Ask not what you can do for Planning Center Online, ask what Planning Center Online can do for you. And in this case, we’ve blown the doors off! We have released a new Media page- on your normal Planning Center site, and then also on our Community Media page. It’s slick, easy, and integrates with Worship House Media. There are three major things that have changed or been added, and below I address each one. 
Incorporation of Media into PCO: If you have videos that you think would be useful for your staff/volunteers to see on PCO, you can now easily upload them. We will even process them for you, create thumbnails, and make them streamable. Editors and Administrators will now see a ‘Media’ tab, along with the Plans, Songs, and People tabs (yes, we are definitely branching out aren’t we?). You will just click on ‘add a media’, enter the information, and then you ca
n just upload it like you would with a song. It will display so nice and pretty as well!
Now, we realize that this is probably going to cause many of you to need more file space (media takes up a lot of space). We are working on putting together some new options to where you could pay for extra GB’s of space. So look for that to come in a mini-update in the future. Also something to note is that the maximum size for a single file has been changed from 150MB to 1GB.
Community Media Page: Recently we added the Community
Songs page, and we are equally excited about adding this Community Media page. You will have direct access to the Worship House Media catalog, where you can browse and add any of their media to your own PCO account’s library. And if you decide you want to use it someday, you can purchase the media then use it how you’d like. This page is slick and nice- and as a side note, we do have plans in the future to add more providers along with Worship House Media. Exciting stuff!
Plan Item Dialog Changing: The Editing Item dialog box looks d
ifferent now, since we needed to make room for any media that may be indicated. Mostly everything is just moved around, but still present. The notes are near the bottom now, and on the right, you can add media to that item or song if you want to. There’s also an option to click on ‘add a media’ under the drop-down option for add an item.
If your item has a song attached, it will still be blue in your service flow, even if it has media attached as well. If, however, your item has media attached (and no song), it will be green so that you can easily differentiate between regular items (black), songs (blue) and media (green). Only dramas, countdowns, song videos & regular videos will make the item a media item; background videos & images don’t make an item a media item unless the title of the item is the same as the title of your media.
Miscellaneous: We’ve redesigned the expanded plan item view which previously showed item notes and attachments, and now includes a section for media thumbnails and adds any media attachments to the bottom of the attachments list. In addition, we’ve added video capabilities to the mp3 player.
Tutorial Video: To help you get acquainted with the new features we have also published a new tutorial video which I want thank Aaron for staying up until 4:30am last night doing this. He went above and beyond the call of duty.
Conference Season is here!
We have already been to Catalyst West Coast & the Willow Creek Arts Conference and had a great time!! It is awesome to meet you guys and hear your excitement & ideas for Planning Center Online. We have a few more conferences this year and we hope to see more of you. Next week we are at the Saddleback Worship Arts Conference and then the National Worship Leader Conference & Echo Church Media Conference in July. If you go to any of these conferences please stop by our booth and visit us!
Quick Links Change: We have moved Quick Links from the left sidebar to underneath the Plans tab. When you hover over Plans, you will see the Recently Viewed Plans at the top (if applicable), then all the Quick Links for that same day below.
Hey everyone! We have an update to share with you that will enhance your experience in using Planning Center! We’ve been working on revamping the mp3 player that looked a little outdated, to say the least. We realized it didn’t match the rest of our site! So we have a new and improved mp3 “look”. Let us know what you think, and enjoy!
The first is that from now on, when you hover over the Plans tab, you will see a list of the most recent plans you have accessed. This will make accessing your plans easier and more intuitive! Just hold your mouse over the Plans tab, and it will list the last few plans you were working in or viewing.
The next feature is an area on your plans page that allows you to enable public viewing. Here you can copy the link of that plan and send it to those who don’t have access to your account so they can view your basic service flow! You will even have the capability to easily post this link on a blog of your own.
The last and final feature is on the properties page. Categories are now divided into sections: People Categories, Plan Notes Categories, and Item Notes Categories. This will be easier for those of you using a lot of notes and categories. This also means that when you click on a category, you won’t need to choose the category type anymore, since they are already divided right on the page.
In addition to our new features, you’ll notice that when you sign in, the information in the upper right corner (name, logout, etc.) will look different. It will have your picture and anything you may need to click on that was in the upper right corner before. Just a clearer, sharper look to the page!