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Hi, there! 👋 I’m Jon. It’s been raining here for what feels like weeks—the sky’s bleak, and we’re all cooped up indoors.
Being stuck inside does make you think about your time differently. Specifically, all the things piling up you wish you could get to faster. (Two baskets of laundry, I see you.)
Rain or shine, we’re releasing things left and right to help you in your day-to-day ministry work. Here are 11 new features we made to save you time through it all:
Volunteer replacements
Finding a replacement volunteer used to mean chasing down a declined request, sorting through who's available, and manually updating the plan. With volunteer replacements in Services, declining volunteers now handle that entire process themselves! They pick an eligible teammate, confirm they've already asked them to cover their serving slot, and the plan updates automatically.
Bulk management
If you manage lists, workflows, or forms in People, you know how much time gets lost clicking through each resource one at a time. A redesigned table for lists, workflows, and forms now includes sortable columns, persistent filters, and a "Needs attention" view so you can spot what needs fixing at a glance. Bulk actions let you grant or revoke access, archive, or delete multiple resources in one step.
Donor memos
If your church uses Giving to process checks, you've probably had to go back after batch entry to add donor memos and internal notes one by one. Now you can capture both right in the batch entry form by logging what a donor wrote on their check and add your own internal context without ever leaving the batch entry flow.
New scheduling preferences
When volunteers don't have a good way to communicate their availability, it often lands on a team leader to figure out. Two new scheduling preferences give volunteers clearer options: "Once a quarter" for those who serve a handful of times a year, and "Unavailable" for anyone needing a break from one specific team without leaving it entirely. Fewer gaps to chase down, fewer conversations to initiate, and auto-scheduling that handles the frequency so you don’t have to.
Gender-specific chat conversations
If your church has been running gender-specific group chats in a separate app, you can now bring them into Planning Center! When creating a new conversation in a group, a gender filter lets you limit it to members who share your gender so, for example, a women-only conversation stays women-only automatically, even as new members join. No more creating a separate group or using a separate chat tool just for that.
Internal notes for registrations
Context about a registration often surfaces after the fact, like a note from a check-in conversation, a special accommodation flagged over the phone. Now you can capture that directly on the registration as an internal note, visible only to your team.
Smarter duplicate mergers
Merging duplicate profiles in Giving now shows you what's at stake before you confirm. If the profile being removed has saved payment methods, active recurring donations, Text2Give enabled, or pending bank verification, you'll see a clear warning so you're not caught off guard by interrupted giving later.
Clearer roster check-ins
A subtle but impactful update to roster stations: confirmed and unconfirmed spaces are now visually distinct enough that volunteers are far less likely to accidentally check someone out. Unconfirmed boxes are darker, their checkboxes are blue, and confirmed attendees now have a clear section label.
Recurring event requests
Requesting a recurring event used to mean submitting (and approving) each one separately. Now requesters can set a recurrence pattern right in the event request form, covering daily, weekly, monthly, and annual schedules.
Church Center dashboard
The new Church Center Dashboard pulls everything you need to see into one place: an overview of how your content is being used, quick access to navigation and pages, one-click creation for new pages and sermon episodes, and shareable Church Center links. Whether you're launching for the first time or just doing weekly maintenance, it's a faster starting point.
Deeper background checks with Checkr
With Planning Center's Checkr integration, you can order a background check directly from People, bringing an important part of your volunteer management alongside your other work, in one place. The Checkr integration also has two new optional add-ons: a federal criminal search catches felonies and misdemeanors that don't always surface at the state or county level, and an alias search runs records under maiden names and nicknames so a name change doesn't create a blind spot.
Whether you're buried in Sunday prep, managing a growing congregation, or just staring down a to-do list that never seems to shrink, these updates will free up a little more of your day. We're always looking for ways to make Planning Center work harder so you don't have to!