This blog assumes you have already read about what MyVineyard is and you've gotten yourself a username and password.  Click on the images in this article to get a better look at them.

Once you get logged into MyVineyard, you are presented with your homepage. The homepage is a quick event, message and group snapshot of all the things you are involved in with MyVineyard. There's a lot going on here, so let me take a minute to walk through the features on this page.

The MyVineyard Homepage

Upcoming
The upcoming section shows you a handful of events that are upcoming on your calendar. These events are pulled from the groups you are a member of. You also have a calendar that is showing all of the upcoming events for the current month. Clicking on any of the events will take you to that event to view more details.

My Groups' Activity
This section shows all messages, events and other activity for your groups. This is a nice way to be able to see a snapshot of what is going on in your groups. Clicking on any of the postings will take you directly to that posting.

My Profile and My Groups (on the left)
This just lets you know who you are logged in as, and provides a place to log out. Clicking on your name will take you to your personal profile.  It also provides a list of groups you are member of.  Clicking on the name of a group will take you to that group's page.

Now, click on the My Profile tab at the top of the page. The My Profile page is where you can see and edit your personal profile information.

My Profile Overview

The first section is your main My Profile page. It shows all of the information about you that you have chosen to enter for MyVineyard. The first time you come to your profile, you will see it already has some information about you. This is all of the information you provided to Vineyard OP when you first started attending, and we put your 2009 church directory photo in there if you were here for that. So, don't freak out about some of your information already being there.

At this point, you may be worried about privacy. You may be asking out loud, in a panicked tone, "Have they published my information so that just anyone can see it?!!" Calm down, it's OK. Remember, MyVineyard only has profiles for people who have attended Vineyard OP. We set your privacy defaults for your profile so that only your friends and church leadership can see your information. You decide who your friends are, so when you first sign in, nobody can see your information except church staff. I don't want to spend too much time on privacy here, as I will be covering it in more detail in future posts.

Back to your profile page...

When you click on the My Profile tab, you will be looking at the Overview tab for your profile. The Overview page shows your name, all the members of your family, your picture, your contact information and any recent activity you've had on the site.

My Profile Info Tab

If you click on the Info tab, you get a ton of other information you can provide that I will be discussing in future.

My Profile Involvement Tab

Clicking on the Involvement tab will show you even more information about your activity here at Vineyard OP. It shows the groups you are a member of, any positions you've filled in the church, events you've attended, and who your friends are. The Process Queues tab is only for people with permissions to view that information (like group leaders and church staff). Once again, you can see all of your own information on your profile, but no one else can see it unless you choose to let them.

So, how do you edit your information?
In the upper right-hand corner of the My Profile page, you'll see another set of tabs that include Change Settings and Edit Profile.

Clicking on the Change Settings tab will take you to a page where you can edit your username and password, Communication settings (what groups can email you), and your privacy settings.

Clicking on the Edit Profile tab, will take you into the page where you can change all of your personal information.

Some of you will be able to roll with it from here, and others will need more help. I'm going to stop here for this post, but all of these settings will be discussed soon at http://vineyardop.org.

Until we meet again,

David Andersen
Head Geek
Vineyard Church of Overland Park