Planning Center Online | PlanningCenterOnline.Com

[fmckinnon]

Hey Ya'll -

http://www.planningcenteronline.com/images/home_page_logo.png

I saw an ad for this resource in Worship Leader recently ... it looked pretty interesting so I signed up for the free trial yesterday. I've only spent about 1/2 hour so far, but love it. There are some rave reviews by some big churches ... we even called one to make sure they were actually using it and the girl said "it was her best friend".

Check it out!
www.planningcenteronline.com (http://www.planningcenteronline.com/referer/TheWorshipCommunity)

[fmckinnon]

OK - so, I mentioned this a few days ago, above, and I've had about 1-1/2 days working with PlanningCenterOnline.Com (http://www.planningcenteronline.com) now. Folks, let me tell ya - this thing is like a huge portion of my job description, all bundled nicely in an incredibly easy-to-use web interface.

At first I thought it would only be appropriate for churches with larger ministries, venues, and staff ... but I think it's incredibly worthwhile even if you only had to manage the worship ministry alone.


Things I'm loving about it:


1 - I can schedule each service, assign band members, vocalists, techs, video, etc., and they are automatically emailed a notification that it's their turn to serve, and it automatically lets me know if they confirm or decline.
2 - Ability to see who was used last, when they were used, what songs were used, when they were used last.
3 - Consolidation of my master songlist, chord charts, mp3, etc., into an easy-to-use interface.


Let me park on #3 for a moment:
Since joining the staff at SSCC, I've spent my wheels for a month trying to decide how to best manage the previous, and ever-growing repetoire of music and charts. Excel spreadsheet? Manilla file folders and filing cabinet? Individual band/singer volders and binders?


With PlanningCenterOnline.Com, I can work with the existing songs that are already in there, or I can easily add my own songs, or import existing songs directly from CCLI's SongSelect program. (another resource Worship Pastor's should have in their toolbox).


I can upload .mp3 files of the song, the arrangement, I can upload .pdf of the chord charts, etc., and all of these are attached to the Ministry's Production/Flow Sheets. The band members can access the set list (they get an automated email reminding them they've been assigned to play), they can listen to the songs, they can print out their chord charts, lyrics, etc. So, one cool thing is all these arrangments in our notebook - our copier @ the church can be used in 'scan' mode and just email the .pdf to me .. attach to the song in Planning Center ... and there it is ... any time we do that song, we can just print from that master. (I think I'll keep a backup .pdf offsite, just in case!)


Speaking of arrangements, you can create multiple arrangements of a single song ... "Fred's Arrangement", Easter Arrangement", etc. And one feature I've not even used yet is the ability to type in (via their built in web interface) your own chord chart which can be transposed with a click.


Needless to say, I'm excited about this resource. I'm sure I'll mention it more, and will continue updating my discovery of it's features here.

[worshiptrench]

okay, we watched the tutorial today and then i made brent jack around with the 30 day trial (he loves experimenting with web 2.0 stuff). I love the functions but wonder if it will actually require more administrative work. example....

right now we have two bands, band odd and band even (creative names i know). if it is 1st or 3rd weekend (or the rare 5th) and you are band odd you play. 2 or 4 and even plays. the guys email me if they cannot play, otherwise i assume they will be there (dangerous i know but it works). Now i will have to build at the beginning of the month a masterschedule and individually slot them each week right? (doing the same for vocalists etc.) there is no way to automate that (for example our bridge team choir couldn't be placed on weeks 1 & 3 as a group entry right, we'd have to check off all 50 names each time????).

love the automated flyup of the charts and mp3 (right now we individually ftp them up to a password protected webpage).

what else works well?
what bogs you down?
and what features is it missing?

we are very tempted at this point.

[dtpuga]

From the tech director standpoint this stuff is solid too. We can put notes on every aspect of the service giving a flow sheet where everyone knows what is expected at any given point. At FOH we are beginning to make track notes for each song and instructions for our volunteers. Not to mention it is good archival of each weeks content. We upload our ProPresenter .plist file, sermon notes, and announcement loops so we can have an easy to use record as well as easy access to all important media on Sunday morning.

