Planning Center

Avantages

I love how easy it is to access and customize events, registrations, payments, etc. Easy tracking and management. Can sort the registration lists a variety of ways. Can add manual payments and registrations. Can access people information, household information, attendance records, etc. Love it!

Inconvénients

I guess what I like least, is the fact that payments towards an account are split equally for registrants in the same household. Our situation with fundraising is that sometimes one registrant in the household partakes in a fundraiser, while another does not. When I post a manual payment, it posts to the household total due instead of just one registrant or the other. We also sometimes have donations come in for one registrant or the other and I would like to be able to post it to just one of their accounts instead of both.

Avantages

I like how audio can be uploaded and played on the app. Even downloaded. I could listen to songs so I know how to plan using the cameras.

Inconvénients

Sometimes it was hard to find specific things but that could depend on the admins and where they put it and label it

Avantages

I love using Planning center for weekly lessons and materials in kids ministry. I also enjoy being able to access music charts for worship.

Inconvénients

It has been difficult managing multiple profiles with different churches and deleting an "old" or unused account from my profile is not easy.

Avantages

Really like how helpful it was in scheduling volunteers.

Inconvénients

We didn’t use it to its full capacity, so wish there was a “lite” version for cheaper.

Avantages

I have used Planning Center in the past with my church. It's been a helpful database useful with church information. It's helped me do my job more effectively as a church staff member. I would recommend it.

Inconvénients

Some of the features may be daunting at first if you're not familiar with it. It may take some time to get used to it.

Avantages

It is easy to use for scheduling team members for their events and shifts but it has some visual limitations in terms of how much info/data you can see on the screen. It has a great feature of drag-and-drop of team members into slots for teams/events. It also has a great feature for sending out messages and alerts, including reminders for upcoming events that team members are scheduled.

Inconvénients

It has some limitations for what can be displayed on a screen and moving across multiple events is somewhat limited.

Avantages

I am a volunteer at my church that uses Planning Center. I get an email and app notification when I am scheduled to play guitar for my church. I then have the option to "accept" or "decline" the request. You can also add "blockout dates" ahead of time so you cannot even be scheduled for specific dates that you know don't work for your schedule.

Inconvénients

Nothing. I don't like how I can't see every weekend plan and only the ones I am scheduled on. However, that is not a software issue but a limitation by the church allowing what users like myself have access to. So, overall, this software is amazing and doesn't lack anything that you would want.

Avantages

Planning Center is a really well-thought out and user-friendly site that pretty much provides the end user/musician the tools needed to prepare for the upcoming worship dates. I don't handle the administrative side, but the scheduling & reminders is great at keeping you up to date with your commitments. You can block out times you won't be able to play, and easily respond to the emailed notifications for requests to play.

It also does a great job at showing you the teams you would/will be serving with, and the music files & inline music player to practice. I especially like the ability of the music player to continually wrap a song segment for trying to master parts at a time without constantly hitting the back button.

The mobile app also functions nicely when needed instead of the desktop version.

Inconvénients

I really don't have any cons at all. If forced to offer a suggestion, I would say that it would be nice to know that the mobile app files are not repeatedly downloaded when on your mobile data plan. I don't think that shown but I could be wrong.

Avantages

Coming from an environment where planning worship was done manually, Planning Center raises the bar. It’s easy to use, always accessible and information communication is immediate and accessible by all.

Inconvénients

I can’t think of anything I don’t like. Maybe having a chat feature would be nice.

Avantages

If you are looking for an organizational software that centers and focuses event information and communicates with all members in a straight-forward, streamlined manner (via email and text notifications)...this is IT! Planning Center handles all aspects of organizing events, while maintaining contacts and communications in a user-friendly fashion. The multiple contact formats allows users to personalize their OWN experience as well, which definitely decreases frustrations for everyone involved. It receives my highest recommendation!

Inconvénients

Quite honestly, and not sounding trite, there really are no cons with this software that would prevent it from being one of the most viable pieces of planning software you own.

Avantages

Planning center is most useful for planning services that include songs, charts, speaking times, etc. and delegating roles.

Inconvénients

It is difficult to estimate the number of users required ahead of time, so the pay structure is a bit bothersome and when various users (team leaders with edit rights) tried to add new people, they received a message that they'd have to upgrade the number of users. It would be great if there were more email notifications for when a group is close to thresholds, or someway the account administrator could pre-approve increasing the number of people in the system, so when we need to level-up, a team lead could do this rather than having their service planning be interrupted.

Avantages

To me, I like planning center because we have all of our church members stored in here. Basically like a modern church directory. We use this software to organize and plan all of our events.

Inconvénients

Not much complaint here but I would say if anything it could be a little more user friendly for seniors that are trying to register for events.

Avantages

It's easy to schedule people for different teams involved with the service. It lets you load in songs from their bigger server to easily track CCLI licensing and import chord charts for the musicians, as well as noting different arrangements of songs.

Inconvénients

When you enter a song editor mode, it would helpful to have an easy "back" button to get back to the service you were working on.

