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Category Archives: worshipplanning.com

Official Launch of Version 5.0

WorshipPlanning.com Home PageIt’s a big day that has been a long time coming.
WorshipPlanning.com version 5.0 is finally live!  Whether your a current subscriber or not, you’ll notice our new snazzy “exterior” pages the moment you go to WorshipPlanning.com.  We’ve got lots of easy-to-find details about what WorshipPlanning.com has to offer, and a very informative 3 minute video that shows version 5.0 in action.

So, what does it mean that version 5.0 is now live?  Check out the questions and answers we imagine you might have:

Q: What is the major change with version 5.0?
A: Other than enhancements to the style of the site, we focused the majority of our efforts on the worship flow page.  This page hasn’t really been updated in years, and it is far-and-away the most used page on the site.  We wanted to make it both easier to use and more flexible.  This video gives you a nice overview of the new worship flow page.

worship flow screenshot

Q: Does this update cost anything?
A: There is no additional charge for this update.

Q: I was already using version 5.0.  What does this mean for me?
A: For several months, version 5.0 has been available in a “beta” for those that wanted to try it before the official rollout.  We are so very grateful for the thousands of users that tried the beta version, many of whom provide excellent feedback (thank you!!!).  Along with the official launch today, we have deployed several updates as a result of the most recent feedback provided.  Other than that, you probably won’t notice any other visual changes.  If you are looking closely, you might notice that the “beta.worshipplanning.com” web address is gone.  Instead, you should just see the regular “worshipplanning.com” address.

Q: I’m not ready to change to version 5.0 yet.  Can I stay with the old version?
A: Yes, for now.  Our goal is to make version 5.0 something that you want to upgrade to.  If you have tried version 5.0 and found things didn’t work the way you wanted, please reach out to us and let us know (if you haven’t already).  If you tried it and didn’t understand how it worked, the new video tutorial we’ve recently published should answer any questions you have about the worship flow.

If you had trouble understanding any other parts of the site, please let us know via the support center.  Eventually, we will be retiring the older version of WorshipPlanning.com because it is expensive to maintain two different versions.  The timeframe for retiring is not yet defined, but it seems like this summer is an excellent time to update on your own.

Q: If I updated to version 5.0, can I go back to the old version?
A: During the beta testing phase, it was possible to change back to the old version if desired, though it might interest you to know that well over 90% of those that tried the new version have stayed with it.  Now that version 5.0 has been officially rolled out, churches will not be able to go back to the older version.  If it is an emergency and you need to switch back, you can reach out to our support team where they have a hard time saying “no” to anything, and they might be able to help you out.

Q: If I sign up for WorshipPlanning.com today, which version will I be on?
A: Starting today, any new church that signs up for WorshipPlanning.com will automatically have version 5.0 enabled.  And as per the previous question, there will not be an option for them to revert to the older version of WP.

We hope you are as excited as we are about the release of WorshipPlanning.com 5.0!

Introducing…WorshipPlanning.com Version 5.0

WorshipPlanning.com V5.0

The long-awaited update to WorshipPlanning.com has launched in “beta” version for anyone with a WorshipPlanning.com account.  So, what’s new in version 5.0?  Aside from updating the look and feel of the entire site, we focused our efforts on making the worship flow page easier and more flexible.  Here’s a brief list followed by a 2 minute video to show you many of the features in action.

Worship Flow Updates:

  • Add elements, songs, people and files to worship flow by drag and drop
  • In-line editing of all worship flow details
  • Down-to-the-second timing for elements
  • Set list view (hides timing details)
  • Add songs directly from SongSelect‘s database (SongSelect(tm) account required).
  • Unlimited person/role specific notes

This update is free for all WorshipPlanning.com accounts.  To get early access to these awesome features and help us beta test, follow the brief instructions on our support site.

Thank You For Voting For Us!

Editors PickReaders Choice

Here at WorshipPlanning.com we are dedicated to providing you a top-notch resource for your church’s planning needs. So, we are thrilled to be recognized in this year’s Best of the Best issue of Worship Leader Magazine!

We were honored with Editor’s Pick AND Readers’ Choice Awards, under the category of Planning Resources. So, thank you for voting for us! And, thank you Worship Leader Magazine for the recognition!

We are looking forward to unveiling more new features and updates soon! Stay tuned!

If you are not yet using WorshipPlanning.com, we invite you to give it a try for 30 days absolutely FREE!

New Updates – Song Mapping and Improved Text Notifications

We’ve update worshipplanning.com to include a new feature that we know many of you worship leaders will love:


ordering in song librarySong Mapping

This new tool allows you to easily map out the order of choruses, verses, intros, bridges, and more.  Each song can have a “default” mapping that is defined in your song library, and then it can be easily changed in the worship flow.

