If you know your Council’s roster data has been imported into our database, then you can get started by going to:

member.kofchost.com/wp-admin

Enter your Membership Number in the first field.

Enter your temporary Password in the second field.

• For Password use your four digit birthday year then add your membership number at the end, separate them with a dash (minus sign).
• Password example: if you were born in 1978 and your membership number is 1234567, then your password will be: 1978-1234567

After you login, be sure to update your profile, check your date of birth, email address and phone number, then change your password.

Lost your password?

If you lost or forgot your password you will have to reset it, your password is encrypted on the server and it cannot be retrieved.

• Click on “Lost your password?” below the Login button
• The system will prompt you for your Membership Number then click the button to confirm
• An email will be sent to your email address on file from no-reply@kofchosting.com
• Click on the link in the email to reset your password

A Self-Service SEP Portal

This system is designed to be a self-service portal that empowers all members of Knights of Columbus councils to interact with their own Safe Environment compliance application. Once logged in to the system, members are presented notifications on their personal dashboard page based on the expiration dates status of both their annual Safe Environment Program (SEP) Training and their biennial Criminal Background Check (CBC).

Annual SEP Trainings

If your annual SEP training date is expired or does not exist in our system, you will see a notification advising you of it and presenting you with a menu of upcoming trainings to choose from where you may select one and register for the class. In your Profile page you will see a detailed table of all the trainings that have been recorded for you on this system.

Trainings are provided as virtual webinars on a monthly basis and some may be done in person by the DDC SEP team, both are provided in English and in Spanish. Councils can also arrange to conduct trainings in person at their own location, this must be coordinated with the DDC SEP team ahead of time. You can add your own trainings into this system and take advantage of the tracking software so all your members can be properly credited with the training attendance.

Criminal Background Check (CBC) Every 2 Years

If your biennial CBC date is expired or does not exist in our system, you will see a notification advising you of it and reminding you to give consent and request one again. The request is sent automatically to the investigative agency and is usually returned within 24-48 hours to the council SEP Director. In your Profile page you will see a detailed table of all CBC’s that have been recorded for you on this system.

Managed at the Council Level

This system may be designed to be initiated by the council member but it is structured to be managed by the council’s SEP Director. Ideally there should be a SEP Committee of at least three council members who are willing to take on the responsibility of tracking the council’s SEP compliance. So get your team together as soon as possible.

DDC Safe Environment Program (SEP) “How to Guide” for preparing your Council Roster.

For Grand Knights, Financial Secretaries and Council Safe Environment Directors.

Updated January 29, 2025

The DDC SEP Program has been created to comply with directives of the Bishop Burns and the Director of Safe Environment of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas. The DDC has made a commitment to follow these procedures. Safe Environment clearance through the Dallas Diocese SEP (through involvement in a parish ministry) or DDC SEP is required for all knights who actively serve in K of C service events held on parish or diocesan property.

This How To Guide is intended to provide instructions at the council level on how to pull, update, and submit initial reports to the DDC SEP committee in the required format.

1. Financial Secretary or Grand Knight: Please download the current roster file and email addresses from Officers Online in Excel
   • Sign in to the KofC application portal ‘Officers Online’. (https://www.kofc.org/applicationportal/AuthorizeUser.action)
   • Click on the ‘Reports’ tab, then select the excel report for Membership Roster. You will be informed of the restrictions on use, and you click ‘I agree’.
   • This will generate an excel spreadsheet for you to save.
   • Save the file with the name formatted as “DDC SEP Roster Council ##### as of MM-DD-YYYY.xlsx”, including the council number and the date.
2. Please make the following changes to the Excel Roster file:
   • Do not delete any rows from the roster. We need the complete roster.
   • ADD four new columns on the right side of the report:
     • Email address
     • Date of Last SEP Training
     • Date of Last SEP Background Check
     • Active Knight? (Y or N)
   • DELETE the columns that contain K of C confidential information. These include: Mail returned, First Degree, Second Degree, Third Degree, Re-Entry Date, YRS Service, Member Type, Member Class, ASSY and EXM.
   • Your spreadsheet should only contain these columns:
     • Council Number (required)
     • Member Number (required)
     • Title
     • First Name (required)
     • Last Name (required)
     • Suffix
     • Street Address (no multiple lines)
     • City
     • State
     • Postal Code
     • Birth Date (required) (only dates allowed)
     • Email Adddress (required)
     • Last SEP Training Date (only dates allowed)
     • Last Criminal Background Check Date (only dates allowed)
     • Active Knight (Y/N)
       
