Planning Center Services

Name: Planning Center Services
Rating: 3.7 (2005 reviews)
Author: Ministry Centered Technologies

Service Planning & Scheduling

Free

2K Ratings
Ages

13+
Years
Category

Business
Developer

Ministry Centered Technologies
Language

EN
English
Size

85.7
MB

You must already have an account at Planning Center to use this mobile app. The Planning Center Services app is the best way to access your Planning Center Services account on your iOS device. Planning Center Services is an online scheduling and worship planning application to keep your staff and volunteers connected. With our native app, you get an optimized Planning Center experience wherever you are. Manage your schedule, accept or decline scheduling requests, blockout dates, upload your user picture, and if you are a musician, use the media player or attachments section to access music for rehearsals. If you are responsible for scheduling volunteers or planning services, the app has features just for you! Add users to your schedule, check for conflicts, and email them at any time. Add items, songs, media or headers to your order of service and drag and drop them to reorder. Plus, the plan page and your schedule update in real time even without having to refresh! Have any questions? Use the app's built-in "Help" to email us details.

Ratings & Reviews

3.7

out of 5

2K Ratings

Please send notifications after plan is updated
11/17/2022

Scotchard
For the most part, PCO works really well. But for the love of everything decent and holy, PLEASE send a notification to all users on a plan when the plan is updated. Too often, keys get changed, arrangements are changed, and there is no way to know unless the person the changing notifies everyone themselves. It makes no sense why all users wouldn’t receive a little Notification saying what changed. I know it’s easy to say the person changing SHOULD send out an update. But people make mistakes and what’s the point of automating some simple tasks if we simply say that other simple tasks are human responsibilities.And while it’s easy to say you don’t do this because e-mails are easily over-looked, that’s kind of a cop-out since the notification could easily have a custom subject line that lets the user know an important change is made. If anything, you could prompt the admin or editor with a notification, “Would you like to notify your team?” after a change is made.

Developer Response
Thanks for sharing! At the moment, we aren't tracking each change made to a plan, which would potentially be in the millions. We also try very hard to limit the amount of automatic or manual emails people receive from Planning Center because the more emails people receive, the easier it is for them to overlook something important.So, for now, we've decided against creating a feature to automatically notify people of changes made to a plan they've been scheduled to. When you make a change you feel needs to be communicated to your team, click email these people on the plan to customize a message with more meaningful detail than an automatically generated email would allow. - Matt[UPDATE]Great suggestion! We'll keep that in mind as we continue making updates to the app.
Please send notifications after plan is updated
11/17/2022

Scotchard

For the most part, PCO works really well. But for the love of everything decent and holy, PLEASE send a notification to all users on a plan when the plan is updated. Too often, keys get changed, arrangements are changed, and there is no way to know unless the person the changing notifies everyone themselves. It makes no sense why all users wouldn’t receive a little Notification saying what changed. I know it’s easy to say the person changing SHOULD send out an update. But people make mistakes and what’s the point of automating some simple tasks if we simply say that other simple tasks are human responsibilities.And while it’s easy to say you don’t do this because e-mails are easily over-looked, that’s kind of a cop-out since the notification could easily have a custom subject line that lets the user know an important change is made. If anything, you could prompt the admin or editor with a notification, “Would you like to notify your team?” after a change is made.
Developer Response 11/18/2022
Thanks for sharing! At the moment, we aren't tracking each change made to a plan, which would potentially be in the millions. We also try very hard to limit the amount of automatic or manual emails people receive from Planning Center because the more emails people receive, the easier it is for them to overlook something important.So, for now, we've decided against creating a feature to automatically notify people of changes made to a plan they've been scheduled to. When you make a change you feel needs to be communicated to your team, click email these people on the plan to customize a message with more meaningful detail than an automatically generated email would allow. - Matt[UPDATE]Great suggestion! We'll keep that in mind as we continue making updates to the app.
App good, but a few problems
07/14/2017

bfchris
The app works well, but the PCO system has a few problems, if you like more collaboration. The app has gained in features & abilities, and works well as designed. The Planning Center Online is set up with team leaders (e.g. a leader for musicians, a leader for audiovisual workers, etc.). When a team leader sends a notification or other communication, there is no way to reply within this app; I'm always looking for ways to keep communications organized, and email decluttered! I can't reply in this app, but must go to email. I'd love to have Ministry chats kept in this app. When a team leader seeks input from team members, that's not possible here; members are limited to Accepting assignments! If an unexpected event causes someone to need to cancel their prior acceptance of an assignment (PCO DOES allow that to be processed), there is no way to swap with someone else and have that swap show up in PCO. Support has recommended that we put the name of our substitute in the Reason for Declining field; the team leader will have to perform the actual swap, but that means Leader is aware of the swap.

