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

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

The extent of features when it comes to organizing and scheduling teams is fantastic. I find it very helpful that Planning Center tells me how long it has been since a particular volunteer has been scheduled, regardless of what role they were serving. Additionally, the level of functionality on the side of the volunteer is great. They can add blackout dates and respond to serving requests directly within an email.

Inconvénients

At times, the menus can be a little clunky, and I find myself having to hunt for specific features. Planning Center's help section is fairly comprehensive though, so this usually fixes the issue for me.

Avantages

It is very easy to use and functional for all of the needs we have.

Inconvénients

There really isn't anything that I like the least about it.

Avantages

It makes communicating with my volunteers so much easier.

Inconvénients

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

Avantages

When we switched from our previous software to Planning Center, I worked with our staff to see how it was going. The responses I got were always akin to "well, it is frustrating learning a new system...but this is better than what we were on." Basically, in one or two days our staff was less frustrated with Planning Center than they were continually with a system we had been on for three years. As we've been on it longer, the frustrations have decreased and the benefit to our church has increased. Moving to Planning Center has been the best organizational choice we've made in a long time.

Oh, and it is about $100 (33%) cheaper each month. And that's on month-to-month vs an annual contract with the old guys. And when our online giving agreement runs out and we switch the Planning Center giving, we'll save another $200 or so a month. And their support is incredible, typically responding within an hour (vs 2 business days on the old platform).

Inconvénients

To my understanding, Planning Center set out to make a great stand alone tool for Check Ins, a great tool for Registrations, a great tool for Giving, etc...to do this, they set up separate development teams for each module.

I understand this, having worked with some tools that started as a great online director or great giving tool or great event tool and tried to expand to do much more. The result is often complicated bloat.

I do think Planning Center's model largely avoided this because each thing has to stand on its own. In my estimation, I'd like to see some tweaks to certain modules, but overall each of them accomplishes what I need.

The one drawback to this, though, is that the tools don't integrate quite as tightly as I'd like. Everything talks back to their People module, but sometimes it would be good to have them talk to each other a little more. E.g., when we set up an event in Check In, we also have to go into the Calendar module to set up the event to request the room. This can be a bit of a hassle.

To be fair, it does seem like they are moving in this direction with new features, so hopefully their biggest weakness (to me) will continue to shrink!

But, again...this is minor compared to the frustrations I've had with other systems. I've been on ones that I hated even logging into because I knew I was going to get mad. I genuinely like using Planning Center.

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

We love how easy it is to add people to the program, how intuitive it is to create services plans and items and adding people into various positions, and we love how you can upload the music and chord charts for each song so that volunteers can easily rehearse and practice on their own!

Inconvénients

It is a little more on the expensive end of the market; however the features they include mostly off set this. We also wish it could do more.

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

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

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 love how it allows me to organize my church and quickly access information

Inconvénients

I think it can add more items that would be reduced cost, especially to a small church

Avantages

Definitely a believer in planning center. My go to for worship sets, teams and planning.

Inconvénients

No complaints here. Would definitely recommend to all.

Avantages

I like how easy it is to set up music for each service!

Inconvénients

I don’t like that I have to pay more to have 2 services set up.

Avantages

Ease of use for all the applications and all the functionality.

Inconvénients

Getting phone support quicker however they still have great support via email and phone support if you wait.

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

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.