Frequently Asked Questions

Very fast. After you subscribe on our website, your dedicated WatchmanLog instance is provisioned automatically in about 90 seconds. You'll receive a welcome email with your login URL and temporary password before you close your browser tab.

From there, you can log your first incident immediately. Inviting additional team members takes a minute per person from the Admin panel.

No. WatchmanLog is a web app — it runs in any modern browser on any device. Your team opens a URL, logs in, and they're ready to go. No app store, no IT department, no configuration required on their end.

Team members can optionally "Add to Home Screen" on iOS or Android to get an app-like shortcut with push notification support. That's optional and takes about 10 seconds.

Yes. Visit demo.watchmanlog.com — no login required. The demo shows a fully seeded church with real-looking incidents, team profiles, restriction records, and network sharing. It's read-only, so you can explore everything without creating an account.

Just the basics: your church name and address, your name and email, and a payment method. Setup is complete in under 2 minutes.

WatchmanLog supports these incident categories out of the box:

• Suspicious Person / Vehicle
• Medical Emergency
• Mental Health / Behavioral
• Domestic / Family Disturbance
• Theft / Property Damage
• Active Threat
• Trespassing / Campus Restriction
• Child Safety
• Traffic / Parking
• Other

You can attach photos, add comments, and file formal written reports with staff, witness, and suspect statements for any incident.

Campus Restrictions is a photo gallery of individuals who are not permitted on your property. Each record includes a photo, physical description, vehicle description, the reason for the restriction, and active/lifted status.

Your security team can pull up the gallery quickly on Sunday morning to check arrivals. Restriction records can also be shared with your partner churches via the Network feature.

Church Networks lets your safety team share incidents and restriction alerts with other churches in your area. If someone is escorted off your property on Sunday morning, your partner churches can be aware before they show up at their service.

Networks are private and invite-only — you choose which churches to connect with, and no information is visible to the public or other WatchmanLog customers. Churches can join by invitation or by geographic proximity if they opt in.

Unlimited. Your subscription covers your entire safety team — there's no per-seat pricing. Add as many volunteers, staff, and leaders as your church needs.

Yes. WatchmanLog includes a qualification tracking system for each team member. You can log and upload documentation for:

• CPR / First Aid certification
• Concealed carry permits
• Firearm training / range qualification
• Background check completion
• Custom qualifications your church requires

Admins can approve qualifications after reviewing the uploaded documentation. Expired qualifications are flagged automatically.

Each team member sets their own notification preferences. Options include:

• Real-time incident alerts — email or push notification when a new incident is logged
• Formal report notifications — when a formal report is filed on an incident
• Network alerts — when a partner church shares an incident to your network
• Weekly digest — a Sunday night email summarizing the week's activity

Every notification type can be turned on or off individually per user.

Monthly: $29/month — great for trying it out, no long-term commitment.

Annual: $299/year — saves you about $49 compared to monthly billing.

Both plans include unlimited team members, all features, and unlimited incident storage. There are no setup fees or per-seat charges.

Yes. Cancel anytime from the billing portal at watchmanlog.com/billing or by emailing [email protected]. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period — you keep access until then.

We don't do contracts or lock-ins. If WatchmanLog isn't working for your team, we'd rather hear why and try to fix it than hold you to something that isn't serving you.

We try to keep the price accessible for churches of any size — $29/month is designed to be within reach for most congregations. If your church has a genuine financial hardship, email us at [email protected] and we'll work something out.

Your instance stays accessible through the end of your paid period. After cancellation takes effect, your data is retained for an additional 30 days — giving you time to export anything you need.

After 30 days, your instance and all data are permanently deleted. We recommend exporting your incident records (available as CSV from the app) before canceling.

Only your team members can see your church's data. Each church has a completely private, separate instance — there is no shared database between churches, and no WatchmanLog customer can see another church's records.

The only exception is the Church Networks feature, where you can voluntarily share specific incidents with churches you've chosen to network with. Sharing is always opt-in, per incident.

All data is transmitted over HTTPS/TLS. Passwords are hashed using bcrypt and cannot be recovered by anyone, including us. If you forget your password, we generate a new one — we can't retrieve the old one.

The platform is hosted on AWS and sits behind Cloudflare for additional DDoS protection. Your data is stored in the United States.

No. We do not sell, rent, or share your data with advertisers or third parties for marketing purposes. The only external services we use are Stripe (payment processing), Resend (email delivery), AWS (hosting), and Cloudflare (network security). See our Privacy Policy for details.

Yes. Incident records can be exported as CSV from the app. Formal reports can be downloaded as PDFs. If you need a full data export, contact us at [email protected] and we'll put one together for you.

Email us at [email protected]. We're a small team and we respond personally. If you'd find it helpful, we're happy to walk through the app with you or your team director over email or a short call.

WatchmanLog works on any modern browser — Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge on desktop and mobile. It's designed specifically to work well on iPhones, which most church safety volunteers use on Sunday morning.

Push notifications require iOS 17+ on iPhone (Apple added web push support in iOS 17). On Android, push notifications work in Chrome. Email notifications work on all devices regardless of push support.

Email [email protected] and we'll get it sorted. Common quick fixes: try a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R / Cmd+Shift+R), clear your browser cache, or try a different browser. If you're locked out of your account, we can reset your password within one business day.