Quick start (5 minutes)

1. 1Create your account. The church name you enter becomes your organization — everyone you invite later shares it.
2. 2Connect Planning Center. Open Settings, click Connect Planning Center, and approve the request in the popup as a Planning Center admin. We ask for read access to Giving, People, Check-Ins, Groups and Services.
3. 3Run your first sync. Click Sync now on the connection card. The first sync pulls history and usually takes 2–10 minutes depending on how many years of records you have. Record counts appear on the card so you can reconcile against Planning Center.
4. 4Set your fiscal year start month in Settings so budget forecasts line up with how your church actually plans.
5. 5Invite your team from Settings (admin, pastor, staff or volunteer) and share a filtered link to the view they should watch.

After the first sync, a scheduled sync runs nightly and only pulls records that changed, with a full refresh once a week as a safety net. You never have to click Sync again unless you want numbers updated immediately.

Once your numbers are in, three screens are worth a look on day one: People shows who is on the roster and where they gather, Giving → Funds tells you how dependent each fund is on a handful of households, and Listening → Results lets you read congregation answers as aggregates, with Listening → Ask a question when you want to put a new question out. Or skip the screens and ask Deacon — once your sync has run, it can answer questions about your numbers in plain language and hand you a written summary.

If you are a Pastor or a Staff member, go to Pastoral care → My care list next. It suggests three households worth a call this week and you can claim them yourself — no one has to hand work to you first. Assignments shows how that work is spread across the team, and Care health shows whether the pace is sustainable.

How the app is laid out: the menu on the left has six places — Deacon, Overview, Reports, Pastoral care, Discipleship and Listening — plus Settings, this Guide and Support. Reports is one menu item with a drop-down that switches between the detail reports: People, Connection, Attendance, Giving, Community and Kids. Areas with more than one screen show tabs across the top: Pastoral care has Households, My care list, Care health and Assignments; Discipleship has Health, Cohorts and Growth pathway; Giving has Trends, Forecast and Funds; Listening has Results, Ask a question, Active and Pooled research; Community has the Community profile and the Household map; Deacon has your conversation, your Investigations and your Work products. Old links still work — they take you to the same screen in its new place.

Overview is the place to start each week. It gives one health line, the areas moving outside their usual range, the opportunities the data suggests, and a short list of recommended next steps. Every step is a link: look at the detail behind it, ask the congregation a question about it, or open the care list.

Where to click: Settings → Data connection