Good communication is key to building a strong worship team. You can cultivate relationships while ensuring everyone has what they need to successfully prep for your services.
That's why we're thrilled to release our newest feature—chat—right into the Services mobile app!
Now you can coordinate all the service details with your team—and have fun while doing it!
No more juggling emails, group texts, and multiple apps to ensure your whole team is aligned. Chat will simplify your communication in one convenient place—the Services mobile app.
Here’s how it works!
How do you start chatting with your team?
Getting started with chat is easy!
If you have Scheduler permissions, just tap the new chat icon at the top of your Services mobile app and voilà!
What can you do with chat?
Chat helps you . . . chat, of course. 😆 But how and with what fun features?
Once you’ve tapped the chat icon you can:
- See all the chats you’re already in
- Start a new conversation with any of the teams you’re leading, like the contemporary service, midweek service, or youth band
- Filter your teams by service plans to chat with only those scheduled people
- Emoji react to messages
- Send images and GIFs
The really cool part about chatting with your teams? Team members are dynamically added or removed from conversations as availability changes!
So if your original bass player suddenly declines, your newly scheduled bass player is automatically added to the chat conversation.
All of your chat conversations stay in sync. No more outdated group threads or irrelevant messages!
Chat for Team Leaders
If you’re a team leader with Scheduler permissions or higher in Services, you can start a new conversation!
Once you've invited your scheduled team members to a conversation, they’ll see the chat icon in their Service app and automatically be included in the chat—there’s nothing extra they need to do. They’ll get a push notification, too!
Some Notes on Safety and Privacy
Here are some additional details to keep in mind as you get started with chat.
- We take data and security very seriously, so anyone under 13 can’t be added to a chat conversation
- As a team leader, you can edit or delete your own messages and anyone else’s
- Anyone can mute specific chat conversations to get a break from notifications
- If you’re involved with music across multiple churches and have more than one Planning Center account, you’ll get chat notifications from all of them
Chat for Services mobile is currently in beta as we’re polishing things up, but we’re just getting started.
Soon, chat will be available for the whole Planning Center system.
Until then, get chatty!
💚 The Services Team