Planning Center is one of the most utilized online service planning tools available for churches. We searched the net to find the best current tips and tricks to pass along. Here are our favorite:
The Matrix
The Matrix lets you load many plans at once and can be accessed from different places in your account. If you load the Matrix from within a plan, it will load other plans from that same Service Type. If you load the Matrix from the top of the main plans page, it will load plans from all Service Types in the current folder.
Using the Matrix, you can schedule many weeks at a time and consolidate multiple scheduling requests into one email per person.
Over on SundayMag.tv, Chris Denning says, “The flexibility and functionality of the Matrix will save you time scheduling, programming, and it’s even helpful for planning meetings.”
Auto-scheduling
You can actually set up Planning Center to auto-schedule teams and services based on their team availability and blocked out dates.
If you take some time to get everyone set up with their own scheduling preferences, block out dates, and team preferences, you can really save time in the long run bu using Auto-scheduling.
Denning says, “Auto-Schedule is a feature found at the top of the Matrix that allows you to automatically schedule people based on their team, availability, and scheduling preferences. That’s right; you can use this feature to schedule any team, in any plan, for any length of time.”
New Full-Screen Chord/Lyric Editor
As you type your lyrics and chords on the left, your exact PDF will update on the right, helping you see where lines, columns, and pages break. You can preview your chart in the original key, or use the View options to preview it any key!
Above the editor is an options menu including buttons to insert page breaks, column breaks, and the code to help you remember how to bold or italicize words or phrases. It also has links to other pages where you can find other codes available, and a button to import lyrics from SongSelect by CCLI.
Denning says, “Why use this editor? Because it has the ability to transpose your chart to any key/capo you need with the click of a button. I know; I hear the hallelujah chorus, too!”
Transposable MP3s
You can Upload your audio track as an MP3, attach it to the original key, then transpose it to whatever key you need for your set! Make sure you have the proper licensing!
From Planning Center: “The further away (more half steps) from the original key you go, the worse the mp3 will sound. So to ensure the final file sounds as good as possible, we always choose the least number of half steps. For example, going from E up to A is already 5 half steps which is definitely pushing the boundaries of the transposer (at least to sounds somewhat decent), but going from E down to A is 7 half steps which will make the final mp3 quite a bit worse quality. As a result and to keep things simple, we always choose the least number of half steps.”
Email Templates
You can create customized emails to make sending out emails to your team members a faster and more efficient process. You can create templates for General Emails, Scheduling Emails, Sign-Up Sheet Emails and Welcome Emails. When you’re ready to email, just select that template to import that text when you email your people.
Denning says, “I have email templates for content (charts, mp3s, etc.) being ready, game tape reviews, and rehearsal tracks being ready. These are weekly emails I send out, so creating a template for these emails lets me send these emails in seconds.”
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Inspired by content in the Planning Center Online help database and Chris Denning’s article about Planning Center Hacks on SundayMag.tv.
