Here are the 6 steps that you can use to establish a group that uses the DDA as the basis for developing their curriculum for group content:
1. Register
Click the “Register” button at the top to register yourself as an individual if you have not already. Once registered and confirmed, this will take you to your own Discipleship Dynamics Dashboard.
2. Take Your Own Assessment (Optional)
Once you have taken your own Assessment, under the heading, “1. Your Personal Discipleship Assessment”, you can get a screen display or a PDF Download of your own Assessment results. This is also where you will click to be able to take your second, free Assessment later.
3. Create a new Group
Under the second heading on your Home Page (“2. Your Discipleship Group(s)” you will be able to establish your group(s). Click to create a new Discipleship group. This will bring up a page to register the new group. Each group that you register should have a different name. When you return to your Home Page your new group will be listed there.
4. Mange Your Group
You are now ready to “manage” your group by clicking on the link that has your group’s name and this will bring up a new screen that has three sections.
First there is a section that summarizes the “Group Information” (on the left of the screen: see the example).
Second, there is a section that summarizes the Survey Progress as people take the surveys (top right: See example).
Finally, there is a section that allows Group Leader Actions (bottom right: See example).
5. Send Invitations to your Group
At this point you now have two options to finance the cost of the individual Discipleship Assessments for your group:
Group Members Pay
You can invite members to join the group and pay for their individual Assessments themselves by using the link that is generated at the bottom of the “Group Information” box. Any person who uses this link will automatically be included into the Leader’s Dashboard summary of Outcome scores. The wording, as in the example of the Young Marrieds “Group Information” (see above) indicates that “Participants will have to pay for their own Assessments”
Group Leader Pays
The second option is for you to purchase Assessments on behalf of the group. This is done by going to the lower right-hand corner of the Home Page (in the block “Group Leader Actions”) and clicking on “Obtain Additional Invitations”. This will take you to a purchase page that will summarize the number of unused invitations that you have available from previous purchases (if any), the number of invitations you want to purchase with this order, the date that you want to set for them to finish the Assessment, and if any discounts are available for that group purchase (Large group discounts are negotiated with Discipleship Dynamics by the Group Leader).
When you choose the option to purchase the Assessments on behalf of your group, your Leader Dashboard changes the options that are available for you as Group Leader. It will allow you two ways to get participants onboard for your group. The “Group Leader Actions” (on the bottom right of the Dashboard) now expands to SEVEN things you can do. One of the additional buttons is an option to “Send Invitations”. You will use this option when you have the email addresses of your participants and you want to send them a personal message with the invitation to participate.
When you choose this option, it takes you to a “Send Invitations to Participants” screen that reminds you of the number of paid invitations that you still have available (in the example there are 37 still available) and it allows you to add an optional, additional message to be included in the email to your invited group. When you click the “Send Invitations Now” button, your Dashboard will now reflect the status of those invitation in the “Survey Progress” screen. This screen will indicate whether you are busy with the initial or free follow-up survey, what you indicated was the due date for them to have the survey back to you, how many surveys are available, and the number of unassigned surveys that are still available for you to send.
This screen also gives a valuable progress report on your group. When you click on the little person icon, you will be able to see which email addresses have not yet started the Assessment, which ones have started but not completed, and which ones have completed the Assessment.
6. View the Results
When you are ready to process the results of everyone’s average scores, there is a button that will appear on the bottom left of your Dashboard that invites you to view the Group Leaders’ Report of average scores. This will only be available when at least three persons have completed their Assessments. The Report is color-coded to indicate which scores are relatively low (green), which scores are relatively normative (yellow) and which scores are areas that deserve attention (red).