The mapping you set for a particular worship service is accessible by your team members via MyWP and many of the worship flow print options.

We’ve also create a brief video tutorial on how to use this feature.  You can view it here:
http://www.screencast.com/t/GZzI66VJK7xH

Improved Text Message Notifications

Text notifications from WorshipPlanning.com is nothing new (here’s how to do it if you didn’t know).  But in the past WorshipPlanning.com sent text messages using email-to-text gateways run by cell phone carriers.  And not all carriers were consistent about messages being delivered when sent this way (especially carriers in Europe and Australia).

With this update to WorshipPlanning.com, we’ve begun using an SMS expert service call Twilio.  If you already have text notifications set up and working for your account, you shouldn’t have to do anything for this new SMS service to start working.  But if it has not worked for you before, try re-setting up your text notifications in WP and it should work a whole lot better.

Privacy Info Defaulting to “Most Private” 

When creating a new Helper or Planner account, the default setting for “Contact Info Privacy” has been changed from “Visible to all helpers at my church” to “Hidden from all helpers”.  This setting has always been accessible to Planners creating the account and the person whose account was created.  But in the age of increased privacy concerns, it makes more sense to default it to the most private setting.

By the way, accounts that were already set up were not modified with this update.

Exporting 

The tool used to export worship flow to Word and Excel has been updated to work better with Mac OSX based computers.

Turn WorshipPlanning.com into a Desktop App

The below is a great post by one of our awesome users – Chad Smith!
Chad is Worship & Media Pastor of Bethany Church, a multi-site church with 4 campuses in Northern NJ. You can find out more about them at www.bethanychurch.tv and www.facebook.com/BethanyRecords

If your worship ministry is anything like mine, you spend a great deal of time on WorshipPlanning.com. With multiple campuses, teams, & services it seems I’m visiting WP dozens of times a day for various reasons. It’s not hard to imagine that for many of us, it stays open as a tab in our browser pretty much all day long.

But with several open tabs, covering several sites, and needing to access the site so often, WP can sometimes get lost in the browser white-noise. Further, with features that work more like an app than a website, it would be great if the features of WP could be accessed like a stand alone app.

That’s where Fluid comes in (Mac OSX only). Fluid allows you take WorshipPlanning.com )or any other web application) and essentially turn it into a native desktop app.

Here’s how easy: Enter the site URL (www.worshipplanning.com), give it a name, and finally give it THIS WP icon. Click “Create” and, faster than Chris Tomlin can sing a high G, you’re done.

Using Fluid to create a WP app

You can place the new WorshipPlanning app in the dock and it’s ready at hand when ever you need it. No more sifting through browser windows, tabs or even separate desktop screens.

One benefit I didn’t expect: I use WP on my laptop a great deal and with the limited screen real estate, I cherish every pixel I can give to my apps. WP running as a Fluid app gives me back all of the browser toolbar real estate I don’t need for WP so I see more names, services, etc in my templates or in my workflow than as a web app within the browser.

WINDOWS users: I’m told you can use Google’s Chrome to do the same (But I have no way to verify this…let us know in the comments!). Here’s how: with WorshipPlanning.com open in Chrome, click the Wrench or Settings at top right of the browser window, then Tools->Create application shortcuts… (NOTE: This feature seems to be missing from the OSX version of Chrome).

Huge thanks to Chad for writing this helpful “tips & tricks” instruction post!!

New Version 4.3 – File Access Reports and Remembering Notification Messages

WorshipPlanning.com Logo v4.3.0

This version of WP brought a couple of features that will not only save you time with your scheduling process, but it will also help you get an idea who is coming to rehearsal prepared!

File Access Reporting

WP is now keeping track of who is accessing files you have uploaded.  This is important for two main reasons:

CCLI Rehearsal License Reporting

If you have a CCLI Rehearsal License, you are required to report the number of unique accesses (stream or download) of song files covered under the license.  To make this super easy, we’ve created a page that allows you to easily see download counts, per song, for a specific time period.

CCLI Rehearsal License Reporting Screenshot

This can be accessed from the Library >> Files Library menu option.  Click on the File Access Reports sub tab and select your date!

General File Access Reporting

The other File Access Report we created, called the “General File Access” view, will list all the files accessed, including the user that accessed it, the date/time of the access, and how they accessed.  You can even filter the search for results by time period, user, related song, and file name.  It’s a great way to slice-and-dice the data to see who has accessed what!

