Welcome to Groups! With Groups, you can create small groups or classes for your church, schedule events, and facilitate communication between group members.
There are two roles in Groups that have administrative permissions.
-
Administrators have permission to manage all groups and settings in the account.
-
Group type managers have administration permissions for all groups within the group types they manage.
Tip
If you cannot log in, follow the steps in this article.
If you're setting up a Groups account for the first time, you'll go through a wizard to help you through the process.
Once completed, you'll return to the main Groups page to see all your groups and access any added sample data. Planning Center has created some group types, tags, and groups to get you started with your account.
The main Groups page shows the information for all groups in the selected group type. To see details about an individual group, select the group.
Administrators can access this information for all groups in the account. Group type managers can access this information for the group types they manage, but they don't have access to the Tags or People pages. The tabs across the top allow you to see the reports, events, and resources for groups in the chosen group type.
-
Filter the groups list by group type, status, Church Center visibility, enrollment, or tag.
-
Change the status of groups in the list.
-
View groups and sort them by the headers.
Use the ⚙️ gear icon to go to various settings for your Groups account.
-
Manage group types settings.
-
Manage tags settings.
-
Manage requests. You'll see requests to join groups here.
-
Manage shared locations.
On the Shared locations page, administrators can see every location shared across multiple groups. The locations can be viewed on a map, edited, or deleted from this page. New locations can be added by selecting Add shared location.
On the Tags page, administrators can add or edit tags for groups. This helps you filter groups on the Admin page and allow people to filter the list of groups on Church Center.
On the People page, administrators can view information for members of all groups, search for people, and filter the list.
Most group settings are available to group leaders so they can manage their group day-to-day. Group leaders can create and edit events, add resources, update the group description and location, manage RSVPs, and take attendance.
However, some settings can only be updated by an administrator or group type manager, and some permissions are granted to group leaders only by an administrator.
Only an administrator or group type manager can update these settings for a specific group:
-
Add notes about a group that can only be seen by other administrators.
-
Change the group type.
-
Archive or delete the group.
-
Edit or delete group location.
-
Change enrollment settings and group display options.
-
Allow leaders to search the Groups database and add members to their groups.
-
Enable member privacy for confidential groups
See the Manage Group Settings article for details on updating these settings.
Administrators and group type managers can set up the following for all groups in a group type from the Group Type settings.
-
Enable the map view so people can see the exact location of a group meeting.
-
Allow leaders to enable group settings for their group. Note: If disabled, an administrator must enable messaging for each group in this Group Type.
-
Allow all groups to be seen in Church Center by default, even when closed or full.
Note
Administrators and group type managers can also set default settings for all groups in the group type, which can be overridden for each individual group.
Notifications
Administrators can see any notifications related to them in the Admin Notifications Inbox. You can find this inbox at the top right corner of any page by selecting the bell icon.
If you have login permissions to Planning Center, you will be able to see both read and unread notifications and customize your notification settings.
If you used to find the notifications on the Notification page, you can now see them in this bell.
The public side of Groups is where people can join groups. It lists the group's description, location, schedule, and contact information.
To get to the public group page, go to Groups on Church Center or select View on Church Center in a group.
When people join a group or are added to a group, their information is saved in People. They can log in and access the groups they've joined from Church Center.
Planning Center's Support team is always here to help! Use the ? in the toolbar to find articles or open a ticket with Support.
When you select that, you'll see this helpful dialog box.
-
Type in what you're looking for. This will search our online manual and return articles on that topic.
-
Suggested articles are based on the page you're on when you select the question mark.
-
View introduction articles, watch video tutorials, or browse documentation to be taken directly to our online manual.
-
Send an email to our Support Team. For the most efficient support, be sure to include specifics about what you're working with. When you submit your questions from here, we receive lots of information about your account, including the page you're viewing, which allows for fast and accurate support for your request.
Tip
Planning Center Support is dedicated to getting you an email response within an hour by investigating the issue in detail, asking for help from other seasoned team members, or even consulting a developer, if necessary. This type of direct assistance and shared knowledge is unavailable on the phone.
The following requests to Support can only be made by organization administrators:
-
Data removal or corrections you can't make yourself (undo old CSV imports, iCal imports, etc)
-
Request promotional pricing (legacy plans, church plants, Giving contract promotion)
-
Gain access to anything that was created and managed by someone else in the account
-
Restore or fully delete a canceled account
-
Disconnect a Stripe account
-
Request access to Giving (if there are no current Giving administrators in the account)