Congratulations on creating your Gloo account! Here at Gloo, we are passionate about connecting people. Through our platform you are now connected to a whole suite of powerful tools designed to make you more effective at caring for your people, keeping engaged, and reaching new people in your community. We do this through connecting you with resources, tools, and like-minded partners, making it easy to connect with your entire network.
When you sign in for the first time, you'll see tons of features and functionality packed under our main menus of Discover, Messaging, Measure, and My People and you may not know yet how things all fit together. That's ok! We're here to help. Whether you want to engage with the He Gets Us campaign, gather prayer requests from people in your church, or start a conversation with someone in your community looking for help and support, it's easy to get set up in Gloo to connect with them.
This article will walk you through setting up your account based on which features you plan to take advantage of. We will begin with a few steps every single account should take, regardless of how you plan to use it. After that, we'll link you out to the specific guides that will walk you through setting up and interacting with each of the 4 major components of your account.
Before you start, check out the video below to orient you to the account and the main features we'll be discussing!
General Setup Steps For All Accounts
Let’s start with a few steps every single account should take, regardless of which features you plan to take advantage of.
Claim a toll free phone number that will be associated with your account. This is the number you will use to take advantage of any of the texting features offered in the account. Just click the Start Messaging button on your Messaging menu to get started.
Add team members to help you administrate the account. You can add as many team members as you’d like and specify which permissions you’d like them to have. Just go to your main Settings menu by clicking on your name in the top right corner of your screen, then click on Team Members and Invite Members.
Enter names and email addresses of those you’d like to invite to your team, select permission levels, and they’ll receive an invitation via email to join your account.
Next Steps For Each Main Menu
As mentioned at the beginning of this article and the overview video above, there are 4 main menus in every Gloo account- Discover, Messaging, Measure, and My People. Now that you have completed the first 2 general steps for account setup, let's move on to each component.
Below you can watch short videos describing these features, and then follow the links to individual articles to walk you through any setup required for each piece. If you want to set up all four, make sure to come back to this article after setting up each piece in order to move on to the next one!
Discover
This tab helps you to connect with resources that can supercharge your ministry. Think of Discover as a one-stop-shop for content, resources, and strategies from partners and churches who have gone before you and learned how to be effective. Many pieces of the Discover menu also inform and enhance your usage of other menus, such as texting templates and guides on how to interact with Explorers well under the Messaging menu.
Check out our short video below that introduces the Discover menu, and when you're finished head on over to this article to get set up to Discover new resources!
Messaging
This tab helps you to connect internally with your people through texting. Did you know that texting has a 98% open rate? If you want to create meaningful interaction with your people beyond just Sunday mornings, texting is the way to go. This menu is jam-packed with texting tools that will help you blast out announcements, create customized devotional and training content, gather prayer requests, create custom keywords, answer FAQs and so much more.
This tab also helps connect you to your community and reach out beyond the doors of your church or organization. Gloo has partners running ad campaigns all over the United States, 24/7 that are reaching out to people we call Explorers who are searching online for answers to life's deep questions. "Why is my marriage failing?" "Why am I so depressed?" "What does the Bible teach about how to deal with loss?" These are all questions that people are asking, and through our ad partners they are able to connect with a nearby church like you that can begin a conversation with them to interact with them, be a listening ear, and share the love of God with them.
Check out our short video below that introduces the Messaging menu, and when you're finished head on over to this article to get set up to Message with your people!
For even more help, you can join a call with our dedicated Success Team to learn more. Join us for one of our weekly webinar style, 45 minute group onboarding sessions where we will walk you through the platform, teach you best practices, show you how to customize your settings, and answer any questions. Be sure to register early, as each session is capped at a maximum of 25 guests!
If you plan to attend any session, make sure to Claim Your Toll Free Phone Number first to make sure you are prepared!
Click here to register for an onboarding walking through the nuts and bolts of Explorers every Tuesday at 11am MST / 1pm EST, or click here to register for the same onboarding every Thursday at 11am MST / 1pm EST.
Click here to register for a Messaging onboarding every Wednesday at 11am MST / 1pm EST, or click here to register for a Messaging onboarding every Wednesday at 2pm MST / 4pm EST.
Measure
Data is key! This tab helps you to connect to powerful data analytics that show how effective you're being and find ways to become even more impactful, both in your church or ministry in general and in your Gloo account specifically. The Measure tab of your account will track things like how many people you're texting with at your church, how many Explorers you're interacting with, response times, keywords getting the most usage, and more. Network leaders also have the ability to track with their network members using Gloo resources to see how you are functioning as a whole. And finally, this tab also gives access to our powerful Assessments tool that can be used to create templated or custom surveys to send to your people on a variety of topics.
Check out this short video below that introduces the Measure menu, and when you're finished head on over to this article to get set up to Measure your impact!
My People
As you interact with people through the Messaging tab, you'll want ways to add and manage your contacts. The My People menu allows you to add and manage contacts, create groups, and make sure everyone is organized so that your communication is smooth and organized.
Check out our short video below that introduces the My People menu!
Need more help?
If you have further questions and would like face time with our dedicated Success Team, feel free to join one of our Success Team Office Hours which happen weekly on Mondays and Thursdays from 2:30-3 PM MST. Just click here to register!