[fmckinnon]

okay, we watched the tutorial today and then i made brent jack around with the 30 day trial (he loves experimenting with web 2.0 stuff). I love the functions but wonder if it will actually require more administrative work. example....

right now we have two bands, band odd and band even (creative names i know). if it is 1st or 3rd weekend (or the rare 5th) and you are band odd you play. 2 or 4 and even plays. the guys email me if they cannot play, otherwise i assume they will be there (dangerous i know but it works). Now i will have to build at the beginning of the month a masterschedule and individually slot them each week right? (doing the same for vocalists etc.) there is no way to automate that (for example our bridge team choir couldn't be placed on weeks 1 & 3 as a group entry right, we'd have to check off all 50 names each time????).

love the automated flyup of the charts and mp3 (right now we individually ftp them up to a password protected webpage).

what else works well?
what bogs you down?
and what features is it missing?

we are very tempted at this point.

Jordan -
Although I've not yet used them, PCO uses a feature called "Ministry Groups" where you can add multiple "People" to a "Group" - so I'd think your choir could be one big group.

Also, with their templating structure you can create a "template" for Odd and a separate template for "Even" ... so when you create a new "plan" (their word for a service or event), you choose which template to create the plan with.

Within the templates you can pre-define what "people" groups are needed -ie. (Odd Week: 1 acoustic gtr, 1 sound man, 1 propresenter, 1 elec player, 1 worhsip leader, etc) .... and when you create a Plan for it, using that template, all you have to do is go over and click on the people area and assign.

One of the things I love BEST is that anyone w/ access (including all your musicians and singers) can go in themselves and BLOCK OUT the dates they can't be there. For example, here in June - we have lots of team members on vacation, mission trips, etc. So, when I click on "1 keyboard needed" ... a box of ALL people that are keyboardist pop up - and several of them are highlighed in red - "BLOCK OUT" ... leaving me with ONLY the options of people I can use.

I am madly in love with this tool. The ONLY thing I'd like to see added is that in addition to sending automated emails to alert people they are being scheduled, I'd like the option to also send a SMS (text message). I've talked to the programmer, and he's assured me that SMS/Text Messaging is a feature that they are already working on; but it's an expensive thing to add.

If you get it - use the links here on TWC (Banners) or be sure they know you heard about it here ... !

Thanks,
Fred

[trpullen]

I am also a huge fan of the Planning Center. It has saved me hours so far in the past few weeks...and that includes getting songs in. Once that is done and it is configured for our needs, we will be golden.

I want to request a couple other service printout options once I get a better handle around what they are doing but,...other than that, I will be a happy camper.

[Klampert]

I still have yet to use this...I signed up for the trial and the free version and keep forgeting to mess with it. thanks for the reminder

[chrismoncus]

Planning Center Online saved my marriage!

Not really, but I absolutely love this resource. It is a huge leap up from our ever-changing Excel formatted plans we used to get. There's just something about not having to look at a spreadsheet during a service that does my heart wonders.

Our team is better planned, better prepared, and better practiced because of this. Take the free trial, it'll be worth it.

[worshiptrench]

We are adopting Planning Center, tying its noose around our necks, and we will have to live or die by it now. Scary, but Fred assured me on the phone I would love it. He even let me hack his account to see how it worked (excuse the fact Fred, that I scheduled Eddie VH to play electric for you this week...just kidding).

We are doing all the load in's of mp3's, pdf charts, people maps, etc this week. Wish us providence!

[lytesource]

I use this and love it. It really helps me keep tack of so many things at once. Also, it's nice to have the database of songs etc., and, when the emails go out I don't feel like the nagging worshipleader.... I let the planner do it for me. Ha Ha. Also, the mp3's keep the house calls down. You know the ones,... cell phone rings during important dinner meeting... "how'd that song go again?" ugh!

I think the only down side is if your worship folks aren't computer literate. O well, that's another thread,.. isn't it?

If you got questions about my further thoughts on this send me a PM.

