Cloning vs Recurring Events
When creating an event in your church calendar, you have the option to repeat that event by creating a recurring event or by cloning an event. These options enable you to save time by not having to manually create multiple events of the same type.
Recurring Events
Recurring Events enable you to create a repeat event that happens at the same time, at the same location, on the same interval. They can be set to repeat daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, and yearly. They can be repeated a maximum of 52 times.
Recurring Events are best used for calendar events that you want to be repeated but do not need to track attendance, schedule volunteers, or enable registrations. Some of these use cases include:
- Building Maintenance Reminders
- Tracking room usage and availability
- Earmarking repeating admin tasks
- Indicate worship service times when worship planning or attendance tracking is not needed
Cloning Events
Cloning Events enables you to copy an already created event and then duplicate the event. You can clone events that are used for attendance tracking, volunteer scheduling, and registrations. ChurchTrac gives you the option to include Groups as well as the Registration Fields and Options.
When cloning an event, you can create a copy of that event to happen on any date of your choosing. You also have the option to create additional copies of that event weekly until a certain date. You can create up to 5 copies of an event at a time.
Cloning Events is a big time saver for creating multiple events that happen weekly. Some examples include:
- Sunday school class attendance
- Worship and small group attendance
- Registrations for weekly volunteer opportunities
- Midweek dinner signups
A recurring event is seen as a single event that’s simply set to repeat. A cloned event creates an entirely new event while still retaining the original event's settings, times, and locations.
FAQs
When cloning an event, you duplicate every aspect of the event. We find that ministries planning every aspect of an event too far out end up having to redo most of the aspects of that event. This is especially true for events that have registrations, attendance tracking, and scheduling. This limitation also guards against accidentally duplicating a large amount of events that could be done in error.
If you're planning repeat events that incorporate scheduling, attendance, or registrations... we recommend planning about a month or so in advance.