Congregation Ohr Torah

EasyShul Introduction & Tutorial

Ohr Torah is now using the EasyShul platform to manage our membership, billing, event registration, yahrzeits and more.

EasyShul provides an online Member Portal that you’ll be able to login to securely and view your financial account anytime. From the portal, you can make a donation or pay for charges on your account using your credit card. (The options to pay by check, Zelle, or Donor Advised Fund will continue to be supported outside of EasyShul.)

EasyShul will deliver many benefits to both members and shul volunteers, since all of our data is now centralized and many of the accounting activities that were previously done manually are now automated.

Event registrations and order forms will be hosted on EasyShul where you can make a direct payment or request the charge to be automatically posted to your account.

Contents

Getting Started

The Ohr Torah Member Portal can be accessed here.

Via the member portal, you will also have the ability to:

Going forward, shul volunteers who need forms/event registration pages created should contact events@ohrtorah.net.

Adding & Editing Family Members

  1. Login to the Member Portal as described above.
  2. Click on the Family Members module in the panel on the left (the top people icon).
  3. Click "Add a Family Member" button at the top right.
  4. When prompted, enter:
    • First Name
    • Last Name
    • Account Permission:
      • Select Admin for those family members who should be able to make changes to your family’s account. You can have more than one Admin – if there are two parents, often both are Admins.
      • Select Member for those family members who will not be making changes, such as children.
  5. Click “Add to Family” button.
  6. To include more details, such as date of birth, email address, etc., click the ellipsis (3 dots) at the right end of the new member’s row in the family listing, then click “Edit.”
  7. Populate as many of the provided fields as you would like, then click “Save” button at the bottom right.

Adding & Editing Yahrzeits

Please note that for yahrzeits preloaded in the system, while the date (i.e., month and day) should be correct, if we did not have the year of death in our prior records – and in many cases we did not – then that might not be correct in EasyShul. We encourage you to login to the Member Portal to update this information if any of it is incorrect.

  1. Login to the Member Portal as described above.
  2. Click on the Yahrzeits module in the panel on the left (the gravestone icon).
  3. Click "Add New Yahrzeit" button at the top right.
  4. Enter deceased’s details:
    • First Name
    • Last Name
    • Hebrew Name can be transliterated or typed in Hebrew using the keyboard provided at the right end of the field.
    • Date of Death is the Gregorian calendar date. In EasyShul this is sometimes referred to as "English Date".
    • Specify whether the death occurred before or after sunset, as this affects the Hebrew (Jewish calendar) date.
    • Hebrew Date of Death will be automatically calculated based on the Gregorian date and sunset indicator (and cannot currently be modified directly).
  5. Click "Continue" button.
  6. Add Mourners:

    In this section, you will add family members who would want to be notified of the yahrzeit, or who would want to get an Aliyah.

    • Select Mourner: click on this field to see a dropdown of your family members. Click on one that you’d like to add as an observer of the yahrzeit.

      Tip: Make sure the family member has an email address populated in the Family Members module if you want them to be able to receive an email yahrzeit reminder.

    • Mourner’s Relationship to Deceased: Select from the dropdown the relationship between the mourner and the deceased.
    • Date of Observance: Select “Hebrew date” to follow the Jewish calendar yahrzeit. When this is selected, you will see a choice appear between Adar 1 and Adar 2. This is only relevant if the yahrzeit is in Adar. To select properly, you will need to know when the original date of death occurred.
    • Click “Add Mourner” button. This will add the person you specified to the mourners list at right.

    You can continue to add more mourners if appropriate.

    Once you’ve added all the mourners, click "Continue" button.

  7. Additional Information (Optional):

    If desired, include any other information about the deceased or burial, such as:

    • Cemetery details
    • Plaque number
  8. Create yahrzeit:

    Once all the details are entered, click “Create yahrzeit“ button.

You can edit yahrzeit details stored in your family account anytime by clicking on a yahrzeit row, which will pop out the details drawer on the right. There, you can modify the information under Details, Mourners List or Notes, and click “Save.”

Paying For Existing Charges

Disclaimer: Note that due to the way our historical data had to be migrated into EasyShul, you may find many past charges for the same ledger from previous years lumped together. Going forward, with new charges this will no longer happen.

  1. Login to the Member Portal as described above.
  2. Click on Billing module in the panel on the left (money bag icon) to view your charges and payments.
  3. Scroll to the right on any row with an Open charge, click on the 3-dots, and then click "Pay Now" to pay for the charge.
  4. If you do not yet have a credit card saved, you will have to add one and select it to be used for this payment. Credit card information is stored securely with the payment processor, not in EasyShul.
  5. If you prefer to make a payment without saving a credit card, or prefer not to login to the Member Portal, go to https://www.ohrtorah.net/easyshul/payment to request a direct payment link.

    Note: The Financial Secretary will send you the direct payment link once they receive your request.

  6. A 3% credit card convenience fee will be automatically added to your payment.

Making Donations

  1. Login to the Member Portal as described above.
  2. Click on Donation module in the panel on the left (heart icon) to make a donation or pay a pledge that has not yet been charged to your account.
  3. Donations can be made in honor of, or in memory of, someone else. You can request that one or more of those people be notified of your donation via email.
  4. If you do not yet have a credit card saved, you will have to add one and select it to be used for this donation. Credit card information is stored securely with the payment processor, not in EasyShul.
  5. If you prefer to make a donation without saving a credit card, or prefer not to login to the Member Portal, go to https://ohrtorah.easyshul.com/donation. Make sure to enter your first and last name and email address exactly as spelled in your EasyShul account in order to ensure that your donation will be automatically credited to your account.
  6. For donations, adding the credit card convenience fee is optional.

Editing Profile & Preferences

  1. Login to the Member Portal as described above.
  2. Click on Settings module at the bottom of the panel on the left (gear icon) to update your profile information and preferences.
  3. Personal Information — here you can update your name, birthday, phone number, etc.
  4. Payment Methods — here you can add or manage your stored credit cards for payments and donations. Note that credit cards are stored securely with the payment processor, not in EasyShul. (EasyShul only receives the last 4-digits and expiration date from the payment processor for display purposes.)
  5. Directory — here you can set your preferences for which (if any) of your information to include in the member directory.

Getting Help

Should you have questions about EasyShul, please see the Frequently Asked Questions (and answers). Ok fine, those are the questions we anticipated will be frequently asked. So if you have any questions we didn't think of and answer already, please email tech@ohrtorah.net.

Should you have questions about your financial account, please email finance@ohrtorah.net.