Setting up a Google Maps Platform API key will maximise the power of many modules of Church Admin, allowing mapping and geolocation (map pins on the precise address of you church or people) for the address list, services and small groups.
Google have made the process a little easier, but they do require a payment card on your account. It will effectively be free for all but the hugest church admin installs (you get $200 of the service free anyway. That equates to 28,000 dynamic map loads or 100,000 static map loads)
So here’s the steps to get an API key and put it into your Church Admin installation to better manage your church life from your website!
Goto cloud.google.com/maps-platform

Now click on the “Get Started” Button, which will bring up a modal popup form.

Check the Maps checkbox and click on “Continue”

At this point “Create a new project” and give it a name and click “Next”

Now you need to set the billing on the account – I already had this done, so can’t picture it.
Now Enable the Google Maps Platform. This step has been made much more user friendly. Just click Next! Phew š

Now Google finally gives you an API key to insert into Church Admin. Yours won’t be blurred like the picture below. Before using it, You must protect it, from being used on other sites and therefore opening up the possibility of getting actually billed!
Copy it first by clicking on the copy icon (looks like 2 sheets of paper on top of each other)

Click on the API Console link in the window… Scroll down to the “Key Restrictions” section and check “HTTP referrers”

That will open up this, where you can enter your domain name. Use * for wildcards to allow any pages and http or https to be used…
You’ll need two restrictions
churchadminplugin.com/* is for non www. sites
*.churchadminplugin.com/* covers www. sites

Once you have entered the referrer URL, click “Done”. Next make sure “Don’t restrict key” is checked in the API Restrictions section and click save.

Now you have an API key in your clipboard and you have restricted its’ use to your website only.
Head over to your website and click on “Church Admin” then “Settings”, then “General Settings”. You can paste in your API key (CTRL V on a PC or CMD V on a Mac) and click Save.

If after all that it doesn’t work – and you have patiently waited ten minutes! Then you may need to check the APIs are enabled. Head to https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/library?filter=category:maps
Firstly click on Geocoding API and make sure it is enabled. That will make the drag and drop work on address editing.
Click the blue back arrow when done and head to Maps Javascript API
Make sure that is enabled! Click the blue back arrow and click on Maps Static API
Make sure that is enabled and wait patiently for 10 mins for Google to update itself.
All should work
If you still can’t see the maps, head to a page on your site where the map is missing (using Google Chrome browser preferable), right click on any white area on the screen and then inspect.
You may see a red error like this one… It is warning the API is not activated. In this case it was on an address list page, where there should be static maps. That API needed enabling.