3. For each knight on the roster, please add the email address. Email addresses can be obtained by the GK or FS using Officers Online member management as follows:
   • Go to kofc.org/signin and login to Officers Online.
   • Under Supporting Applications, click Member Management. Choose the Live application.
   • After the application loads, click the Print Center – MM tab.
   • On the left side navigation pane, choose Data Extract Tool.
   • Under Contact Info (usually already selected), click Select All under the General Contacts header and Select All under Primary Address Information.
   • Click Get Extract
   • Save the file
4. Please determine which knights in your council are considered “active”
   • For each knight on the roster, GK, FS and/or SEP director (in consultation with other council officers) decide whether a knight is “active” or not as follows:
   • Active = a Knight who has volunteered for a council service event in the last 12 months or is anticipated to volunteer for a council service event within the next 12 months. Council or Officer Meetings are not usually service events (unless your pastor so designates), but any other council activity held on parish or diocesan property (or parish/diocesan event in which Knights of Columbus are identifiably participating as Knights) is a service event. All new knights or transferred-in members are to be considered active and must be safe environment cleared
5. Please work with your parish safe environment coordinator to add date of last diocesan background check and date of last training to the records as indicated
   • The yellow columns (date of last SEP training and date of last SEP background check) need to be completed by the council in consultation with the parish safe environment coordinator, only for “active” knights. If the Parish Safe Environment Coordinator does not know, mark “unknown”. Inactive knights do not need to be looked up.
6. Please submit your roster reports to the DDC Safe Environment Program Committee (copy your District Deputy). Please also tell us the name of your Council SEP Director.
   • Bryan A. Finley, DDC SEP Director
   • Jorge Ruiz, Software and Data Management
   • Chuck Johnson, Training and Communications
7. Clearance Steps: each “active” knight who is not currently cleared through Catholic Diocese of Dallas SEP (through involvement in a ministry) will be asked to consent in writing to a background check, will be invited to attend webinar training, and will be asked to review, acknowledge, and retain policy materials to obtain DDC clearance. Councils will need to comply with both.
8. Invoiced costs. The council will be billed $15 for each background check. Therefore, it is important to gather the information on prior background checks performed by the Diocese, to avoid unnecessary expense.
9. Ongoing updates should be reported to the above by the Council Safe Environment Directors as changes happen (i.e. new Knight, transfers in, Knight goes from inactive to active, Knight gets SEP Cleared/Updated through parish ministry, (and vice-versa, etc.).

Note: The DDC SEP does not replace or substitute for the Supreme SEP (and vice-versa). The required Supreme SEP training and background clearance of four (4) officers/directors, as well as requirements to follow the safe environment policies of Supreme, are separate from the DDC SEP, yet also apply to all K of C unit events involving youth and vulnerable adults.

1. Supreme SEP Quick Reference Guide
2. Best Practices Guide

Once we have received your roster and imported your council data into the database, we will notify the Grand Knight via email. Now all council members are able to login to the portal and begin interacting with it on their own.

For the Grand Knight there are a few things to consider:

1. 1. Assign a Council SEP Director to manage the necessary tasks to keep your council members compliant with the new Diocesan directive or take on the responsibilty yourself.
   2. Form a committee of at least three members to help manage the everyday tasks, or weekly or monthly tasks depending on how your council operates.
   3. Tell us who you’ve assigned as SEP Director and SEP Committee members, so we can grant them proper permissions.
   4. The SEP committee must begin managing the KofC SEP module of the portal, that may include adding new members who recently joined your council, updating returned CBC reports, updating members’ training attendance, and adding past training attendance or past criminal background check records.
   5. As council members begin interacting with the system, they will register for upcoming SEP trainings, or they may request a criminal background check. Expect to be billed $15 for each CBC performed by the Accutrak Investigative Agency. They will bill the council once a month for any requests made by your members.

There are three (3) user roles:

1. MEMBER: All council members have the “Member” permissions.
2. SITE ADMIN: Website administrators, GK, DGK, FS, Program Directors, etc. may be assigned this role, but it must be requested via email.
3. SEP DIRECTOR: This is the role that will have access to the Safe Environment Program module. The GK must provide contact info for this brother knight. Access may be granted to SEP Committee members by request via email.

