Getting started with Formation

The Formation module holds everything your parish does to form people in the faith: children's religious education, adult studies, the parish school's records seam, and OCIA. One module serves all four because they share one shape — a program runs classes (cohorts), people enroll, and staff and volunteers serve them.

The four program types

• Faith Formation — grade classes per year, online registration, attendance, sacrament prep.
• Adult Formation — studies and series ("Tuesday Evening Bible Study"); attendance off unless you turn it on.
• School — the parish side of the school only: rosters imported from the school's own system, sacrament cross-checks, Safe Environment for staff, and the parishioner-status letter. Vianney is deliberately not a school information system — no gradebook, no report cards, no tuition.
• OCIA — the catechumenate, with its own paths, stages, sponsors, and rite dates.

Your first program

• 1. Open Formation and click New program…
• 2. Pick the type (this is picked once, forever — it sets the program's defaults), name it, and give it a year like 2026-2027.
• 3. Add classes with New cohort… — a name ("Grade 2"), an optional grade level, and the meeting day/time/room.
• 4. Enroll people from the directory on each class's roster, or turn on online registration and let families register themselves.

Every difference between how parishes run formation is a setting, not a customization — see Formation settings and the module settings pane.

Questions? [support@vianney.church](mailto:support@vianney.church)