Hello PCO users! We have yet another exciting release for you and it’s just in time for the Holidays (Happy Thanksgiving, by the way!). Here are a few things we’ve added:
Recurring Block-Out Dates:
Yes, we know this has been a long time comin’. But it’s finally here! You are now able to block out a recurring date. So for all of you that say every 3rd Sunday of the month, you’re unavailable, it’s now just a few clicks instead of about 50.
When you enter the date you need blocked off, you have an option to select if it’s repeated or not. Once you click on the blue drop-down under Repeat, you can tell it to repeat every week or every month. Then you will have the option to indicate if you want it blocked out forever, or just until a specific time. So if I needed every Tuesday blocked out for the next 2 months, I could indicate that in one dialog box and be on my way!
Online Manual:
This has been my project for the last few months, and it’s by no means complete. But, we do have a BETA form of an online manual ready for everyone to take a look at! Our goal is to have every feature of the site covered in this manual, to give examples of how accounts are set up, and to basically answer your questions without you having to take the time to email or call us. On the right, you’ll see the Tags area which provides categories of lessons that you can ea
sily get to. Here’s the link to the online manual, and please feel free to let us know what you think or any lessons that you’d like to see in the future!
Subscription to Community Songs and Media Pages:
If you’ve ever been curious about what others are writing on the Community pages, you can now subscribe to all comments that are made. To do so, go to each page (Community Songs and Community Media, whichever you prefer), then click the link at the bottom left as shown in the picture below. If you’ve subscribed and you want to unsubscribe, you can click on the same place to un
subscribe.
We hope everyone has an excellent Thanksgiving! You can expect to hear from us again soon, as we are continually working to improve PCO. Thanks for your continued support and feedback!
Thanks,
Katie Willard
Barry Westman said
Thanks, Katie!
This will help a lot!
Barry Westman
Marisa said
I really like the idea of the manual and recurring block out dates. This will help our group a lot. Thanks PCO!
Scott Nelson said
Great job!
T_Man said
Reoccuring Block Out Dates……Excellent Addition!!! It great that you all actually listen to the user requests!
Daniel Rivera said
a great addition to already powerful tool!
Ryan said
Nice! Good work on the new features. It would be really awesome if we could assign/attach a rehearsal date/time/location to each plan in addition to the charts and mp3’s that are already under the “rehearsal” heading… And then have it display somewhere prominent on each individual plan page and in the matrix. That would really help for worship teams in a large-church setting where things and people change all the time… Possible? Again, nice work so far. PCO is GREAT.
katiewillard said
@ Ryan Sorry this isn’t possible, but I’ll add it to our list of suggestions!
Mark Chase said
Thanks for the online manual! As one new to planning center I look forward to discovering other new possibilities that I haven’t tapped into yet.
I would echo the last remark about the need for rehearsal enhancements. It would be nice to have a rehearsal schedule imbedded somewhere in each plan that enabled you to lay out the rehearsal evening for all of my CORE leaders in charge of brining in various music groups to insert into the rehearsal at different times and also the tech guys to be apprised. For instance, my band starts at 5:50, often the orchestra then comes in at 7:15 and then the choir at 7:30, on various weeks the kids choir comes in at 7:00, etc. etc. But it’s never the same every week, so this would help everyone always know where to go to find out what’s happening at that Wedenesday night rehearsal and be a one time communication for me to everyone. Maybe there is already a place to do this and I haven’t found it yet. I figure right now it could be handled by a separate word doc attachment thrown on the plan somewhere. But more intentionally integrated would be nice.
It would also be nice to have the CCLI lyrics of songs when available just automatically appear with the songs for those who are licensed and have song select.
This tool is really uniting our worship ministries in a fantastic way! I can’t believe I haven’t discovered it until this year. Thanks PCO!
Cindy Meyers said
Thank you so much for ALL you do to make my job so much easier! Love the online manual!
Cindy
vickie said
YOU ROCK! LOVE THIS CHANGE!
paul said
geni-i (multiple genius). thanks for the recurring block dates… pretty foundational
Todd Nichols said
Once again, you guys are knockin’ out of the park! Thanks for making my life a little easier as a multi tasking worship pastor!
Todd
Mike Haight said
Thanks for all your work. I love PCO! Have you thought of adding a collaborative feature to the site? I’m thinking of a feature where a church’s creative team can share files and ideas, follow and comment on discussion threads, etc. I know this would be helpful for my creative team. It would expedite the creative process outside of our weekly meetings and give us a central forum to follow up on ideas discussed when we’re together. I think this would also be beneficial for those creative teams who may not all be church staff… people could participate in the planning from any place with an internet connection. We have tried other applications to accomplish this, but I would love to have all our planning and collaborative tools all on one site.
Tom Worthley said
Excellent job! …..as always. You guys are a class act.
Paco said
Thank you! Recurring block out dates is an excellent addition! Very much appreciated! Your heart for service and care for the user is quite evident.
Catherine Vicks said
Glad that you added the recurring block dates! I have volunteers that their “work” schedules are set up that the “3rd Sunday” of each month they aren’t available, and with so many volunteers it’s hard to remember everyone’s schedule! This will really help!