*This is an outdated blog post and the information here may not be current. To read more about our recent product and company updates, please visit https://www.planningcenter.com/blog.
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 can 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 different 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!
