Last week was an exciting week for us as we got to travel to Phoenix, AZ and participate in the Worship Resource & Education Conference. While we were there we were able to meet some great people! We also were able to announce a new product coming out. So with that, we've got a lot to cover, so here is the update:

Announcing Planning Center LIVE

Planning Center LIVE is a new product that will add on to Planning Center and will allow you to go through your plans in REAL TIME. This allows you to step through your services item by item as they are happening and see all of the notes associated with each item. As you click through, it remembers the exact time of each item so that when you go back to the plan, you will be able to review your services.

The coolest part about this is that other people can watch your plan and view where you are in your plan at all times. This helps to keep all of your technical and non-technical staff and volunteers on the same page throughout the whole service.

There is also a chat along the side that will allow you to communicate with anyone else who is logged into your plan. And all of this communication is saved so you can pull it up when you review your service.

This product entered BETA last week and we will be adding other churches into the beta as we are able to get all of the software acting exactly as we expect it to. If you would like to help beta test this product please .

Because of how server intensive this application is, it will need to be an add-on to your existing plans, but we have not decided what the price-point will be. We expect Planning Center LIVE to be available to the public in October, 2006.

Free Online 30-Minute Training

We will now be offering a free 30 minute online training session for all paying accounts (even those in their free 30-day trial period). Each training session will consist of a 20-minute walk through followed by a 10 minute Q&A time. All you will have to pay for is the long distance call to the 218 area code (That's Minnesota). The first scheduled training sessions are:

  • Monday, August 21 at 1:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. PST

  • Friday, August 25 at 1:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. PST

  • Monday, August 28 at 1:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. PST

  • Friday, September 1st at 1:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. PST

We know that these times might not work for everyone. If they don't work for you please and we will try to make our next round of training sessions work better for your schedule.

If you and two other people from your team would like to attend one of these training sessions, please with which time you would like to be included. We have a maximum of 9 spots open for each training session, so quickly. We will take reservations on a first-come first-serve basis.

Add Multiple People At Once

Ever wish you could add several people to your plan all at once? No Problem, now you can! First click "Schedule A Person" on one of your plans, then click "Click here to browse your people". Once you are there you will need to filter the people down by using your custom properties. After you have done that, you will see a new button called "Add All To Plan". This will take you to the final screen where you can verify everyone you are going to schedule.

Down To The Second

There are a couple of nice changes to Plan Items. The first is the ability to schedule your items down to the second. The second is that now you can also see how many notes and attachments are on each item without having to open up each one.

Printing Enhancements

We have also made a couple different printing enhancements. First off, we have changed the formatting of all pages. When you go to print the page it will look much better than it did previously.

Second, as many of you have already found, we have added Print Options when you go to "Print A Plan". This allows you to print exactly what you need on each plan, and it remembers your options the next time you print.

I'm excited for you to use these new features and look forward to serving you as you plan your worship services.

In Him,

Jeff Berg Developer/Owner Ministry Centered Technologies