Planning Center

Avantages

We are a bilingual congregation. So, ease of use and implementation are key for our team. We need to train, build, and use the application in our bilingual environment.

Inconvénients

File management is a challenge. There is no easy way to log into Planning Center and delete multiple, old files in the system.

Avantages

The organized convenience of having almost every form of information about church members using features like groups, checkin, registrations, services, etc. is highly valuable. I do enjoy the customization opportunities to use specific church language, as well as the ability to use other supported platforms in combination.

Inconvénients

I don't enjoy the updated group chat feature as much as I did the functionality of it before.

Avantages

the wireless printing of the name tags/mobile check in

Inconvénients

probably tech support. hard to get answer rt away

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Planning Center 

Pourquoi passer à Planning Center

Avantages

It is comprehensive. It incorporates people management, giving, attendance, events, calendar, facilities, everything into one platform that works together.

Inconvénients

There are times where Planning Center Services is not as user friendly as I would like.

Avantages

Ability to integrate several modules together.

Inconvénients

The services module is not very kids ministry friendly.

Avantages

Planning center is always adapting and changing to needs of the client. They take input very well and help problem solve when needed. Their customer service is incredible.

Inconvénients

There really isn’t anything that I or any of my colleagues dislike about planning center. Typically if there’s an issue, it’s easily resolved by a call to customer service.

Avantages

The volunteer and crew scheduling piece is great! I also really like creating run of shows or order of service on planning center.

Inconvénients

It’s great for crew management and run of show building but now so much client management.

Avantages

The name tags that we use for church each week when people check in makes it easier to greet and get to know others.

Inconvénients

The cost is a little high. And the worship planning platform is really confusing and cumbersome. Integration with constant contact would be great!

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Planning Center

Avantages

Anyone from anywhere can be a part of the service planning and others on the team can view it in real time!

Inconvénients

Sometimes the navigation gets a littel cumbersome and it's hard to find exactly what you are looking for

Avantages

It makes communicating with my volunteers so much easier.

Inconvénients

The price is too much for what it offers in my opinion.

Avantages

Planning center provides a foundation to manage your church. Its a go to platform that allows to approach and manage every aspect all from one software. That's my favorite part, the fact our whole church can be managed from one program.

Inconvénients

I do think planning center can continue to update it's email system. Though Mailchimp is a great integration, the lack of customizing email templates and list can be updated.

Avantages

I like how it is versatile and allows us to plug in other services that help us navigate our business efficiently.

Inconvénients

I wish we could have access to a live person quickly if assistance with the program is needed.

Avantages

The Services product is incredible. We could not imagine better.. after getting it setup that is. The reporting you can do is incredible.

Inconvénients

The giving isn't great and the integrations leave something to be desired. We really wish they would build an actual robust email software so we could stop paying squarespace for this.

Avantages

I think it's most amazing to make church-related work easy because all the functions are gathered in one place. I'm satisfied with being able to communicate with the songs and lyrics, all the other volunteers, and plan church-related work without difficulty. Also, I was able to easily manage the relevant information of the people.

Inconvénients

There is no cons, everything is good so far.

Avantages

Ease of use, total integration, modular and scaled pricing, complete overhaul of traditional record keeping

Inconvénients

The only con I can think of is that their servers are often bogged down on Sunday mornings, so make sure you have all your ducks in a row before the weekend! haha

Avantages

Our ministry has been around for some time, but now that we have the capacity to hire staff, we also have the capacity to upgrade our data management. We were already using Planning Center for donor management, but can now use Check-Ins for tracking guests, and Services for a Volunteer Scheduler. It’s been great that this database for churches has worked so well for our nonprofit as well!

Inconvénients

Takes some time to really learn, but thankfully there are tons of videos and a great customer service team. Would love to see a space where you could Test your Event, etc. before it becomes live and you have to make changes.

Avantages

We utilize the services app for managing peoples schedules and Sunday morning flow of service. It makes it a breeze and is such a huge help with saving time for scheduling and also planning ahead to know how to properly plan!

Inconvénients

I love everything about planning center. It was such a breeze setting up all of the volunteers at our church. And now they love using the app as well!

Avantages

The design, the backend ease of accessibility, the layout. The ease of use for both users and administrators, the amount of features that could be used each week, and also the ability to store files and songs into it.

