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Blog

Nov 01, 2017

Filter in Groups for People Lists

Today we've added bunch of powerful new Groups filters to Planning Center People lists. Create new lists based on group membership, attendance, join dates, and application dates. The resulting list of people can be attached to Workflows, Actions, and Automations. A new class of Groups functionality has just opened up. Create Your Groups Lists Let's touch briefly on each filter: * Member - This filter existed before, but you'll notice it has a bunch of new options for limiting o

Jeremy Ricketts

Product Manager

4 min read

Oct 31, 2017

Keeping Track of Notes and Prayer Requests

Deep, fruitful connection with the people in your church is a result of your ability to meet them where they are — serving their needs, rejoicing in their victories, and loving them in a way they can receive. Oftentimes the people in your church have already communicated to someone in the church the joys and challenges in their life, but now where is the information? Maybe on a prayer request card, or a staff member’s Post-It note? Introducing the newest feature in People: Notes! Notes

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

3 min read

Oct 06, 2017

Mobile Password Management

In the past few weeks, Planning Center People's mobile app for iOS and Android has been updated not once, but twice! First the navigation menu was re-jiggered to match the main navigation on the desktop site. That made some room for the new People tab, where you can browse all of the people in your database from a single spot, and has some great options for filtering and sorting. Then the app got something we've been wanting for a long time... password management! Now the People app can't be

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read

Sep 11, 2017

Get Your Workflows Organized

For a lot of churches, your list of workflows has gotten out of hand! When several ministries start using workflows to keep track of their processes, it can get difficult to cut through the clutter and find the workflow you’re looking for. And the problem tends to multiply if your church has multiple campuses. But now you can keep your list of workflows nice and tidy by assigning each workflow to a category, campus, or both! After you’ve assigned workflows to some categories, you can use the

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

1 min read

Jul 06, 2017

Workflows V2: Faster & Real-time

When you logged into your People account today, you may have noticed a major change in Workflows: SPEED! In the former version of Workflows, you and another team member could be working on the same project simultaneously and be completely unaware of the changes and progress being made by the other person until you refreshed the page. In the new version of Workflows, all updates occur in real time, so as you work on your cards—updating, completing, and reassigning tasks—the changes will ref

Jeff Berg

1 min read

Jun 19, 2017

Send Text Messages with Clearstream

We've wanted to build a text messaging solution directly into Planning Center People for a long time now, but we've been kind of busy with some other things, and our list of ideas keeps getting longer. That's why we were so excited to find out that Clearstream, an online text messaging provider, has built their own integration with Planning Center! Clearstream is a great tool for sending text messages. You can use it to send out a reminder about an event, inform everyone in your church of imp

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read

Jun 15, 2017

It's Grade Promotion Time!

Summer is officially here, and with school ending, VBS in full-swing and preparation for the fall beginning, your church might be ready to promote grades! Just in case you’ve never promoted grades with Planning Center before, or you can’t remember how, here is detailed breakdown of how to do it in the People App. You might want to grab a piece of paper and a pen, this is a complex, multi-step process... Just kidding! It will take you less than one minute to promote every grade and check th

Jeff Berg

2 min read

May 31, 2017

Better Background Checks

Our integration with Checkr to provide background checks launched just a couple months ago, and it's been a huge hit! (Check out the announcement if you don't know what I'm talking about). With a lot of feedback and a little time, background checks are even better today. Here's some of the most important improvements we've made. More Access At first, only organization administrators could access background checks in Planning Center People. That meant that in order for a volunteer in your

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read

May 25, 2017

Smarter, Faster Lists

We've got a couple quick updates to lists to make your life easier! New: Nothing! One of the most common uses for lists is to find people who don't have any recent activity so that you can follow up with them or mark their profile as inactive. This update will make that a little bit easier! Here's how: Before, you'd create a list that looks something like this: Make sure your rule is set to find people who match all those conditions, not any of those conditions. But since all th

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read

Mar 16, 2017

Secure Your Church with Background Checks

🚨Since we published this blog six years ago, Checkr has updated their pricing. For more information on what you and your church can do with this tool, see this article. Here at Planning Center, we do what we do because we love our churches. We want to see them saving time, saving money, and being more secure. Today’s new feature wins in all those categories. We're thrilled to release background checks, both manually tracked statuses and fully integrated checks with our new friends, Checkr!

