Planning Center Unleashes Major Updates to Streamline Church Operations
As we jump into the new year, I want to update you on the latest features that Planning Center has released. These enhancements significantly improve church management and foster better team collaboration. The updates from November and December highlight Planning Center’s commitment to enhancing communication, streamlining event management, and boosting administrative efficiency. Let’s look at how these updates can benefit you in your ministry efforts.
Innovative Updates to Team Communication
This December Chat update brought a transformative shift in how volunteer teams can communicate. The introduction of Services’ team chats within the Church Center app creates a seamless communication experience, allowing staff and volunteers to initiate conversations directly from the app they use most. This integration eliminates switching between multiple apps, keeping all church-related chats in one central location.
To complement this new option, Planning Center has introduced customizable notification preferences, enabling users to select their preferred app for chat alerts. This extra feature ensures that essential messages never go unnoticed while preventing notification fatigue – something we all deal with today.
New Chat Filtering for Improved Thread Management
Planning Center also introduced chat filtering in the Services app, making organizing and locating specific conversations easier. Coupled with the ability to mark all messages as read with a single click, these features significantly improve chat thread management and keeping up to date with your chats.
Additional New Chat Features in Groups
Groups also released new chat features. Group leaders can now freeze conversations. This feature disables members from adding new message replies, while leaders can still add new messages. And everyone will be able to add emoji reactions.
Here’s how to do it:
On the Church Center app (v2024.11.11 or newer), tap on a chat conversation header to view the details
From this details screen, you can freeze the conversation
Freezing the conversation will prevent other members from adding message replies, but they can still add reactions (❤️🙏😂👍👎).
Tip: toggle the Freeze conversation setting for any previously frozen conversations to enable reactions.
Enhanced Event Management Capabilities in Calendar and Groups
The new Event Connections feature in Calendar, launched in December, represents a significant leap forward in understanding congregation engagement. This analytical tool provides deeper insights into event participation, enabling church staff to make more informed decisions about their events and resource allocation.
Event management flexibility has also been improved in Groups by introducing optional RSVPs. You can now disable RSVP functionality for specific group events, simplifying the attendance process when formal registration isn't necessary. This feature is nice for regular gatherings or events where tracking attendance numbers isn't critical. RSVPs can also get a bit tedious for members to manage in Church Center if they are in multiple groups that are committed to meeting regularly.
Cover Letter Formatting in Donor Statements
Statement season is upon us, and you can now utilize rich text (additional text formatting options) in your cover letters. Statements serve as a vital connection with your donors, offering a meaningful chance to showcase the results of their continued support. With some formatting, you can produce a refined and persuasive communication message.
Here’s what’s new:
Rich Text Formatting: Bold and italicize your message, adjust font sizes, and organize content with bulleted or numbered lists.
Clickable Links in Emails: If you want to share a video of recent highlights or reference an impact report on your website, you can link directly to it.
Guest access for Church Center Mobile app
Another November update is guest access to the Church Center mobile app. On Church Center web, congregants have always been able to browse as guests without needing to log in. This feature simplifies the experience for newcomers, allowing them to explore public group listings, calendar events, signups, sermons, and any custom page content made available by your church.
Previously, accessing the Church Center app required congregants to log in using a phone number or email, which could deter those who were looking to explore.
Now, when visitors search for your church, they will see the option to "Continue as Guest."
As a guest, users can access the same content available on the Church Center website without needing to log in. However, if they navigate to a page that requires a login—such as signing up for a group, signing up for an event, or viewing their profile—they will be prompted to log in first.
New Sermon Notes in Church Center
Planning Center also released Sermon Notes, a new feature designed to enhance congregants' engagement with sermon content. This new addition is available in beta for all Publishing sermon plans and offers a dynamic way for church members to interact with sermon outlines.
Customizable and Interactive
The Sermon Notes feature allows church administrators to create fill-in-the-blank outlines for each sermon episode. These notes can be customized to fit the specific needs of the sermon, making it easier for congregants to follow along and engage with the message.
Once enabled, a “Sermon notes” tab appears on the channel, where admins can design and structure the notes.
Engagement Through Church Center
Congregants can access these interactive sermon notes via Church Center. Logged-in users can fill in the blanks during the sermon, with the option to reveal answers by tapping an eye icon. This feature ensures that notes are private to each user’s profile, but they can also be shared via email or other apps.
This new feature represents a significant step forward in Planning Center Publishing’s sermons, making them more interactive and personalized for each member.
This is a significant new feature and if you want to learn more, visit the support page here.
Administrative and Management Efficiency Improvements
Several other updates focus on streamlining administrative tasks. The new universal search feature for Calendar admins makes finding specific events and information faster than ever.
Duplicate Existing Workflows
This is a big feature enhancement for those churches that must recreate Workflows across campuses and ministry departments. The ability to duplicate workflows saves valuable time when setting up recurring processes or similar projects.
Permanently delete contact data from the Activity Feed
Planning Center has also addressed data privacy concerns with new features for permanently deleting contact data from the Activity Feed, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations while maintaining trust within the congregation and community.
Email notifications for list refreshes
You can now add subscribers who will receive email notifications whenever a list auto-refreshes. When “Enable auto-refresh” is toggled on, you’ll see a new section for notifications. This feature is great for admins and managers who watch over automations and data maintenance lists.
Looking Forward
Planning Center has released many updates and new features over the last several months, and it’s hard to keep up with all of their momentum. This is one of the reasons we love Planning Center. They consistently develop and update the software to reflect the needs and wishes of their user community.
As we move into 2025, I hope you’ll find this rundown of new features and updates useful. If you have any questions or need help implementing any of the new features, Threefold Solutions is here to help. You can review more about our coaching or strategy sessions here.
Jason Silbernagel
Co-founder, Threefold Solutions
P.S. We assist with coaching, training, strategy, and support.
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