Set up Services
Services is where you'll schedule teams for services and events at your church, plan your order of service, and communicate with team members. By the end of this guide, you'll have a service type and teams set up, a song and media library ready to go, and your very first plan created!
Add people to Services
To get started, add people to Services by importing a CSV file or adding them individually! If you've already imported people's data into Planning Center People, you can import their profiles into Services.
You don't need to add or import a Services profile for everyone at your church—only the people you need to schedule for your services and events.
Create a service type and teams
Once you've added people to Services, select the Plans page from the top navigation and choose how you'd like to move forward! You can start by creating a service type or creating a team, in either order. The following sections cover each process.
Create a service type
Create your first service type so you can start planning your worship service! Plans and service types are the main containers of information in Services:
Plans are pages that contain all the details about a particular service or event. It can include the service order, scheduled teams, and all related times. This is where you'll plan what happens during your service and who must be scheduled to make it all happen.
Service types contain all the plans related to a particular kind of service at your church. For example, if you have a Contemporary Service and a Traditional Service, you'll create separate service types for each one.
Plans live inside service types, so you must create a service type before setting up your first plan. Follow along with the Create a new service type article, which walks you through the service type setup wizard!
After setting up your service type, you'll be taken to your first plan page. You can come back to this page after creating your teams and setting up your song and media library.
Create a team
Create your first teams so you can start scheduling! Teams represent any group of people you need to schedule for your services, such as the worship team, A/V team, or the hospitality team. Each team can have multiple positions, which represent the various roles and responsibilities people can have on the team (e.g., worship leader, sound tech, or greeter).
If you started by creating a service type, you may have already created one of the suggested teams in the setup wizard. You can either add members to that team or create a new team from scratch! Either way, head to the Create or edit a team article to learn more.
Important
Teams must be assigned to a service type before they can be scheduled. If you create a team before setting up your service type, go back to your team's settings page once the service type is created so you can assign your team to it.
Add songs and media
Add songs and media to your library so you can add them to your plan. The Songs page is where you'll store the song arrangements, chord charts, and audio files your team uses every week. The Media page is where you can store commonly used service elements, such as sermon slides, videos, and curriculum.
See the following articles to get started:
Set up your first plan
Now that your teams, songs, and media are set up, you're ready to set up your first plan!
If you followed the steps in the Create a new service type article, you'll have created your first plan page already. To go back to that plan page:
Select the Plans page from the top navigation in Services.
Find the gray header with your service type's name (e.g., Contemporary Service). Select the arrow next to your service type's name to expand the list of plans.
Select the date from the list to open the plan page.
Plan pages consist of two main parts: the service order (the Order tab) and the team schedule (the Teams tab). Follow along with these articles to set up each part of your plan:
Your first plan also includes the service time(s) you selected in the service type wizard. See the Add and assign times article to learn how you can add more times and assign people to them.
Important
Make sure to assign your teams to the correct service time(s). Time assignments ensure that team members know when they're needed and help team leaders avoid scheduling conflicts.
What's next
Now that you've set up Services and created your first plan, check out these resources to keep improving your workflow!