Inconvénients

It was a bit pricey, and also the financial organizing side wasn't ideal. When it came to service flow layout, it seemed a bit awkward looking, like the agenda needed to be updated to streamline and match the rest of the platform.

Avantages

I use Planning Center weekly and would not want to use anything else

Inconvénients

Never had any issues with it, it is always getting better and better

Avantages

I can easily see when and where I am scheduled to volunteer.

Inconvénients

I haven't run into anything that I don't like as of yet.

Avantages

Great for keeping up with volunteers and planning for services

Inconvénients

found nothing i did not like about the service

Avantages

One thing I like is how easy it is to donate and use overall.

Inconvénients

I don't have anything I don't like about Planning Center.

Avantages

I frequently used Capterra as a platform to help me choose which software to buy. The platform itself is simple to use, and the sign-up process is straightforward. They do offer a good incentive program whereby they give gift cards to reviewers for each review that is accepted.

Avantages

The things that Planning Center does well, it does very well. It always delivers notifications and I feel that it is reliable. Every single time that one of the people on my team have had an issue with the software, it was incredibly simple to resolve, and usually was a case of user preferences that needed adjustments. For the majority of the people that benefit from the software, the experience is seamless and professional. Due to the fact that most of the people who use Planning Center are not directly paying for the software, it has set itself apart as the crown of church planning resources. It is certainly my first suggestion to new worship pastors or churches that are trying to become organized.
The fact that it can take care of so many different church needs from one platform is also worth mentioning. My church uses another system for online giving, but it is comparable to what Planning Center offers. We are in the process of transitioning all of our check-in systems to Planning Center and it is significantly cheaper and easier to use than ANYTHING else on the market right now.

Inconvénients

My experience with Planning Center is not limited to, but mostly within the realm of "Services" so that is where I will spend most of my time. Before that, however, I will mention that while I know of a number of people who enjoy the "Music Stand" app, Planning Center does not offer the best deal for the service. Apps like Onsong, while expensive up-front, are not a monthly expense and allow for many file types and importing formats, including the ability to download the music straight from "Services." This allows for some freedom in set design and application as many of my musicians are playing during the week and not at the church. If they could pay once for "Music Stand" and also import the secular music into their setlists, they would use the app outside of a Sunday morning context.
Now for the interface. One of the best tools in "Services" is the REPORTS section. And while I love the way it looks now, it has lost a lot of versatility. It is difficult to select the date for the reports, not to mention, hard to find the reports to begin with. Now, if I want to find songs from last Christmas, I really have to hunt to find the reports, find the right drop-down bar, and select "custom" on the display. Why not keep the custom option in the bar to begin with, and have the presets in the drop down bar? There is just a lot of unused real estate on that particular page, and I have spent too much time trying to relearn something that wasn't much easier in the last edition.

Avantages

Planning Center offers a robust set of applications that help create a comprehensive church management platform. Combining the useful features of PC People (such as workflows, forms, database management, etc) with their Service management system (Services), Group management system (Groups), Calendar application (Calendar), Attendance tracking systems (Check-ins), Giving platform (Giving) and event registration platform (Registrations) creates a very robust set of tools that help make church management easy. Paired with the Church Center app (provided with PC People), you also gain access to a consumer facing application where church members can join groups, register for events, give, and even check-in their kids - all from one central hub.

All of these separate platforms have their individual strengths, but overall combined they form an integrated church management solution that offers useful features and well-designed software that is constantly improving based on the feedback of their customers.

Inconvénients

Planning Center is a platform that is constantly growing, which of course means that there are always areas of improvement. The beauty of PC is that they are constantly monitoring what is missing, and working on improving in those areas - so anything I list here really are minor issues that will likely be addressed in the near future.

Two crucial things that they are missing are a few back-end admin tools, such as a robust security options (such as 2FA) and a simple user management interface. Currently, there is no way to enforce password security for PC users with access to people's personal information, nor is there a way to require (or even implement) 2FA. On top of this, managing people's access levels to different planning center applications cannot be managed from a simple back end admin location - rather to add (or remove) permissions you need to manually visit each separate application, access the users profile, and add/remove the permissions on an application-by-application basis.

All this are mere annoyances regarding security, and are things that I believe will be addressed in PC's feature roadmap