[amprodirect]

There are several online worship planning solutions out there. I like Planning Center alot but we are using Worship Planning (www.worshipplanning.com) for our tool. Very much the same as Planning Center. We are a fairly large church and the Tech department supports about thristy events a week. Worship Planning was a God send. It has made communication and accountability incredible. I highly encourage all churches to subscribe or at the very least check out one of these amazing tools.

[lytesource]

.... (www.worshipplanning.com) for our tool. Very much the same as Planning Center....

I had a good look at worship planning and it looks very good. Seems to me it will work great for those of you using pc's. On the other hand the worship planner works great for us mac users. ;)

just an observation from a mac diehard.

[lytesource]

hopped back in to ask you all what you think. Do pc's or mac's make difference here?

just curious

[fmckinnon]

Hey,
PlanningCenterOnline is 100% web-based (web 2.0), so it's not an issue of Mac or PC.

Looks like some of you guys are using this other software - would someone please create a new thread here for it, and let's have a place to discuss that as well.

Jordan - that's what I get for giving you my login? I knew I shouldn't have given you admin privileges to play with. I wondered why Eddie was scheduled for guitar ... and why "Achy Breaky Heart" was our Walk In for this Sunday. Sheez.

[worshiptrench]

On Planningcenter....I actually made Brent call the company and see how financially stable they were before I will let him make the switch for our excel/word/email/webrehearsal page hodgepodge system (which works well but ain't as streamlined). I expect to hear to back from him next week. Ain't nothing worse than going all web2.0 and then having the company fold.

If vitalist ever goes down, I'll have to hurt someone.

[inworship]

On Planningcenter....I actually made Brent call the company and see how financially stable they were before I will let him make the switch for our excel/word/email/webrehearsal page hodgepodge system (which works well but ain't as streamlined). I expect to hear to back from him next week. Ain't nothing worse than going all web2.0 and then having the company fold.

If vitalist ever goes down, I'll have to hurt someone.

Just for reference, we've been using planning center online since December of 06' and it has been glitch free and always available for us. There is continued development and zero hint of it going away.

Jeff the developer and owner is a great guy and has always been timely. He will listen to ideas and he even used some of ours. He attends every conference or trade show that planning center is at, so if you have a chacne to get to one, go say hello.

I would back this company up in a second.

[patdryburgh]

On Planningcenter....I actually made Brent call the company and see how financially stable they were before I will let him make the switch for our excel/word/email/webrehearsal page hodgepodge system (which works well but ain't as streamlined). I expect to hear to back from him next week. Ain't nothing worse than going all web2.0 and then having the company fold.

If vitalist ever goes down, I'll have to hurt someone.

North Point Community Church, Willow Creek Community Church, and several other large churches are using planning center now. I have a feeling PCO is doing pretty well at this point. :)

[worshiptrench]

diggin it thus far....we'll put any questions or headaches here.

[chrisfromcanada]

I've been using PCO for about a year and it is incredible. I have a volunteer who takes care of all of our scheduling and I love how easy it is for our volunteers to use.

The ability to upload mp3's and have people only able to stream them rather than download them is awesome. If I'm on the ball, I can get them a set list as well as charts and mp3's of songs so that they can listen through the songs before they come to practice. All of our people expect things to be online now so they always look at the site before coming to practice to see what we're doing.

Jeff from PCO is incredibly easy to get a hold of and has been awesome at making changes based on suggestions that people have given him. I'm glad we are using their product and I think we'll be using it for a long time.

[fmckinnon]

Speaking of ... We've been unable to access PCO off and on the last couple of days - connection is slow, or getting refused .. I'm down to the wire getting ready for a rehearsal and have two more arrangements to finish ... is it just us, or are others having trouble logging on?

[chrisfromcanada]

I was talking with someone this afternoon who was saying the same thing and they just got an email from Jeff Berg at PCO -


Thanks for the e-mail! I am so sorry but our ISP has gone down, we expect them to be back up within the next hour but they have made no guarantees. Also, I am happy to say that we will be moving our site to RackSpace which guarantees 100% up time and fanatical support.

