First access in a church
When you enter a freshly created church for the first time (or when you still don't have any collection in the library), Salterium doesn't throw you into an empty desk. Instead, it opens an onboarding screen that explains the system and offers a quick path to start.
The screen
The screen has 4 parts:
- Header — Salterium brand + your church name
- Hero — personalized greeting and short explanation of what's missing
- Three numbered steps — system overview
- Import from global catalog — cards of available public collections you can pull into your library in 1 click
- Alternative — button to create a local collection from scratch
The three tutorial steps
The onboarding presents the system in three short concepts:
What is a collection? — an organized set of songs. Could be a traditional hymnal, your own songbook, a themed series (choruses, communion, baptism), or songs in another language.
How to populate the library? — two options (combinable): import from the global catalog (ready) or create from scratch. The first is faster to start.
How to project. — with songs in the library, you build the execution list, open the 2nd screen, control with the keyboard. Works online and offline.
You can skip the texts and go straight to the import cards if you want — the tutorial is informative, not mandatory.
Importing global collections
The cards show the public collections available to pull in. Each card shows:
- Name of the collection
- Language (PT, EN, ES…)
- Short description
- Total songs
All global collections are public domain — you can use them freely. See Collections for the full policy.
Multi-select
Different from other screens, here the system lets you select several at once:
- Check the box in each card that matters
- "Select all" button if you want to grab everything
- As you check, the bottom button updates to show "Import 3 collections" (or however many are checked)
Progressive import
When you click Import, the system processes one collection at a time with an animated progress bar:
Importing 2 of 5 — Spiritual songs…
If any fails (rare, but can happen with large collections), the system warns which ones and keeps the successful ones in place. You can retry just on the failed ones.
When it finishes, you are automatically redirected to the desk home — ready to use.
Alternative: create from scratch
If none of the global collections fit, or if you already have your library in another format to import, there's an alternative button + Create new collection. It leads to the normal creation page, outside the onboarding.
From there, see the Collections page to learn how to add songs manually or import files (OpenLP, OpenSong, PDF).
When the onboarding appears (and when not)
| Situation | Onboarding appears? | |---|---| | First time in the church, empty library | Yes | | Church already has at least 1 collection | No — goes straight to the desk | | You create a 2nd church with your account | Yes, in that specific church | | You're invited to an existing church with content | No — the library already has content |
The rule is simple: empty library → onboarding.
Skipping the onboarding
You can't "close" the onboarding without doing anything — the system requires at least one collection for the desk to work. But you can choose the lighter alternative: create an empty local collection and move on. Songs come later.
If you're just exploring Salterium, import the Classic Hymns collection — it's large, in English, public domain, and gives you material to try all features without needing to create anything.
Next steps
- Collections — after onboarding, how to manage the library (create, import, export)
- The operator's desk — now that you have collections, how to conduct the service
- Building the service — use the imported songs to build the next execution list