MiaChiesaCreate and set up a pastoral unit
Group the communities you lead into a pastoral unit: choose the mode, include at least two communities and activate the add-on to start working.
Open Your parishes & PU
Open Settings and, under MiaChiesa account, select Your parishes & PU. The page “The communities you manage.” lists the communities you are responsible for and, further down, the pastoral units.
Select Create UP. The button stays disabled until you manage at least two communities: if one is missing, request it with Request Parish, wait for MiaChiesa’s approval and configure it, even minimally.
Choose the mode
The first step asks “How do you want to manage the parishes?”.
Bulk Operations (preselected) keeps the communities separate: each keeps its public page and its followers, and you publish once into the communities you choose.
Merged creates a new public entity that takes the place of the individual communities: parishioners follow the pastoral unit, while the communities remain for donations and tax purposes. Select the mode, then Continue.
Name it and choose the communities
With Bulk Operations the Details step asks for the Pastoral Unit Name (required) and a Description (optional). Select Continue.
In the “Which parishes to include?” step select at least two communities, or use All and None; the counter shows how many you picked. Only communities where you have «Manage places and celebrations» appear. Those marked In another PU already belong to another unit and cannot be picked; those under Pending configuration must be configured first.
With Merged the order changes: after the communities comes Profile, “Build the PU’s public profile”. Choose Configure profile manually or, under “or copy the profile from”, one of the communities: its name, images, contacts and web address are copied into the unit. You change the name later from Identity.
Create the unit and start working
Select Create Unit: “Pastoral Unit created successfully” appears. With Bulk Operations you return to the list, where the unit shows its mode, its number of communities and “not public”; with Merged the unit’s edit page opens.
To work as the pastoral unit select Operate as. If the add-on is not active yet the button reads Activate to operate and opens “Activate the Pastoral Unit add-on”: choose Activate add-on, or Switch to Essentials + UP if you are on the free plan. Once you are inside the unit the button reads Currently operating.
What you have achieved
- The pastoral unit exists, with the mode and communities you chose.
- You know how to activate the add-on and enter the unit to work.
Troubleshooting
Create UP is disabled
The tooltip says “You must manage and configure at least 2 parishes to create a Pastoral Unit.”. Request the missing communities with Request Parish and configure them after approval.
“To create a Pastoral Unit you need the «Manage places and celebrations» permission in at least 2 communities not already associated with other PUs.” appears
Fewer than two of the communities you manage are free: each needs «Manage places and celebrations» and must not already belong to another unit.
A community shows “In another PU”
It already belongs to another pastoral unit. Remove it from that unit before including it here.
I chose the wrong mode
The app has no command to change the mode after creation. Write to Support before you start publishing in the unit.