Song File Access Reporting

And finally, we put the File Access Report info on the Song Details window.  So, if you really want to know which members of your worship team have streamed or downloaded the important files in preparation for rehearsal, you can easily see this by clicking on the song title in the worship flow (or anywhere in the site), then clicking on the File Access tab.

File Access Tab

File reports are only visible to Planners with security level 1 (worship editors) or higher.

Remembering Text from Assignment Emails

Several weeks ago, we added a “previously sent messages” selection field for sending messages to people from the Worship Flow page.  With version 4.3.0, we added that same capability on the People Schedule page.  We know that many people have been using Notepad or other text editors to copy/paste standard messages they send to various teams.  With this feature, you can keep Notepad closed and just select your previously sent message!

Previously Sent Messages from Schedule Page Screenshot

New Updates – Version 4.2.3

WP Logo version 4.2.3

We wanted to share with you the details of a few updates we just applied to WorshipPlanning.com.  Enjoy!

Email Response Options

Email response options

Recipients of assignment notifications and reminders will now have the option to respond right in the email.  If the email contains multiple assignments, there will be just a single “respond to assignments” button.  And if the assignment has already been accepted or declined, assignment response buttons do not show.

We think this feature will really help with getting responses from Helpers, as it reduces the number of steps they need to follow to keep you informed!

Facebook Notifications

Although Facebook still has this functionality in Beta, we’ve hooked into their native notification system for 3rd party apps.  Once your team members have the Facebook App Installed, they’ll start receiving notifications in Facebook of when they are scheduled to serve.Facebook Notification

Spotify Alert

Spotify LogoWe really love Spotify, but we are not very big fans of their choice in advertisements.  To help shield you and your team from less-than-desirable ads, we added a pop-up message that offers a few tips that might help.  They include options from disabling Spotify integration with your WP account to upgrading to the paid version of Spotify to remove all ads.

v4.2.2 Update – Sending Messages to Teams and New Calendar Feed

wpLogo-version4.2.2

Happy New Year!!!  We have a couple new WorshipPlanning.com  updates we’re excited to share with you!  These were rolled out this morning.

Sending Messages from WorshipPlanning.com

While there has always been a way to send messages to various groups of people, it hasn’t been as easy as it should be.  So, today we are introducing a new “Send Message” window that does a few features we think you’ll really find helpful.  We’ve even put together a brief video on how it works – http://www.screencast.com/t/ZWDUrgpJK .  With this update, you can now send a message…

…from the Worship Flow

To send a message from the worship flow page to a specific team, all you have to do is click on the new “email” icon in the team assignments panel.  This will open the Send Message window and pre-populate the “To” section with those scheduled to serve (pending, accepted, or tentative).

Send a Message From Worship Flow

…to an individual, team, or arbitrary list of people

When you access the Send Message window from the Worship Flow, you’ll have a list of options as to whom the recipients will be, based on their serving team, assignment status, and service times.  You can modify these options or manually add or remove people using the “Manual Selection” section.  You can also remove anyone from the “To” section by clicking the “x” icon next to their name.

If you are accessing the Send Message page using the navigation menu (which now resides under the “People” navigation heading), you’ll still be able to select team and individuals using the checkboxes.

Sending a Message

…using previously sent message text

If you’d like to resend a message, or simply use a past message as a starting point, the new “Past Messages” option allows you to select a message you’ve sent in the past.  We’ll keep track of up to 10 unique messages for you to reference.

Send a Message - Message History

Calendar Feed for Assignments

Our new “assignments feed” allows you to integrate your WorshipPlanning.com assignments into the calendar of your choice via a real-time feed URL.

Calendar Feed Dialog

People Scheduling Made Easy

Does your drummer ever show up late (or not show up at all) on Sunday morning because he says he didn’t know he was scheduled?

If your church has a worship team, most likely there is someone in charge of scheduling and managing that team. Whether you have 5 people on the team or 50, having the right tool to coordinate and keep track of everyone’s schedules is a big task. WorshipPlanning.com is here to help!

With WorshipPlanning.com you can easily schedule your volunteers, not only for your worship team, but for any ministry in your church. And, we’ve made it super easy, so you can spend less time scheduling and more time investing in people. You can schedule individuals one at a time, or an entire team with a single click-and-drag.

Once scheduled, people are notified via email or text message, and are asked to respond to the “assignment”. This system ensures that YOU KNOW everybody knows what is expected of them. We also have video tutorials, so you can easily train others if/when you need to delegate the scheduling responsibility.

We are here to answer any questions you have about WorshipPlanning.com, so don’t hesitate to contact us! As far as what to do if your drummer comes late to soundcheck again this week…well, let’s save that for another post!