The guide

What Work is

Work is where your team plans and runs everything behind the scenes: events, ministries, the parish office, volunteers. It is a task and project app built for churches, on the same account as the WITHIN app. Your community is your workspace, so the admins of your community in the WITHIN app are already the admins here.

The WITHIN app

for everyone in your community: events, groups, announcements, tickets.

Work

for the people who make those things happen: tasks, rotas, care, the bulletin, the budget.

Signing in

Go to work.withinusco.com and sign in with your WITHIN email and password, the same ones you use in the app.

1. 1Forgot your password? Reset it in the WITHIN app, then come back.
2. 2If you are in more than one community, you pick one after signing in. All my communities shows your tasks from every one of them on one page.
3. 3If your community asks for two-step sign-in, Work walks you through it the first time (see Two-step sign-in below).

Your first ten minutes

Community admins

The fastest way from an empty Work to one your team can use.

1. 1Open your community and press Set up Work. That makes your first space and list.
2. 2Or start from a ready-made setup: Templates, then Set up a whole community. Parish, Young adults and Youth each add the spaces and lists that kind of community usually needs, and change nothing already there.
3. 3Give your team access: People, then Give someone Work. You can add anyone who is already in your community in the WITHIN app.
4. 4Pick each person's role (see Roles below), and give care, safeguarding or finance duties only to the people who need them.
5. 5Add a few real tasks, assign them, and put dates on them. Each person sees theirs on My work.

TipSomeone not showing up under Give someone Work? They need to join your community in the WITHIN app first.

Roles and duties

People

A role decides what someone can do everywhere in Work. A duty opens one private area on top of that.

Community admin

the admins from the WITHIN app. Everything, always, including every duty.

Work admin

runs Work: people, settings, automations. Cannot give duties.

Member

adds and edits tasks, lists and docs.

Viewer

sees everything, changes nothing. Good for a parish council.

Guest

sees only the lists you share with them. Good for a caterer or a contractor.

Duties

pastoral care, prayer, safeguarding, finance and the clergy calendar. Only community admins give them.

Spaces, folders and lists

Spaces, in the sidebar

Everything lives in three levels, all in the sidebar.

1. 1Open a space in the sidebar: New list and New folder are at the bottom of it.
2. 2New space sits at the bottom of the spaces.
3. 3To keep a list to a few people, open it and make it private, then choose who can see it.

Space

a big area of your community: Events, Youth, Office, Liturgy.

Folder

optional, to group lists inside a space: Christmas, Easter.

List

where the tasks are: Youth Rally, Weekly bulletin, Building repairs.

Tasks

A task is one thing that needs doing. Type its name at the bottom of a list and press Enter, then open it for the rest.

People and dates

assign one or more people, a due date and a priority.

Checklist

the small steps inside a task.

Comments

talk about the task. Type @ and a name to bring someone in; they get it in their Inbox.

Files and links

attach pictures and documents, or link a Drive, Docs or Zoom page.

Repeat

for things that come back: every week, every month, the first Sunday.

Waiting on

link tasks so one cannot start until another is done.

TipDoing the same set of tasks every year? Save the list as a template and start next year's with one press.

Ways to see a list

The same tasks, eight ways. Switch along the top of any list.

List and Table

everything in rows. Table shows every field.

Board

a column per status. Drag a card to move it along.

Calendar and Timeline

by date. Timeline shows how long things take and what waits on what.

Workload

who has too much on.

Gallery and Mind map

for picture-led work and for planning out loud.

TipFilter a view (only mine, only this week) and save it, so it is one click next time.

My work, Inbox and search

Three places that keep you on top of things.

My work

everything assigned to you, sorted into overdue, today, this week and later. Your rota places show here too.

Inbox

mentions, new assignments, comments on tasks you follow. The number in the sidebar is what you have not read.

Search

press Ctrl K (Cmd K on a Mac) anywhere to find a task, list, doc or person, or jump to any page.

Working together

Talk and write next to the work, not in a separate group chat.

Chat

channels for your team.

Docs

meeting notes, plans and policies, with comments.

Whiteboards

for brainstorming with sticky notes.

Notepad

your own private notes.

Share a list

send a read-only link to someone with no account, like a family planning a funeral.

Planning and reporting

For the bigger picture.

Ministry year

September to August at a glance: feasts, events and every dated task.

Goals

targets you can count, like 40 confirmation students or $20,000 raised. Stripe payments can count toward one.

Dashboards and Portfolio

charts and the progress of every list.

Sprints and Timesheets

two-week pushes and time spent, when you need them.

Automations

rules that do the routine work: when a task is done, tell someone; every Monday, make the bulletin task.

