Administration

The admin panel gives tenant administrators full control over branding, access, features, and data tools. This guide covers everything you can configure.

Accessing the Admin Panel

Users with the Administrators security role in MinistryPlatform automatically have access to the PastorApp admin panel. To open it, tap the menu icon and select the admin area.

If you don't see the admin option in your menu, your MinistryPlatform account may not have the Administrators role. Contact your MP system administrator to check your role assignments.

Branding & Appearance

Each tenant can be fully customized to match your church's visual identity. All branding settings are found under the admin settings page.

Logo

Upload your church's logo to display it in the app header and on the sign-in page. Logos are stored securely and served to your users automatically. For best results, use a square or near-square image with a transparent background.

Brand Color

Set your primary brand color using a hex color picker. PastorApp uses this color as a seed to auto-generate a complete light and dark color scheme for your tenant. This means your entire app — buttons, links, cards, backgrounds — will match your church's branding automatically.

Color Style

Choose from four palette styles that control how your brand color is applied across the UI:

  • Modern — Clean, contemporary look with subtle color accents
  • Professional — Muted tones for a polished, corporate feel
  • Vibrant — Bold, saturated colors for a lively appearance
  • Minimal — Neutral palette with your brand color used sparingly

Advanced Color Customization

If you want fine-grained control, you can manually override individual color tokens for both light and dark modes. This includes backgrounds, foregrounds, borders, card colors, accent colors, and more.

Security Roles

Security roles determine which MinistryPlatform users can access PastorApp. Only users who have at least one of the configured roles (or the Administrators role, which always has access) can sign in.

How to Configure

  1. Go to Admin > Settings
  2. In the Security Roles section, use the autocomplete field to search for MP security roles
  3. Add the roles you want to grant PastorApp access
  4. Save your changes

For example, if you add the roles “Staff” and “Pastoral Team”, only MP users with one of those roles (plus Administrators) will be able to sign in to PastorApp.

Communication Settings

PastorApp supports two methods of sending SMS messages, each of which can be independently enabled or disabled:

  • Platform SMS— Send text messages through MinistryPlatform's built-in texting service. Messages are sent and logged through MP.
  • Device SMS— Opens the user's native messaging app (on mobile) to send a text from their personal phone number. This is useful for personal follow-ups.

AI Features

AI-powered tools (contact summaries, message drafting) can be toggled on or off for your entire tenant. When disabled, AI-related buttons and options are hidden from all users.

This is an all-or-nothing setting — AI features are either available to everyone in your tenant or no one.

Cache Management

PastorApp caches tenant configuration and session data for performance. If you've made changes in MinistryPlatform (such as updating roles or contact data) and they aren't reflected in PastorApp, you can clear the cache from the admin settings page.

Clearing the cache forces PastorApp to re-fetch tenant configuration and user data on the next request.

Catholic vs. Protestant

PastorApp supports both Catholic and Protestant churches. When a tenant is marked as Catholic, the app adjusts terminology throughout the interface — for example, using “parish” instead of “church” and displaying sacrament-specific milestones on contact profiles.

This setting is configured during tenant provisioning. Contact the PastorApp team if it needs to be changed.

Query Builder

The Query Builder lets administrators create reusable data queries that power dashboard widgets and components. You can build queries against MinistryPlatform tables or call stored procedures.

Query Types

  • Table queries— Select columns from MP tables with optional filters and sorting. Use the table and column typeahead to build queries without memorizing MP's schema.
  • Stored procedures — Call existing MP stored procedures with configurable parameters. Useful for complex reports that are already built in your database.

Token Replacement

Queries support dynamic tokens like the current user's ID, which are automatically replaced at runtime. This lets you build personalized widgets (e.g., “My upcoming events”) that show different data for each user.

Component Builder

Components combine a saved query with a presentation template to create reusable dashboard widgets. The Component Builder provides:

  • Query selection — Choose which saved query powers the component
  • Data transformation — Define rules for formatting, filtering, or reshaping query results before display
  • Template designer — Build Handlebars templates that control exactly how data renders in the widget
  • Live preview — See how your component looks with real data before publishing it

Once a component is created, it can be added to any user's dashboard as a widget.