[fmckinnon]

Yeah, I just IM'd Carlos at Buckhead (Northpoint) and he said it'd down .. I've not rec'd an email from Jeff ... 'Los indicated it would be up in about an hour.

[inworship]

I'm having the same issues and I have been able to get on today at all. Very strange. In over a year, this is the first time this has ever happened to me on Planning Center.

[lytesource]

I had a bad day with PCO in late December. I thought it had something to do with them upgrading or ??? their site. Hadn't had any other trouble before then and have been using PCO for about 5 months. Trying to log on now with no response from the server. I'm sure it's on their end not yours.

Maybe they are having trouble keeping up with all their new traffic. Hopefully this wont become an ongoing issue. I have become pretty dependent on the resource.

[fmckinnon]

Hey Brent,
Me too ... one time in forever isn't so bad, eh? It does make me rethink my idea of trashing ALL paper masters, though ... may be a good idea to keep a local copy of my charts!

Good to see you here active on TWC again - Happy New Year!

[inworship]

Here is what I just got from Jeff...

"Hello Brent,

Thanks for the e-mail! Our ISP went down about an two hours ago and we are waiting for them to come up which I hope will happen in the next hour. Also, We have actually already signed a contract with Rackspace where we will be moving our site to and they guarantee 100% up time. ;-) I am so sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks!

Jeff Berg
Owner/Developer
Ministry Centered Technologies"

[fmckinnon]

As the former owner of a web hosting co ... I can totally relate to what Jeff is going through right now! At least it didn't happen on a Sunday AM!

[daustin]

I hope it's soon. My admin. assistant is waiting to build the books for this coming Sunday services and we can't even print the order.

[fmckinnon]

I have rehearsal in 2-1/2 hours, and still have two songs to finish ... not to mention, I went paperless (duh) and all our charts and masters are in PCO.

BTW - daustin, love your avatar!

[bdivine]

I'm also having trouble w/ PCO. I was able to access it this morning for about 5 minutes - but since then, I can't even access the home page.
Not good this close to the weekend.

[Alicea]

You can bet they are as frustrated as we are. If it's a problem with their ISP, there is not really much that they can do, just wait until the ISP vendor fixes it.
It is good to note that Rackspace is an awesome host (according to my techie husband) and extremely reliable.
In the meantime, I am resorting to my backup files (I have a word doc of each song, and save a pdf file of the service order for each week).

[inworship]

Here is the latest...


Hello Everyone,

First of all let me say I'm sorry for the impersonal nature of this email, but we have been flooded with emails yesterday and today for obvious reasons. In case you don't know what's going on, let me tell you.

Yesterday (Jan 2), we had an overwhelming amount of traffic since almost all of you resumed work after the holidays at the same time. This caused major strain on the servers which caused them to be either very slow or non-responsive. We had anticipated this and had already ordered new upgraded servers at another server facility, but we were dependent on that facility to give us the proper information to start using their servers. Unfortunately, we did not get the information in time and subsequently weren't able to make the transition before you all came back for the new year. This caused the problems yesterday, but by the end of the day, everything seemed to be working smoothly again.

Then at 7:00am Pacific Time this morning, the ISP (internet service provider) that our current server facility uses went down. Their ISP is AT&T and as a result, every other server in our area (almost all of them in Palm Springs) is also down. Our server facility (DISC) is working frantically with AT&T to get this fixed and this morning told us it would be resolved in an hour. This has obviously not been the case as it is still not fixed, and they are unable to give us an estimate.

So unfortunately for us, these 2 unrelated incidents happened 2 days in a row when almost all of you are dependent on our site. I can't tell you how sorry we are about this. I personally use the site at my church as well, and I know how dependent we are on Planning Center, so I know what many of you are going through. Please know we are doing EVERYTHING in our power to resolve this as quickly as possible.