Rotas

Ministry › Rotas

Who serves when: readers, ushers, musicians, hospitality, youth leaders.

1. 1Make a rota, then under Roles add who it needs (Reader, Usher) and how many of each.
2. 2Under Add dates, add one date or every week until a date you choose.
3. 3Under People, add who can serve and in which roles. Under Away dates, add when they cannot.
4. 4Press Fill the gaps. Work shares the places out fairly and skips anyone away.
5. 5Press Email the asks. Everyone gets a link to say yes or no, with no account needed.

TipFor youth rotas, Work keeps two cleared adults on every date and will not fill with someone whose check has lapsed.

Sign-up sheets and check-in

Ministry › Sign-ups

Bring a dish, take a shift, drive for the retreat.

1. 1Make a sheet and add its slots, each with how many people it needs.
2. 2Share the link or print the QR code. People pick a slot with no account.
3. 3For the day itself, go to Check-in and print a code for the door. People scan it with their phone camera and give their name.
4. 4Tie the check-in to the sign-up sheet and it ticks people off as they arrive.

Pastoral care and prayer

People with the care or prayer dutyMinistry › Pastoral care

Requests for a visit, a call, a meal or prayer, kept private to the care team.

1. 1On the Pastoral care page, switch on the request form and share its link in the bulletin or on your website. Anyone can ask, no account needed.
2. 2Requests land in the queue. Assign each one to someone on the team.
3. 3Prayer requests go on the prayer list for the people with the prayer duty.

TipNothing here shows up anywhere else in Work, not in search, not in reports, not to admins of a network.

Safeguarding

People with the safeguarding dutyMinistry › Safeguarding

Police checks and training for everyone who works with young people or vulnerable adults, with a warning before anything expires.

The rest of Ministry

Ministry

Smaller tools that fit around the main ones.

Liturgy

the weeks ahead on the Church's calendar, with the readings. Plan each Mass: celebrant, music, intentions and who is serving.

Calendars

the priests' and staff calendars, so you book around them.

Small groups

take attendance for the groups people join in the WITHIN app, and see who has been missing.

Newcomers

from a first visit to belonging: welcomed, connected, serving, a member.

Mentoring

leaders with newer leaders, sponsors with candidates. Each check-in sets the next one.

Gifts

who can do what, so you know who to ask.

Parish office

Parish office

The weekly and monthly running of the parish.

Meetings

agendas, minutes, and actions that become tasks.

Bulletin

filled from what Work already knows: the Sunday's liturgy, Mass times, notices, who is serving. Print it, or share a link once it is final.

Finance

budgets and spending with receipts. People without the finance duty see Expense claims, to send in their own.

Inventory

what you own and where it is, from chairs to vestments.

People and money

People and money

For the outward-facing side: vendors, sponsors, donors.

Contacts

everyone you deal with outside your team.

Deals

sponsorships and bookings, from first call to signed.

Quotes and invoices

send one with a link the other side can open and print.

Forms

a public form (a room booking, a volunteer form) that turns each answer into a task.

Your settings

Manage › Settings

The top of Settings is just for you.

Language

English, French or Spanish for the menus.

Your calendar

a private link that puts your Work dates in Google, Apple or Outlook calendar.

Two-step sign-in

A code from an app on your phone as well as your password, so a stolen password is not enough.

1. 1Install an authenticator app: Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator or 1Password all work.
2. 2When Work asks, press Set it up and scan the code with the app.
3. 3Type the six digits it shows. From then on, Work asks for a fresh code when you sign in.

TipAdmins can ask everyone in the community to use it: Settings, Community.

Work on your phone

Work runs in the browser and installs like an app, with its own icon.

1. 1iPhone: open work.withinusco.com in Safari, press Share, then Add to Home Screen.
2. 2Android: open it in Chrome, press the three dots, then Install app.

AI help

Buttons that draft for you: a summary of a long task, a task list from meeting notes, a weekly report on a list, help with wording. They only ever suggest; nothing changes until you press save.

TipAdmins switch it on and see how much is left this month in Settings, AI help.

For admins

Community and Work admins

The rest of Settings, and a few things that sit beside it.

Community

the default language, and whether everyone must use two-step sign-in.

Incoming

Stripe, Shopify, Slack, Zapier: events from them can make tasks or count toward a goal.

API keys

for your own tools to read and write tasks.

Audit log

who changed access and settings, and when.

Networks

a deanery or diocese can see each parish's numbers (never names) if the parish joins with the network's code.

Import and Archive

bring tasks in from a spreadsheet; anything archived can be brought back.

Getting help

Ask your community admin first. Admins can write to the WITHIN team at info@withinusco.com.