Connection network
Most members of your church didn't show up cold — they were invited by someone. Over years, those invitations form a tree: one person brings two, those two bring four, those four bring eight. The connection network module visualizes that tree.
What you see
Each node is a member. An arrow from Mary to Sarah means Mary invited Sarah. The root nodes (no incoming arrows) are members whose invited_by_member_id is empty — usually the church's founding members.
The view is interactive:
- Drag to pan across the tree.
- Scroll to zoom in and out.
- Click a node to open that member's profile in a side panel.
- Hover to see the member's name and their invite count.
Where the data comes from
Every member has an invited by field on their profile (one of the recommended fields when you add a member). Setting this consistently is what makes the network meaningful.
TIP
If you've imported a lot of members without invite data, you can backfill from the bulk-actions module. Filter by Invited by is empty and assign in batches based on cell-group or attendance correlations.
If a member has no recorded inviter, they appear as their own root node, isolated from the rest of the tree.
Scoping the view
The full network can be thousands of nodes for a large church. Use the controls at the top to narrow it down:
| Control | Effect |
|---|---|
| Root member | Start the tree from a specific person and show only their descendants |
| Depth | Limit how many generations down to display |
| Org unit | Restrict to members inside a chosen branch / center / cell |
| Date range | Only show invitations within a registration window |
A focused view — e.g. all descendants of Pastor Mark, 3 generations, Downtown Branch — is usually more useful than the whole tree.
Stats
The panel on the right shows aggregate numbers:
- Total members in view
- Average descendants per inviter — how often do invited members go on to invite others?
- Top inviters — leaderboard of who has brought in the most people, directly or downstream.
- Generational depth — how many tiers does the longest chain reach?
This data is often pulpit-worthy on its own. ("Our oldest line of discipleship goes seven generations deep.")
Drilling into a chain
Click any node and choose Show chain to root to highlight just the path from that member up to the root. Useful for celebrating a single discipleship line — "Sarah came because Mary invited her, who came because John invited Mary, who came because…"
Permissions
| Action | Admin | Shepherd | Member |
|---|---|---|---|
| View whole network | yes | scoped | no |
| View own descendants | yes | yes | yes |
Edit invited_by on a profile | yes | scoped | no |
Shepherds see the network scoped to their assigned units. Members see only their own descendants — a small but motivating window.
Common questions
Can the network handle our 5,000 members? Yes, but the full view will be hard to read. Zoom in or use the root member filter. The renderer uses canvas, so performance is fine even with large trees.
What if an inviter leaves the church? The data stays. If you mark the inviter as lost or delete them, descendants still point to that record. We don't reparent the tree automatically — the historical truth matters more than current activity.
Can I export the network? Yes. The export button produces a CSV with one row per relationship (inviter_id, inviter_name, invitee_id, invitee_name, invitee_registration_date). Pull it into Gephi or your own visualization tool if you want something fancier.
Next steps
- Member profile — set the invited by field reliably.
- Workflow triggers —
member.createdfires with the inviter ID available for tokens.