Welcome to Service Planning. This video will focus on getting your account set up and customized. And the first place to start is your user profile. From any screen in Service Planning, find your user profile by clicking the profile image in the upper right hand corner and selecting My Account. The user profile page will show personal and contact information and allows for adding or editing by clicking Edit This Info. From this page, add personal and contact information and select whether this should be visible or hidden.
This page also allows adding a profile picture to be displayed in the upper right hand corner when using Service Planning and shown on the people list to anyone creating a team or scheduling an event. When done updating information, click Save. The user profile will also show to which teams this record is currently assigned, allows choosing personal communication settings, and adding new methods of communication, as well as changing your password, opting in or out of getting emails when there is an update to Service Planning, and verifying whether you are logged in to Service Planning on any other computers.
Next, updating the organization information will ensure the organization is set up correctly. To access organization info, click on the gear icon in the top right corner and select Organization Info. Then, click Edit.
This page allows adding information specific to the organization, like address, phone number, the organization's website, average weekly attendance, CCLI license number, and you can even select what your stage looks like. When done, click Save. If the organization has more than one location or campus, these can also be managed in Service Planning.
To add or edit locations, first click the gear icon, then Locations, and finally click Add a Location. Type the name of the new location and any description that is necessary. Then, click Add. For existing locations, click the Edit icon for that location to change the description, add an icon, or upload any necessary files. Click Submit Changes to save your work. For a quick glance at events and rehearsals scheduled for a specific location, click the Information I icon.
Thirdly, Account Settings, which allow for setting more specific details for your service planning experience. Click the gear icon, Account Settings, then click Edit. Here, you can enable an optional message board and decide who can post on it, set the default Bible version for the organization, enable the Spotify integration, and more. When done editing these account settings, click Save.
Service Planning has many easy-to-use integration features that help with accessing the data you already have, whether pulling in an already existing song library or accessing all the staff and volunteers already loaded into your church management software. To set up an integration, click the gear icon and select Integrations. First is an integration with Song Select by CCLI. Click on Integrate, and the program will open a new tab to take you to log in to CCLI and create the connection.
Next, connect to the organization's CHMS program. Connecting to a church management system will allow for sharing information from the management software into service planning seamlessly. If you are using Ministry Brands Amplify, the integration with Amplify People is automatic. If you are connecting with another Ministry Brands CHMS, a best practice is to choose a specific group to sync, but this can be skipped initially. If the organization is moving into the program from Planning Center, a sync exists that allows for easy import of song and user data into service planning. Finally, service planning provides user-specific credentials to use with the Proclaim presentation software on the Integration Credentials tab. If changes occur over time, make sure to come back to this page to remove or update integrations.
Connecting and using the Availability Calendar in service planning will not only help users stay organized, but it will help planners know when volunteers are and are not available to serve. The calendar is located on the My Schedule page of service planning on the right side of the screen. Any day that already has a scheduled event will be noted with a green check. Quickly add new events to any date by clicking on the date in the calendar, then Add an Event. This will open the Editing Event Details page, which will be covered in more detail in a future video.
To make planners aware that you are unavailable to serve on a certain date, select that date on the calendar and select Mark as Unavailable. Also, select days where you would prefer to serve in the same way by clicking Prefer This Day. To never miss a calendar notification from service planning, connect the calendar feed to your preferred calendar application with the Calendar Feed button at the bottom of the calendar. Choose whether the calendar should contain all events or only personal assignments.
Updated