So here is the current status. We finally received the information to switch over to the new servers this morning. Jeff has been frantically working all day getting the application installed and setup. Our problem is that the database is stored on the servers at our old server facility which is the one that is down. So instead of waiting an undefined amount of time, Jeff is driving to the facility at this very moment to physically retrieve the servers so that he can bring them back and immediately transfer the database to our new servers. The facility is an hour away, which unfortunately means that you won't be able to get to your information for at LEAST another 2 hours, but in all likelihood, it will take quite a bit longer to transfer all the information over.

We are committed to finishing this as soon as possible, but can not give an accurate estimate on when you will regain access to the site other than tomorrow morning. In addition, since we are being forced to rush the server transfer process, there will probably be slight issues during the day tomorrow as well until we are able to fully test it.

We want to thank you for your continued patience and for helping make Planning Center what it is today. We appreciate you and are so blessed to be able to help you organize and facilitate your ministry.

Aaron Stewart
Product Manager
Planning Center Online

[chrisfromcanada]

They're on their way back online. Hopefully it's back up and running by the morning!


Hello,

We are back at our office and we are hooking up the database server and uploading the database right now.

Jeff

--------------------

We have restored the database to our new server. We are now working on getting the app fully functional.

Jeff

[inworship]

No company is free of issues and in my opinion these guys have dealt with this perfectly. They'll definitely be keeping my business.

But, some of you have brought up the fact that it is always appropriate to think of backups and hard copies :D

[chrisfromcanada]

They're back.


Wooohooo!!! We are back up…I have just switched over the DNS entries for our site to www.planningcenteronline.com to the new servers, it should only take an hour or two to propigate. If it is not working for you try staging.planningcenteronline.com.

Please e-mail us at support@ministrycentered.com for any issues that might have popped up.

Thank you so much for your prayers & support.

Jeff Berg
Owner/Developer
Ministry Centered Technologies

-----------------------------------

Before I say anything else, I’ve got good news. Planning Center is back online! Not only that, we are giving everyone 4 days free for the trouble it has caused and just to say thank you for being so patient with us. Your next credit card charge will be postponed 4 days.

In case you had not noticed, Planning Center has had some network problems over the last couple of days. First it was because the server got overloaded when everyone returned from their vacations at the same time. Then after that was fixed, AT&T went down in Palm Springs and is actually still down while I write this.

We were already in the process of upgrading our servers, but once we realized AT&T couldn’t tell us when they would be back up, we drove to our server facility, physically retrieved the servers, brought them back, and began the process of transferring the database and application to our new servers. If you want the full details of all that happened, there are a couple of posts on our blog here: http://blog.ministrycentered.com/

At around 11PM Pacific Time, the process was completed and Planning Center is back. The good news is that we have moved to some seriously upgraded servers so that this won’t happen again. Our new servers are with rackspace.com. First of all, they guarantee 100% uptime, which means this won’t happen again! For more detailed information on why they are so good, check out this page: http://www.rackspace.com/whyrackspace/network/

In addition, Planning Center should be quite a bit faster due to faster hardware in our servers. We were at a 2MB connection and our new servers have a 100MB connection. We are committed to making Planning Center as fast as possible so that you don’t have to think about it.

After we make sure the transition to the new servers is smooth and complete, we will finish up work on our next update. We’ve got some exciting new features that we are hoping to release soon.

Thank you once again for using Planning Center. We wish you many blessings in 2008.

The Planning Center Team (Jeff, Aaron & Jeff)

[fmckinnon]

Hallelujah!

[onelouder]

can anyone tell me if planning center offers the ability for us to host our files on our own site, and just link to them through planning center? i'm concerned about the upload space and i don't necessarily want to upgrade to the more expensive plans. thanks....stephen

[trpullen]

You can upload a file or link to a file on another web server. I host our pdfs on the planning center site and mp3s on my web server.

[chrisfromcanada]

can anyone tell me if planning center offers the ability for us to host our files on our own site, and just link to them through planning center? i'm concerned about the upload space and i don't necessarily want to upgrade to the more expensive plans. thanks....stephen

Yes - you can link attachments to songs and arrangements. Great solution!