Developer Response
Thanks for the honesty! Though, there seems to be a misunderstanding. Members can always reply back to the emails they receive, in order to communicate and work out any scheduling changes. Our heart behind every product we make is far from totalitarian. Swapping would require a member also have Scheduler permissions. Instead, try having members talk to each other and then put the person's name in the "Reason" field when they need to decline. The leader will see that and be able to make those changes quickly and easily. Of course, there's always room to grow, and you seem to have some ideas! We'd love for you to share them with us, by emailing support@planning.center (or use "Help" to send a request right from within the app).
App good, but a few problems
07/14/2017

bfchris

The app works well, but the PCO system has a few problems, if you like more collaboration. The app has gained in features & abilities, and works well as designed. The Planning Center Online is set up with team leaders (e.g. a leader for musicians, a leader for audiovisual workers, etc.). When a team leader sends a notification or other communication, there is no way to reply within this app; I'm always looking for ways to keep communications organized, and email decluttered! I can't reply in this app, but must go to email. I'd love to have Ministry chats kept in this app. When a team leader seeks input from team members, that's not possible here; members are limited to Accepting assignments! If an unexpected event causes someone to need to cancel their prior acceptance of an assignment (PCO DOES allow that to be processed), there is no way to swap with someone else and have that swap show up in PCO. Support has recommended that we put the name of our substitute in the Reason for Declining field; the team leader will have to perform the actual swap, but that means Leader is aware of the swap.
Developer Response 07/11/2017
Thanks for the honesty! Though, there seems to be a misunderstanding. Members can always reply back to the emails they receive, in order to communicate and work out any scheduling changes. Our heart behind every product we make is far from totalitarian. Swapping would require a member also have Scheduler permissions. Instead, try having members talk to each other and then put the person's name in the "Reason" field when they need to decline. The leader will see that and be able to make those changes quickly and easily. Of course, there's always room to grow, and you seem to have some ideas! We'd love for you to share them with us, by emailing support@planning.center (or use "Help" to send a request right from within the app).
Amazing, but....
10/26/2017

niemann4210
Hey PCO. I love Planning Center and I love your app. Super intuitive and practical!! I use it almost as much as I use PCO on my computer. But I’ve been having a couple of problems lately. When I create a new person on the app and put their info in, it doesn’t save the info. I know this because after I create a new person and schedule them for an audition, I ask them to check their email for a PCO invite and they never get it until I redo creating them on the full-site version. Also, sometimes it crashes and it seems to always be at the worst time. I lead worship for The Point Church out the Raleigh area of NC. One thing we are asked to do is to be praying about things to say at certain points in the service. God will give me things to say at odd times and when I receive them, I like to write them in my notes on PCO immediately. I was doing that tonight and was almost done when the app crashed. This wasn’t the first time this happened, but tonight it was extremely frustrating.
Amazing, but....
10/26/2017

niemann4210

Hey PCO. I love Planning Center and I love your app. Super intuitive and practical!! I use it almost as much as I use PCO on my computer. But I’ve been having a couple of problems lately. When I create a new person on the app and put their info in, it doesn’t save the info. I know this because after I create a new person and schedule them for an audition, I ask them to check their email for a PCO invite and they never get it until I redo creating them on the full-site version. Also, sometimes it crashes and it seems to always be at the worst time. I lead worship for The Point Church out the Raleigh area of NC. One thing we are asked to do is to be praying about things to say at certain points in the service. God will give me things to say at odd times and when I receive them, I like to write them in my notes on PCO immediately. I was doing that tonight and was almost done when the app crashed. This wasn’t the first time this happened, but tonight it was extremely frustrating.
10 seconds back, 30 forward
03/17/2018

SteveinGA
Love PCO. But (you just had to know that was comin’)... I like getting the piano parts right, and getting my fingers used to doing what the guy on the recording is playing. At present, I can take that itsy-bitsy white dot and move it backwards to hear “that part” again. Of course, there’s no real control, and I almost always move it way too far. It would be great to be able to rewind in 10- or 15-second bits, and be able to advance in 30 second bits. That way, I can practice those piano riffs over and over again. Also, would like to see an option to turn on or off sleep mode on the phone or tablet. I never (EVER) remember to turn off sleep mode on my phone. It could be put in as an option that we could set (Disengage Sleep Mode while using Planning Center). Just a couple of thoughts.

Developer Response
Hi Steve!Thanks for the love and the comment! There's a great feature that iOS has for volume tools, so if you drag the media scrubber up as you move sideways, you're given even more control. The farther up you drag the slower the scrubber moves, allowing for fine control, so you could move just 10 or 15 seconds ahead or behind in that song.The Settings in the app gives you the sleep mode options you were looking for. Go ahead and give that a try, and if you have any questions or more comments, please write me at beta@planning.centerThanks!~ Matt
10 seconds back, 30 forward
03/17/2018

SteveinGA

Love PCO. But (you just had to know that was comin’)... I like getting the piano parts right, and getting my fingers used to doing what the guy on the recording is playing. At present, I can take that itsy-bitsy white dot and move it backwards to hear “that part” again. Of course, there’s no real control, and I almost always move it way too far. It would be great to be able to rewind in 10- or 15-second bits, and be able to advance in 30 second bits. That way, I can practice those piano riffs over and over again. Also, would like to see an option to turn on or off sleep mode on the phone or tablet. I never (EVER) remember to turn off sleep mode on my phone. It could be put in as an option that we could set (Disengage Sleep Mode while using Planning Center). Just a couple of thoughts.
Developer Response 03/17/2018
Hi Steve!Thanks for the love and the comment! There's a great feature that iOS has for volume tools, so if you drag the media scrubber up as you move sideways, you're given even more control. The farther up you drag the slower the scrubber moves, allowing for fine control, so you could move just 10 or 15 seconds ahead or behind in that song.The Settings in the app gives you the sleep mode options you were looking for. Go ahead and give that a try, and if you have any questions or more comments, please write me at beta@planning.centerThanks!~ Matt

- The "Notes" tab of the Media Player now also shows your Item Descriptions - Chat improvements

Version 6.7.0

1d ago

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