Avantages

The best thing about this platform is the ability to include audio files and other links right in the plan. This helps volunteers, such as myself, receive ALL of the info needed to be fully prepared for the service before we arrive. By allowing all of the info to be located in one spot, this also helps staff members and schedulers by reducing the amount of calls, emails, & texts they may receive with questions.

Inconvénients

It can be a little difficult to navigate. Especially if you're only having to use it once a month or so. Also, it would be nice if there was option for a little more customization in areas such as sending out a schedule request. However, all in all... this platform has worked well for our church for many years and we will continue to use it!

Avantages

Planning center is great because it coordinates the worship team well. From adding musicians with specific duties, to selecting songs, to sending reminder emails - planning center really meets the mark in coordination without the confusing back and forth emails. It also allows you to select date time frames when you won't be in town so your worship leader will know not to schedule you .

Inconvénients

Sometimes the transition from mobile to desktop leaves something to be desired. Access to certain things on desktop version are very limited on the mobile version. This can be frustrating because you have to switch between one or the other.

Also - song versions are not laid out very well. There are times when multiple song versions get placed in various different pathways and are hard to find. Simplifying the options might help worship leaders to not screw that up

Avantages

I am most familiar with the volunteer scheduling and service planning tool from Planning Center. It's design and user interface is my favorite part of the software. It is incredibly user-friendly and is easy for volunteers to respond via text, in app, or email based on their preferences. Scheduling is pretty clear on the administrative side, although it is most effective for service planning.

Inconvénients

Since the Services software is mainly geared toward service planning, scheduling seems to take a sort of back seat. There is no clear or simple way to create teams, and some of the organizational tools are a little lacking. But, it still does a good job of scheduling clearly, duplicating volunteer assignments, and creating an easy way for volunteers to engage.

Avantages

I have used two other church software systems and needed something simple for my current organization. What I like most is that Planning Center does not require me to set up a server. It is fairly simple and intuitive while allowing some level of customization. It allows you to choose and only pay for the types of functions you need. In fact, in one setting, I have just used the free People module as it allowed me to sync with MailChimp and manage emails to our members.

Inconvénients

The one negative I have run into is it is not as customizable as other software I have used. To be fair, the other software was open source, so someone could even code special features for you. But apart from that, it does not have as many options for how you put in addresses, phone numbers, etc. At least the free version I am using offers a few basic options.

Avantages

This system is great for assigning roles or resources to events. We use this to manage operation at our church as well as volunteers. I find the email reminders helpful and attaching documents to events is quite easy, too.

Inconvénients

I would think that mp3 playback could be improved given that lots of churches use this. In general, i find it to be unreliable and dysfunctional.

Avantages

The mobile app is great and allows users the ability to see what they need, engage with leaders and manage their availability. It integrates with email, SMS and push notifications so messages are sent and read quickly.

Inconvénients

I can't think of anything that's missing or needs improvement. It's solid.

Avantages

Love its versatility and great price for what you get! Love all the functionalities and how you can track and keep a record of meetings, attendance, planning, etc.

Inconvénients

It can be tricky to navigate and learn this software, it takes time to get used to it. I wish it was more user-friendly, maybe a better and simple design to use.

Avantages

For our organization being​ able to move things around in the timeline quickly by just dragging rows is a huge advantage. We do a lot of rounds of revision that makes this feature priceless.

Inconvénients

We have had some issues in the past w/ adding people correctly when they use Planning Center for our organization and another church's or when people have multiple emails​ but a lot of that is part user error.

Avantages

I refer to the order of service a lot for my job and this software is great for seeing how everything is planned. Attaching files for reference is simple, and collaboration between teams is a breeze. I also like how easy it is to use for music rehearsal.

Inconvénients

It's just a little on the complicated side so some of our older users are slow to adopt. I know they're working on this and, in reality, it's pretty simple and easy to use. That's just always going to be an issue with an older user base.

Avantages

I use this regularly because I'm on my church's worship team and our services are planned out using this app. I really like it because I can avoid using email for the most part. It allows me to mark blackout dates where I can't be scheduled and it lets me listen to sample tracks of music that we'll doing. It's an excellent tool to have!

Inconvénients

I'm not the biggest fan of the interface, but they've made incremental changes that have been nice. It's still a bit too convoluted and I think that they could simplify it more.

Avantages

I appreciate being able to see plans and serving requests from our worship leader. I think it's a great tool for him and the church as a whole to organize the services and volunteers. I mostly use the app which is pretty easy to use but the website is far easier.

Inconvénients

The app is layed out a bit oddly and isn't the most functional- specifically viewing lists of teams and trying to go between teams or dates, there isn't an easy way to go back or get back to where you were before. Also, trying to listen to the music we are supposed to learn isn't the easiest to work with - often the controls for the music aren't viewable on the screen and sometimes it just plays the music without being able to stop/control it.

Avantages

It eliminates all our emails, messages, texts, etc, and keeps everything in one place! I also love that it creates a really clean flow for our service. As a musician, it makes it easy to add any resources we need for our rehearsal. Adding youtube videos and charts makes practice go smoothly. It's also nice to see who has confirmed.

Inconvénients

I haven't tried, but I don't know if there are any notifications directly related to the software. I do get a lot of emails as reminders, and that can be a little annoying.