[fmckinnon]

yep'r ... you sure can

[onelouder]

wow, thanks for the quick responses. just found TWC today. it's already earned the registration fee!

[fmckinnon]

Hey - ha, that's good to hear - just for that, we'll refund your registration fee! (that's $0, right!)

[jonmark]

FYI...just found out that planningcenter will have servers down again on monday evening...here's a link to the info...

http://blog.ministrycentered.com/2009/01/09/important-january-12th-maintenance-moving-our-servers/

[psalm33three]

Hi all,

I just discovered Planning Center and TWC. I haven't had a place to chat since the Worship Frequency board went down :(.

Now that there has been some time since the creation of this thread, how does everyone feel now that they have used PCO for some time. Have downtimes been much of an issue? Do your team members pick up on how to use it very fast? This may be the tool I've been looking for.

[dtpuga]

@psalm33three: we love it at SSCC. Been using it for about two years now. Haven't REALLy been effected by downtime. I can think of a few times it WAS down, but not lengthy. I would say that it is as reliable as any online service.

Team members that want to get into it can get into it very quickly. I still have some volunteers that just realized there WAS a website with it too. haha. One guy thought all he did was reply to the email and it let me know.

Very good stuff overall.

[psalm33three]

Thanks, Travis. :)

I also wanted to know if people are using the mp3 feature. I've looked high and low for a solution for getting recorded material to my team that doesn't compromise on copyright law. So far, my only solution is to buy "gift" copies of songs for my team member through iTunes. I know that you can opt to not allow downloads for mp3's but my understanding that any sort of online streaming of music is considered broadcast and is not compliant with copyright laws.

How are others using the mp3 feature on PCO?

[dtpuga]

Some really utilize the MP3 feature and listen to the songs. Others, our worship director still ends up getting rehearsal tracks into their hands other ways. As for the legality of it all, I don't know, again, our worship director takes care of the music stuff and CCLI. I believe thought that listening to the track on the site is not a breach of any laws. Downloading would be I guess.

[worshiptrench]

1. We love it and would french kiss it on the mouth it could b/c it saves us hours of time in that it auto-flies up mp3 and chart when you select a song. On our old homemade page we had to ftp a song up each week we wanted it.

2. we make scratch mp3s with melody in center, alto panned hard left and tenor hard right. just acoustic, click and vocal.

[fmckinnon]

We love it ... we are married to it. Downloading the MP3s is a violation of copyright law, plain and simple. The best bet to be fully compliant is to give gift cards, and put links to the Amazon MP3 store or the iTunes store for them to purchase.

[psalm33three]

Downloading the MP3s is a violation of copyright law, plain and simple.

I know that the downloading of copyrighted mp3's is a violation. What I've been wondering about is streaming the mp3's. PCO has a feature to not allow downloads but will allow online listening. Their instructional videos mention something about turning off the download function for copyrighted material though they don't come out and say "Hey, it's cool to post copyrighted material on here if you don't allow it to be downloaded." I've researched this topic ad nauseum to no absolute conclusion. I always try to error on the side of staying compliant when in doubt. Any thoughts??

[fmckinnon]

Yeah, it's a tough thing to figure out. Technically speaking, even streaming is a violation, but that would be something for PCO to figure out. I think they have good relationships w/ CCLI and the major publishers ... can't say for sure, so I'd feel certain they are covering themselves.

[psalm33three]

I sent PCO an email and asked about the streaming/copyright thing. The response said flatly that streaming copyrighted material is illegal, regardless if the song can be downloaded or not. so... there it is.. ;)

[pian0dude]

So, I really want to start using PCO, however, one feature that kind of bugs me is the "accept" or "decline" button that gets sent in the e-mail team members receive. We have a 'set' scheduled rotation every other week between two teams and the people scheduled on a specific week are simply that.. 'scheduled' to be on that week. It's probably a non-issue, however, it seems as though people could perceive that they are being given an option whether to participate if they see those options.

I e-mailed PCO about this and they said there was no way to remove that option. Does anyone have experience with this particular topic or have you come up with a way in which to still notify people without giving them the option to decline on their scheduled week?

