The Group Admin Portal is your command centre — invite and certify squad leaders, track your men, and connect your church to the Forge app. This guide walks through every section.
As Group Admin you are the bridge between your church and the men using the Forge app. You don't run squads — that's the squad leader's job. Your job is to make sure the right men are leading, that those leaders are certified, and that every man who joins your church's network is accounted for.
Think of it in three moves: invite the men you want to train as squad leaders, track them through certification, then certify them so they can open and lead a squad.
You invite a man → he completes Squad Leader Certification → he appears in Certified Leaders → he creates a squad and begins leading men through the Forge deck.
The portal opens on the Overview tab — four live numbers that show the health of your men's ministry right now. They update whenever you click Refresh in the header.
Switch to the Leaders tab for the invitation and certification numbers:
If Active Squads is low despite having certified leaders, those men haven't started their squads yet — follow up directly. If Men in Squads is low, leaders have squads but haven't filled them. If Pending Invitations has been sitting for more than two weeks, those men need a phone call, not another email.
A session that isn't logged doesn't appear here. Remind your leaders to log their session in the portal after each meeting — it takes less than two minutes and builds the record over time.
Before a man can certify and lead a squad, you invite him. The invitation sends an email with a direct link to Squad Leader Certification at contactright.co/squad-leader-training.
The certification is a real commitment. Men who receive a cold email without a prior conversation rarely complete it. The invite is a follow-up to a face-to-face conversation, not a broadcast.
Every invitation you send appears here until it's cancelled or the man certifies. The Status column tells you where each man is up to.
The button in the section header downloads a spreadsheet of all certified leaders — useful for your church records or if your denomination requires a training register.
This section covers how men connect to your church in the Forge app. When a man follows your join link, scans your QR code, or types your Church Code, he gets linked to your organisation — your squad leaders can then place him in a squad.
All three channels go to the same destination. Use whichever fits the moment — they work simultaneously and independently of each other.
He appears in the members list below the join tools. Squad leaders can see him and invite him into a squad. Don't let men sit unassigned for more than a week — they signed up because someone sent them, and they go cold fast.
Below the join tools you'll see every man who has linked to your church in the app. The active count reflects men who have used the app in the last 30 days. If a man needs to be removed — for example, he joined accidentally — use the Remove button on his row. This unlinks him from your church but doesn't delete his Forge account.
A man appears here once he passes Squad Leader Certification. Certification is completed entirely online at contactright.co/squad-leader-training — it covers the Forge deck, how to run a session, and the Squad Leader's declaration.
If you see a certified leader without an active squad, check in with him. He may be waiting for men, unsure how to start, or need a push. The goal: every certified leader running at least one active squad.
This section gives you a read across all squads in your organisation — how many are running, how many men are in them, and whether sessions are happening. You can filter by campus or deck type if you run multiple locations.
Squads are created and managed by squad leaders in their own portal at contactright.co/squad. You can read all squad data here but can't add or edit squads directly — that keeps the squad leader responsible for his own men.
Squads appear once a certified leader creates one. If you have certified leaders but no squads, send them the Squad Leader Portal link and ask them to create their first squad and invite their first man today.
Each squad has its own chat room inside the Forge app — a private space where the men in that squad can stay connected between sessions. Squad leaders create and manage their chat room from their portal. As Group Admin you can see that chat rooms exist and how many are active, but you don't manage them directly — that sits with the squad leader.
A squad leader creates the chat room from the Chat tab in his Squad Leader Portal (contactright.co/squad). One room per squad is created automatically the first time he opens that tab. From there he can send messages, see the room name, and manage the conversation. Men in the squad access chat through the Forge app.
Chat is designed to maintain connection between sessions — not replace them. A quick message to check in on a man after he shared something heavy, a reminder about the next session, or a photo from a shared activity. It works best when the squad leader models the tone: brief, personal, and purposeful.
Your portal shows squad activity — including whether a squad has a chat room. You can't read squad messages (they're private to the squad), but if a squad leader reports an issue or a man in a squad raises a concern, you can follow up with the squad leader directly. All content in Forge chat is subject to the same conduct standards as the rest of the platform.
Team Members are other people who can access and manage the Group Admin Portal alongside you — a pastoral team member, assistant, or second administrator. They see everything you see and can take all the same actions.
A Team Member manages the Group Admin Portal. A Squad Leader manages his own squad at contactright.co/squad. These are different roles and different logins. A man can hold both — for example, a certified leader you've also added as a co-admin — but they're separate accounts with separate purposes.
If your church runs across multiple sites — a main campus and a satellite, or several service locations — create a Campus for each one. Campuses let you filter the Certified Leaders and Active Squads tables so you can see activity by location at a glance.
Campuses are optional. If your church is a single site you don't need them — everything works without them.
That's the full portal. If something isn't working or you need help, use Get Help at the top of the portal to reach the Contact Right team directly.