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Using Components to Plan Events

Events are the beating heart of the app. A Wednesday night meeting, a weekend retreat, a mission trip, and a parent night all live side by side in the same Events list — but they each have very different planning needs. Youth Ministry handles this with a component-based event system that lets every event show only the planning sections that actually apply to it.

The core idea: one event, many components

Every event in the app is a single record that can turn on or off any combination of planning sections, called components. A weekly meeting might only use Overview, Schedule, Volunteers, and Communication. A weekend retreat uses all of those plus Housing, Food, Transportation, Curriculum, Costs, and more. A class might just use Overview, Curriculum, and Attendance.

Because everything lives in one model, you never have to remember “is this a retreat or a service project?” to find the data. All events share the same list, the same filters, the same exports.

The 15 available components are:

Component	What it covers
Overview	Title, dates, theme, mission, milestone checklist
Curriculum	Speaker, teaching notes, content prep
Ministry Partners	Partner organizations and contacts
Registration	Participant list, payments, forms
Schedule	Time-blocked agenda and PDF export
Housing	Location, groups, cost, booking status
Food	Meals, menu, chef, cost
Costs	Full cost breakdown and surplus calculation
Transportation	Vehicles, drivers, transit cost
Volunteers	Roles and recruiting progress
Communication	Parent and student messaging
Design	Graphics, printed material, design costs
While Away	Who is covering ministry and personal responsibilities
Packing List	What to bring
Supplies	Materials and their cost
Attendance	Session-by-session check-in history

Creating an event

From the Events tab, tap the + button. You’ll see a grid of event type cards:

• Retreat — full planner with housing, food, costs, transportation, curriculum
• Mission Trip — like Retreat, but with Ministry Partners and no speaker
• Camp, Service Project, Weekly Meeting, Special Event, Class, Small Group, Worship, and Other
• Any Custom Event Types you’ve defined yourself

Pick the type that’s closest to what you’re planning. The app creates the event with the right set of components already turned on, and drops you into the Overview for that event. You can always add or remove components later — the type just chooses a smart starting point.

Working inside an event

Once the event exists, you’re looking at the Event Overview. The layout adapts to your device:

• iPad / Mac: A colored sidebar lists every active component. Tap one to see its content on the right. A progress header at the top shows how many milestones across the whole event are complete.
• iPhone: Components appear as a list. Each row has a colored strip, a milestone count, and expands into that component’s detail view.

Each component has its own fields and its own checklist items that roll up into the event’s overall progress. For example, completing “Speaker Booked” in Curriculum and “Housing Booked” in Housing both count toward the progress bar on the Overview — but if those components aren’t active for this event, they don’t count at all.

Costs and surplus

The Costs component is the financial home of each event. It pulls together the costs from the other components automatically: housing totals, food totals, transportation, design, supplies. You fill in what you charged per participant and any budgeted funds you have, and the app computes your expected surplus (or deficit). This per-event surplus is separate from the annual Budget — see the Budgets guide for how the two relate.

Milestones and progress

Every active component contributes a handful of milestone checkboxes (things like “Speaker Booked”, “Housing Booked”, “Communication Sent”). Checking them is how you track preparation progress. The Event Overview shows the completed count and an overall percentage, and the Dashboard pulls these up for upcoming events so you can see what’s lagging.

Deleting components

If an event doesn’t need a component you see, you can turn it off from the event’s edit menu. Turning a component off hides its view and excludes its milestones and costs from totals — but the data isn’t destroyed, so if you change your mind you can turn it back on and pick up where you left off.