Features

Taking the register

When rehearsal starts you open attendance for that event and AtChoir gives you a QR code. Hold up your phone, or put the code on a laptop or the screen at the front. Members scan it with the app as they come in.

The time of each scan is recorded by our server and never by the member's phone, so a wrong clock changes nothing. Whoever scans more than fifteen minutes after the start is marked late, and you can set a different cut-off for any event.

A second scan leaves the first one alone and tells the member they are already marked. The code works for that one event only and stops working once the event is over.

You can also start attendance from the management console, which is AtChoir in a web browser at portal.atchoir.com. Pick the date and the kind of event and the code comes up on screen, ready for a projector. It only appears on the day of the event.

When someone can't scan, or can't come

Someone will forget their phone. Tap their name in the attendance list and mark them present, late, absent or excused yourself.

A member who knows in advance that they will miss an event sends an apology in the app, any time before it starts. It is recorded at once, and you see who has apologised before the rehearsal begins. We never ask them for a reason. If your choir would rather approve each apology, you can switch that on.

Attendance over a term

Every mark is saved with the event and the member, and you can open the register for any past event.

The console also adds them up. Choose any two dates and it shows attendance for each member, each voice group and the whole choir, and for each event and each kind of event (rehearsals, concerts, meetings). Events nobody took a register for are left out.

Each event shows who apologised, who was expected, and who came, came late, was absent or was excused. All of it downloads as an Excel file.

A member is not counted for events before they joined, after they left or while they were resting, and an event they were excused from is not counted against them, so the percentage is a fair one.

The calendar

Rehearsals, concerts, recording sessions and meetings go into one calendar that every member sees in the app. You add them from the app or the console, each with a place, a start and an end.

An event can carry a note for the members and a running order, which is the list of pieces in the order you will sing them. Link a piece to its PDF in the document library and a member who opens Saturday's concert finds the music there.

Some events don't belong on the members' calendar, such as one you made only to take a register. You can keep such an event off the calendar, and it still shows up under attendance.

For a concert you need numbers for, tick "Ask members to reply" on the event in the console. Members answer yes or no in the app. Anyone who changes a yes to a no has to say why in a line or two, and you get an email and a notification on your phone as soon as they do.

AtChoir does not send reminders before an event yet. That is planned.

Chat

The whole choir has one conversation, and any member can start a smaller one for a section, a committee or a tour party.

The chat belongs to the choir, so a member you remove is out of the conversation as well. You never have to hand out your own phone number to be reachable.

To-dos and projects

To-dos are the choir's job list: book the hall, collect the programme copy, fetch the risers, chase the photographer. A job can have a person and a date next to it, and everyone can see what is still open.

A project gathers the jobs for one concert, tour or fundraiser. Open it to see what is done and what is still to do. A finished project stays where it is, so you can look back at it when you plan the next one.

Documents

The library holds the choir's PDFs: minutes, programmes, sheet music, the constitution, orders of service. Management uploads and removes files, and every member can open and download them.

What a choir stores is the choir's responsibility, including the right to share any sheet music. We don't check the files, and the app says so when you upload.

Members

You add members by email address, one at a time or by pasting up to 100 rows from a spreadsheet into the console. If a row can't be added, the console tells you which line and why, and leaves it for you to fix.

Each member is emailed a link to set up their account. They choose their own password and accept the choir's member terms. Unless you switch it off, they then wait for your approval before they can sign in, so a mistyped address cannot let a stranger in.

A member who loses that email, or forgets their password, sets a new one at portal.atchoir.com/start with a six-digit code we email them. Nobody at SJL Consulting can see a password or set one.

The members list shows who is active, invited, resting or gone, with the dates each person joined and left. People who help the choir without singing can be added as support staff, and they are left off the register.

A member can add a phone number, a birthday, a passport number for tours and dietary requirements. Only that member and you can see them.

Someone who sings in two choirs signs in once and switches between them. When a member leaves, you mark them as having left. The choir keeps its record of them, and the details they added are deleted unless they chose to stay in touch. Anyone can delete their own account from the Account screen.

The management console

A choir's management can do the day-to-day from the app. The console in a browser, at portal.atchoir.com, is the better place for the jobs that need a keyboard: loading a list of members, approving new ones, building a concert's running order, reading a term's attendance and uploading documents.

It is also where you record, once for the whole choir, that you have the permission of the parents or guardians of any members under 18.

Phones and browsers

Members use the app on iPhone or Android, free from the App Store or Google Play. Management uses the app, the console, or both.

You can browse a sample choir in your browser before you talk to us, as its management or as one of its singers.

What we don't ask for

AtChoir stores no age and no flag marking anyone as a child. A birthday is held only if a member adds their own.

It holds a display name, an email address, a voice part if the member gives one, a role, the choir's attendance and to-do records, and replies to events that ask for one. The details a member chooses to add are deleted when they leave, unless they chose otherwise.

Getting started

Write to info@sjl-consulting.co.za with the choir's name and roughly how many members you have. We set the choir up, you add your members, and each one is emailed a link to set up their account.