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

4 min read

Mar 07, 2017

Pinned Assignments in Workflows

A couple of new tools in workflows are going to make your life easier, the sun shine brighter, and prevent hair loss. More importantly, they'll help your ministry be more effective. Workflows are a handy tool that churches are using to keep on top of all they do. They’re used to track and delegate tasks like following up with visitors, training new volunteers, and ensuring that people who need pastoral care are getting it. When you add someone to a workflow, a card is created to track the

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read

Feb 13, 2017

Households, Activity Feeds, and Workflows come to People Mobile

Our team finished version 1.5 before I could even write the blog post for 1.4. So here's a double dose of updates for you! Edit Your Households First up — now you can manage the members of a household right from your phone! When a new family is at your church, you can use the app to capture everything you’ll need to know about them. And just like in the desktop site, our app supports assigning someone to multiple households so that your data stays accurate, and when used with Check-Ins, your

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read

Jan 09, 2017

Emails, Workflow Improvements, and More!

Happy New Year! 2017 has arrived, bringing with it much excitement for what’s to come. We have so many ideas that we'll get to work on, several new team members to collaborate with, and even more churches to serve. Today, I want to highlight a few small changes we've made while we put the final touches on some major updates coming soon. Send Basic Emails Easier We've added a new way to contact a member of your church. Now you can click on the email icon at the top of their profile

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read

Oct 17, 2016

Touch ID Support is Here

Churches that use Planning Center have access to a ton of incredibly powerful data about the people in their church. When you understand a person's history of serving, attendance, and even giving, you’ve got another tool in your belt to help you serve that person better. All this information is powerful, valuable, and sensitive. The people in your church have entrusted you with their personal information and it’s up to you to keep it somewhere safe. We’ve always considered the security of you

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read

Oct 10, 2016

Announcing Duplicate Detection

We’ve just launched a long awaited and much requested feature that will save huge amounts of time and tidy up your data... automated duplicate detection! Duplicates slip in from all over. You might have a Tom Anderson in your database, but if he drops a check in the offering plate that says "Thomas Anderson" on it, there's a good chance you'll end up with two profiles for the same person. Similar situations can happen from online registrations, or old data that was imported from another ChMS.

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read

Aug 22, 2016

Just Launched—Mobile Profile Editing

The wait is over! With the latest version of Planning Center People’s mobile app, you can create and edit profiles right on your iOS or Android device. Hurrah! Imagine a visitor to your church stops by your information booth. Instead of filling out a piece of paper that you'll have to deal with later (or maybe not...), you can enter it all in on your phone or tablet right then and there. In addition to recording basic contact and demographic information, you’ll be able to fill out your custom

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

1 min read

Jun 28, 2016

Custom Views for Your Lists

Lists are our powerful tool for finding groups of people, using real-time data and activity across the entire suite of Planning Center applications. Today we're making it easier to not only get a list of people but to also get the information you need about those people all in one place. Let me show you how it works! The first thing you'll notice is that we've updated the design to include profile pictures right in the list. Next, we've changed the default columns that you first see. Wait, de

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read

Jun 01, 2016

Lists Updates—Search, Stars, and Relative Dates

In PCO People, Lists are the way-too-easy tool to find groups of people based on real-time data from all of our applications. Using Lists, you can find all the donors who checked in a kid last year, all the people who have volunteered to serve but haven't completed their training, or just about any other group you can imagine by combining data from Check-Ins, Giving, People, Registrations, Services, and soon, Groups. Now we've added a few new features to supercharge Lists even more. Relat

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read

Apr 20, 2016

Activity Feeds: The Story Behind the Data

Your church is your people, and everyone has a story. When you know that story, you’ll be better equipped to do what you do best: love and serve these people. Today we've released a brand new tool to show these stories so that you can do your ministry even better. It’s called "Activity Feeds." Regardless of which Planning Center applications you use, you’re already using a free, powerful database management system: PCO People. It sits at the center of our church management suite and stores al

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read

Apr 14, 2016

Import Avatars from Social Media

Supposedly a picture is worth a thousand words, but it's probably worth a lot less if it's a generic placeholder avatar. Wouldn't it be great if you had photos for everyone in your church? A picture for each profile in your PCO People account will help you connect a face to a name. But photos are much more powerful than that. They will help you remember that these profiles represent real people that you've gone into ministry to serve. Unfortunately, getting these photos can be tricky, and we

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

2 min read