To add a past SEP Training attendance record for a member of your council you must have Site Admin permissions and SEP Director permissions:

1. Go to KofC SEP
2. Click on Add New Attendance button on top of page
3. Leave the title blank, it will fill in automatically after you select/enter the details at the bottom of the page
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page to “Attendance Details” and select a Training, select “Other” for Diocesan training or other source of training
5. Go to Member and click on Select one… then start typing the member’s last name, that will scroll the list closer to his name for you to select it
6. Enter a date under “Other Date”
7. On the right column under Status select “Completed”
8. Add any detailed description you wish to record about this member’s training in the large text editor window, for instance you can copy and paste an emailed certificate or even add a PDF Attachment
9. By now the title of the page should have been filled in and you can edit it if you wish
10. Press “Publish” to save it

To add a past Criminal Background Check record for a member of your council you must have Site Admin permissions and SEP Director permissions:

1. Go to KofC SEP > Background Checks
2. Click on Add New Background Check button on top of page
3. Leave the title blank, it will fill in automatically after you select/enter the details at the bottom of the page
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page to “Background Check Details” and go to Member and click on Select one… then start typing the member’s last name, that will scroll the list closer to his name for you to select it
5. Enter a date under “Date Submitted” and “Date Returned“
6. Under Status select either “Cleared” or “Not Cleared” depending on the results sent by the investigative agency
7. Select the Provider from the dropdown list, currently Accutrak Investigative Agency
8. Leave Background Check ID # blank or you can enter some notes there if you’d like
9. Add any detailed description you wish to record about this member’s background check in the large text editor window, for instance you can copy and paste the emailed result from Accutrak and even add a PDF Attachment
10. By now the title of the page should have been filled in and you can edit it if you wish
11. Press “Publish” to save it

If you’ve had a new member join your council recently you need to add him as a new User into this system, so he too can participate in the SEP compliance portal. The process is simple enough. To add a new User you must have Site Admin permissions:

1. Go to Users > Add New User
2. Enter his Membership Number (required)
3. Enter his Email address (required)
4. Enter his First Name and Last Name
5. You can skip the Website field
6. For Password, you can keep the generated strong password or you can overwrite it with a new one of your choice.
7. The Send User Notification check box will turn on or off an automatic email notification that will be sent to the user. That email will contain a link to the login page.
8. Click on the Add New User button at the bottom of the page to save it.

You can hold your own SEP Trainings

If your council is ready to host its own in-house SEP Training, there are several steps to follow to prepare before the event takes place.

• The first thing to do is to contact the Chapter SEP Director and get permission and approved materials to use.
• A DDC Trainer may be assigned to conduct the class.
• You need to make sure you have decent AV equipment and WiFi connectivity. At the very least a laptop should be able to connect to a projector or large flat screen TV monitor with fairly good sound output.

Now Add a New Training

To add trainings you need to have Site Admin permissions and SEP Director permissions.

1. Go to KofC SEP > Trainings
2. Click on Add New Training
3. Give your training a title, this could be the name of the video series you may be watching
4. Enter a full description of the training in the large text editor window
5. Scroll down to Training Details and enter a Date and Time
6. Under Type select In-person
7. Enter the rest of the details you would like to record such as location address and contact information.
8. Press the Publish button to save it.

Now announce it or invite Knights to attend

Send an email to all your members or select ones, let everyone know the date and time of the event with at least two weeks notice. Having added your training in the system allows all your members to login to the portal to register for it and it will minimize the record keeping on your part.

The night of the training event

1. Have a sign in sheet ready to record attendance
2. It’s always a good idea to collect:
   1. First Name, Last Name
   2. Member number
   3. Email address
   4. Cell phone
   5. Council Number

After the event–update the database

1. Go to KofC SEP > Trainings
2. If most or all your audience registered online via the portal, you’re not far from being done.
3. Open the training session from the main list by clicking on Edit
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page to the list of Training Attendance, anyone who registered online will be listed there by last name, member number, council number and status
5. Now record the attendance of each member by clicking on the appropriate action link on the far right side of the list
6. If you need to add walk-ins, click on the Add Attendance button on the bottom of the list. Add as many as you need to
7. Press the Update button at top of the page to save your work

We have assembled a pair of reports for each of the three components to SEP compliance.

To view and download these reports in CSV format:

1. 1. Go to KofC SEP > Reports
   2. Click on the SEP Status > Clear report, this is the most informative report since it takes into account the overall SEP Status, unexpired SEP Training and unexpired Background Check.
   3. Click on the SEP Status > Not Clear report, this is the inverse of the previous report
   4. Click on the Training Attendance > Clear or Not Clear reports
   5. Click on the Background Checks > Clear or Not Clear reports

These reports are downloaded in CSV file format which can be easily opened in Excel or with a text editor.