Relationship Graph

The Relationship Graph is Mission's most distinctive feature — an interactive, force-directed visualization of the connections between people in your organization. It answers questions like: Who are the most connected people? Are there isolated members? Who bridges different groups?

What the Graph Shows

The graph displays:

• Nodes: Each person in your organization (sized by connection count)
• Edges: Relationships between people (colored by connection type)
• Clusters: Groups of densely connected people (calculated automatically)

Node Types

Node Type	Visual	Who They Are
Staff	Blue border	Staff members with a Mission login
Leader	Gold border	Group leaders and co-leaders
Member	Standard	Active members
Visitor	Lighter shade	Visitors and inactive members

Connection Types

Mission tracks 12 connection types, each with a distinct color in the graph:

Type	What It Represents	Default Strength
Family	Family/household relationship	1.0 (maximum)
Spouse	Married couple	1.0
Sibling	Siblings	0.9
Friend	Friendship outside organizational context	Varies
Group Member	Shared group membership	0.6
Group Leader	Leader-to-member connection within a group	0.8
Mentor	Mentorship relationship	0.85
Staff	Staff member relationship	0.7
Volunteer	Volunteer team connection	0.6
Donor	Shared giving connection	0.5
Prayer Partner	Prayer partnership	0.75
New Connection	Recently formed connection	Varies

Connection strength is a 0–1 score representing relationship closeness. Higher strength connections draw nodes closer together in the physics simulation.

Navigating the Graph

Zoom and Pan

• Scroll / pinch to zoom in and out
• Click and drag the canvas background to pan
• Click and drag a node to reposition it (spring physics will settle the remaining nodes)

Selecting Nodes

Click a node to highlight it and its direct connections. The statistics panel updates to show details about the selected person's connections.

Statistics Panel

The statistics panel (right side) always shows:

• Total People — nodes in the current filtered view
• Total Connections — edges in the current filtered view
• Average Connections — mean connection count per person
• Most Connected People — top 5 by connection count
• Isolated People — count of people with 0 connections
• Clusters — number of detected clusters (densely connected groups)

Filtering the Graph

Use the filter bar above the graph to focus on subsets of your network:

Filter	What It Does
By Group	Show only people in a specific group + their connections
By Campus	Show only people associated with a campus
By Connection Type	Show only edges of selected types (e.g., only Family edges)
Minimum Strength	Hide weak connections below a threshold (e.g., 0.7 shows only strong relationships)
Leaders Only	Show only leaders/staff and their connections
Isolated People	Show only people with no connections (useful for follow-up)

Multiple filters can be combined. For example: Group = "Young Adults" + Minimum Strength = 0.6 shows only the strong connections within the Young Adults group.

Shortest Path

The graph supports shortest-path queries: "What is the shortest chain of connections between Person A and Person B?"

To find the path:

1. Select a starting person (click their node)
2. Click Find Path To...
3. Search for the destination person
4. The path is highlighted in the graph

This is useful for finding how to make introductions: "Jesse knows someone who knows someone who knows the new family — who's the best bridge?"

Managing Connections

Connections are created automatically from:

• Family links — when you link members to the same Family record
• Group membership — when two people are in the same group
• Group leadership — when a leader is assigned to a group with members
• Volunteer teams — when volunteers are assigned to the same team

You can also create connections manually:

1. Open a person's record
2. Navigate to the Connections section
3. Click + Add Connection
4. Search for the other person
5. Select connection type and strength
6. Optionally add context (how they know each other)
7. Save

Manual connections are useful for friendship pairs, mentorship relationships, and prayer partnerships that Mission cannot detect automatically.

Graph Refresh

The connection graph is computed from the underlying connection data. A background process rebuilds the full graph (recalculating clusters, most-connected lists, and isolated people counts) on a regular schedule. Changes you make to group memberships, families, or manual connections are reflected the next time the graph rebuilds.

ℹ️

The graph may not immediately reflect changes you just made. If you added someone to a group and don't see the connection yet, wait a few minutes for the next graph rebuild cycle.

Practical Use Cases

Identifying isolated members: Filter to Isolated People to find members with no connections. These are prime candidates for intentional outreach — invite them to a group or small group.

Assessing group health: Filter by a specific group and look at connection density. A healthy small group should have many edges between members, not just edges between each member and the leader.

Finding volunteer leaders: Filter to Leaders Only and raise the minimum strength threshold. Highly connected leaders with strong ties to many members are well-positioned to lead new groups.

New family onboarding: After importing a new family, open the graph and search for them. Verify their family connections appear correctly and identify which existing members have the strongest connections to welcome them.