[dtpuga]

We have ministries in our church that are regularly scheduled just like you. They still use planning center and the "scheduling email" just says, hey remember that this is your week to serve. The decline can still be useful, I assume that you don't have 100% attendance every week, haha. Maybe they could use that as a way to let you know that they will be unavailable.

I would think you could simply communicate how the system will work for your specific volunteers and then move on. It is a great system overall.

[fmckinnon]

I agree with Travis' reply above. You have to determine, though, if you need something like PCO - if the schedule is a fixed rotation, it may not be necessary. There are so many advantages to PlanningCenterOnline already, though - in addition to the scheduling, such as the ability to upload the attachments, songs, leadsheets, etc.

[worshiptrench]

1. people are sometimes forgetful. the accept button is one more reminder to prepare and focus even if they and you knew they'd be there.

2. sometimes people have "oh no" moments where something came up (death, sickness) just in advance enough for them to click decline, then you'll know you have a slot to fill.

We love it. Fred should be a salesperson for them. He gave me an on the phone tour that totally sold me. We are now PCO addicts.

[natemeyst]

I don't understand why everyone loves this program so much. I tried, really hard, to adapt my worship ministry to pco. I tried for like two months. My conclusion is, if you have multiple services throughout the week, and you're not willing to pay their extravagant $80 a month or whatever it is, this program will only make your ministry planning more complicated and extremely time-consuming.

The biggest problem I ran into was the inability to easily duplicate services. If you duplicate or "copy" a service, it only copies to the same day, you can't input a different day or date. Also, when you copy a day, if you have multiple services on that day, it doesn't copy all the services, only one of them (it's favorite one I guess?). It also doesn't carry over the template you attached to that service or day. Oh and let's talk about site navigation. It took me like an hour to find where to even access your "templates". In contrast to many of your raving reviews, this site is not easily navigated and does not have a user-friendly interface whatsoever. When it takes you days and many headaches to figure a site out, that means it's not user-friendly. And don't think I'm not web literate. I'm a graphic designer, as well as a worship leader, and have seen my fair share of web sites (I'm not bragging, it's just that if I saw a comment like this, I would just assume the person doesn't know much about the web).

Now, I know, the one way to solve this would be to upgrade my account so I can have multiple "service types." Then, when I duplicate a service, it will always duplicate to the right day. But seriously, who wants to pay that much for a service that annoyingly emails your volunteers every second asking their approval to be part of a service? Our admin would easily approve the monthly charge if I felt strongly enough about the service, but I can't seriously justify spending that much a month on something that simply doesn't work. And let's say I was all for upgrading and giving them even more money, the next upgrade option would only give me five service types. That's the exact number I need! What happens when I need to add our college service? Upgrade yet again? No way.

They have a lot of features, maybe too many, but they lack a handful of core features that are crucial for planning worship services effectively. Sorry, don't mean to be Debby Downer here, but I have to be real. Planning Center Online simply doesn't work.

Oh, and I'm open to your comments, if you want to try talking me back into using it.

[amprodirect]

Why would anyone try to talk you into it, you must find what works for you. When something is found that works well for folks then it should be proclaimed as is the case with PCO. I am one that is glad to pay the amount required, it has been an invaluable tool for us. Sorry you didn't like it.

[pian0dude]

Here are some things I've observed as a new user.

1. It takes quite a long time to input all of your chord charts manually. I wish they had a feature that would automatically suck in the lyrics when you click Add Song and put in the CCLI # or Name. However, it is worth the time typing to have the transposing feature work right.

2. I'd like literally a one click button (perhaps in the e-mail message) that allows people to download and print the rehearsal packets, rather than having to hover over rehearsal and then select to download the PDFs and then select options.

3. I wish you could turn on/off the length of service numbers in your plan(s).

4. I wish the banner that gets placed at the top of every chord chart was smaller. When working with a rather long chord chart, trying to keep it on one page is much harder when you have a huge banner at the top. It looks nice though ;-)

Any feedback on these?

-Brian