New for You in Planning Center April 2025
Get an overview of what's new in Planning Center this spring, and find ways to streamline your workflow!
Jon Aleixo
·Marketing Copywriter
3 min read
Planning Center Blog
Planning Center Check-Ins
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Organize your children’s classrooms based on milestones
Organize children into classrooms based on their unique needs and developmental milestones!
Jon Aleixo
·Marketing Copywriter
2 min read
Church Center precheck for families: always safe, now faster
Skip the line and save time with Church Center precheck for families! Households can avoid the hustle and bustle of check-in by using precheck before they arrive and then scan their kids in when they get there.
Jon Aleixo
·Marketing Copywriter
3 min read
Improved: checking people into Registrations events
Use the updated integration between Check-Ins and Registrations to quickly check people into your events this summer!
Jon Aleixo
·Marketing Copywriter
4 min read
Behind the scenes: How Check-Ins got even faster
Experience up to 40% faster station speeds when you check people in during peak times!
Planning Center
2 min read
Introducing newer and faster Check-In stations
The first interaction a family has with your church may very likely be at a Check-Ins station. Stations are also one of the things your volunteers use the most. The experience needs to be great, so we completely revamped and reimagined the stations experience! It’s now an even more powerful tool to help you create a welcoming and safe environment for families. Here’s what we did. Changes to Manned and Self Stations First, we made some major updates to both Manned and Self stations! Custom
Scott Myers
·Product Manager
6 min read
New for You in Planning Center July 2023
Happy July! Tis the sea-sun for popsicles, pools, and product updates! We’ve got some new features and improvements to help you in the months ahead. ☀️ RehearsalPack: All Your Materials in One Place Gather lyrics, chord charts, audio files, and licenses all in one place through our exclusive integration with MultiTracks.com! Watch the video to see how to set up the integration! 📺 Invite People to Church Center With a Custom Link Share a custom setup link with your church so people can ea
Planning Center
3 min read
The new event chart in Check-Ins
The first thing you see when you open Check-Ins is the chart showing all your events. This chart represents your most popular events, compares week to week details, shows locations where you need more volunteers, and where attendance is slipping. As of this week, we’ve completely upgraded the layout of the event chart to make it more customizable—so you can see the events and the event details you care about! There are several new things here, including the ability to filter the chart by spec
Scott Myers
·Product Manager
3 min read
Easier and Faster Station Set-up
It’s Sunday morning and there’s a long line out the door for families to check in. In one way, this sounds great—the church is growing, families are being welcomed, and children are safe. But in real life, this experience isn’t ideal. When checking in isn’t fast, people miss out on worship and connecting with others, all because they’re stuck waiting for labels to print. With our recent update to Check-Ins, we’ve made the process of creating check-in stations even easier and faster so you can
Scott Myers
·Product Manager
3 min read
Show Announcements in Check-Ins Stations
Sometimes your church has information everyone should see, and with the new Announcements feature in Check-Ins, you can make that happen! Now, you can share an announcement with every person who checks in by showing them a message they must read before their check-in is complete. You can use announcements for quick reminders like, Don’t forget to check out our upcoming service opportunities in the Welcome Center. But if your church is just beginning to meet in-person again, you also might fin
Scott Myers
·Product Manager
2 min read
Track Event Attendance and Capacity with Headcounts Live
Now more than ever, it is incredibly important to track exactly how many people are present at in-person gatherings. Keeping attendance within a set capacity allows you to account for social distancing to promote health and safety. With the latest update to the Headcounts app, we released three new features to make it easier for you to stay on top of how many people are present. Live Headcounts The counter page in the Headcounts app now reflects the total number of headcounts across all devi
Scott Myers
·Product Manager
2 min read
Check Out with the Church Center App
One of the universal challenges of children's check-in is getting parents to keep track of their security labels. Can we blame them? Even in the least stressful of mornings, it's hard to keep track of a little piece of paper! Shoving it into a Bible or deep into the depths of a purse or pocket seems like the right move when you're trying to hand off a squirming kiddo. However, most people can easily keep track of their phones—which is why parents can also find their security codes in the Churc
Scott Myers
·Product Manager
2 min read
Emergency Text Notifications for Parents
Texting parents has been one of the most requested features we receive for Check-ins, and now it’s included in every plan for customers in the US and Canada—completely free. We know this feature is not entirely helpful while you’re doing church from home, but we want you to know it's here for you when you are back to welcoming families in person. One day you will again need parents’ help with diaper changes and hurt elbows on Sunday mornings, and texting will be ready to help you communicate t
Scott Myers
·Product Manager
2 min read
Self Check-In with the Church Center App
Taking attendance is pretty simple when people are physically present, but what about when you're hosting services or classes virtually? With the latest release of the Church Center app, congregants can now check their entire families into an event from home! This feature might be especially useful while your church is hosting online services, but it's really designed for any situation in which you want to take attendance, but don't want to print labels. So how does this work? Once you enab
Scott Myers
·Product Manager
2 min read
Pro Tips for Easter Prep
Easter is just around the corner, but it’s never too late to plan—even one step towards getting organized can make a huge difference! This post is a collection of some of our best-practices and pro tips as you prepare for what might be one of your busiest and most important Sundays of the year. No matter what area of ministry or what stage of planning you’re in, there is something here to help make your Easter Sunday a success. Create a unique Easter service plan In some ways, planning for
Jeff Berg
6 min read
Four New Custom Label Options
It’s been a few months since we released our beta of Universal Printing, and we’re now excited to officially release it as the best option for every church. If you haven’t heard about Universal Printing yet, all you need to know is that it’s faster, more secure, and has a ton more features. It’s the future of Check-Ins, and we’re really excited about what it can do. On top of officially coming out of our beta, we’re releasing some really exciting label updates, including integrations with Plann
Scott Myers
·Product Manager
3 min read
Custom Labels for all Printers
Yes, you read that correctly: with Universal Printing (formerly Direct Printing), you can create custom labels and print them from any supported printer. Create Custom Labels When you add a new label you can build off of our default labels, or create your own masterpiece from scratch with a blank label. From there, you’ll be whisked away to a new world of creating or editing your own labels for all your printers. Here you can create a label to be everything you ever wanted it to be, with tex
Scott Myers
·Product Manager
2 min read
Multiple Times, Multiple Locations
Checking in isn’t always a simple matter of sign in, label print, and drop off. Sometimes a child stays through multiple services times and goes to different locations throughout the same morning; and sometimes, you might offer Nursery as an option during one service, but not during another. Then what? These are some of the common scenarios your church may encounter that make checking in complex, which is why we released an update to help you handle both smoothly. Choose two locations during
Scott Myers
·Product Manager
3 min read
Building Relationships with Families in Children’s Ministry
Children’s ministry is often where families form their first impression of a church—you want to give families an amazing experience at your church's weekend gatherings, and you also don't want it to stop there! What you do on Sundays and between Sundays to reach out and connect with families are equally important, and go hand-in-hand. Here are some best practices for how to create opportunities for connection on Sundays, as well as how to continue building those relationships throughout the wee
Jeff Berg
7 min read
Announcing Family Pre-Check
Sunday mornings can be stressful. We all know how hard it is to get the family out the door for church! But once families make it out their door and through yours, you can help reset the tone of their morning by welcoming them with a stress-free check-in environment. Now there is a new way for you to speed up your lines, even more than you already are with Check-Ins: the Church Center app. Anytime before an event, people can pre-select all the household members they want to check in. When
Scott Myers
·Product Manager
2 min read