW Working with Children Check expiry date
    This needs to be a date field. This will store a person’s Working with Children Check expiry date for your records

(See here for details on how to create elvanto custom fields).

1. Linking SMC to Elvanto

Now that you’ve done the preparation, it’s time to set up your link between Elvanto and Safe Ministry Check.

Start by clicking on settings in Elvanto and finding the APIs section. Once you’ve clicked on “API” you should see a green “Show” text, which you should click on. This will reveal your unique API key which will be a long string of random letters and numbers. Copy this API key to use in the next step.

Now, log into your Safe Ministry Check account and go to Settings > Elvanto Syncing to see this screen:

Select Update Elvanto Api key and you’ll be prompted to enter the Api key from your Elvanto account. Then select Save changes.

Now your link should be set up, you’re now ready for part 3: Linking groups and custom fields.

2. Syncing Elvanto Fields

At this stage of the process, we’re going to tell the SMC system where to save data in your Elvanto system. For this, select the button Link Elvanto Fields and you will see this screen…

These are the things that will link to the custom fields you set up in Elvanto earlier. You don’t need to have all 6 linked, but you’ll need at least one set up to move on to the next step.

Once you’ve chosen the custom fields, it should look like this:

Great! Now it’s time to tell SMC how you want to pull names out of Elvanto.

3. Choose your auto-syncing method

There are three methods to tell SMC which of your Elvanto people need screening and training:

  1. Manual Syncing between SMC and Elvanto
    This option means SMC will not automatically pull any people from Elvanto into your SMC account. You will need to manually link people for SMC to update their Elvanto fields.

  1. Syncing with Elvanto Groups
    This option will invite you to choose an Elvanto Group for each level of Safe Ministry Compliance. All people in these groups will be automatically created in SMC and will require their appropriate level of Screening and Training.

  1. Syncing with Elvanto Departments
    This option will open a new page and invite you to choose a Safe Ministry compliance level for all of your Elvanto Departments. All people in a Department with an associated compliance level will be automatically created in SMC and will require their appropriate level of Screening and Training.
    There are 8 Compliance Levels to choose from:
    1. Ignore
      This will tell SMC to ignore people in this Department
    2. Member Level
      People in these depts will be marked as needing to complete the Member level training (no compliance required).
    3. Leader Level (no WWCC)
      People in these depts will be marked as needing to complete the Volunteer/Leader level training (no working with children compliance required).
    4. Leader Level (requires WWCC)
      People in these depts will be marked as needing to complete the Volunteer/Leader level training and they will require full working with children compliance.
    5. Supervisor Level (no WWCC)
      People in these depts will be marked as needing to complete the Supervisor level training (no working with children compliance required).
    6. Supervisor Level (requires WWCC)
      People in these depts will be marked as needing to complete the Supervisor level training and they will require full working with children compliance.
    7. Board Members Level (no WWCC)
      People in these depts will be marked as needing to complete the Staff/Board Members level training (no working with children compliance required).
    8. Board Members Level (requires WWCC)
      People in these depts will be marked as needing to complete the Staff/Board Members level training and they will require full working with children compliance.

If you require any assistance with setting up your Elvanto Syncing, please do not hesitate to contact the Safe Ministry Check team.