Planning Center Texting Integration for Churches

Is your church using Planning Center and looking for a robust texting solution? Clearstream seamlessly integrates with Planning Center. Send texts to your People lists, have 2-way conversations, create new profiles in People (while preventing duplicates), add people to your Planning Center Workflows, retrieve names from Planning Center when people text in, send automated texts based on Planning Center campus ID.

Clearstream integrated with Planning Center in 2017 and since then we've consistently added to the functionality. In this article, we'll show you how to use our Planning Center integration to create meaningful connections and easily communicate with your people through texting.

How to set up your texting integration with Planning Center

5 Ways you can integrate Clearstream with Planning Center

1. Text your People lists from Clearstream - If your Planning Center account is already organized into lists, you won't have to re-create these lists in Clearstream. With the click of a button, you can sync your People lists into Clearstream. Once your lists are synced, you'll be able to text them from within Clearstream (and people can reply back). 🙌 We run an automatic sync every 24 hours, so any changes made to your Planning Center lists will be reflected in Clearstream as well.

2. Create a new profile in Planning Center when someone texts in - When guests use your keyword on a Sunday morning (ie. text CONNECT to 94000), you can immediately collect their info and automatically create them as a new person in Planning Center. No more manually entering information from paper connect cards on Monday morning.

3. Retrieve Planning Center data via text - You likely won't want to ask your current church members to fill out a digital connect card if you already have their info in Planning Center. When someone texts into your Clearstream account, their phone number will be automatically searched in your Planning Center account in real-time. If their phone number already exists in Planning Center, instead of sending them a digital connect card, we'll instantly sync their People profile (name and email) into Clearstream.

4. Automatically add people to a Planning Center Workflow - If your church uses Planning Center Workflows, you're probably aware that it can be challenging to make sure people are added to the correct workflow. With this integration, people can be added to one of your Planning Center Workflows, just seconds after texting in. 🔥 Whether it's for guests, volunteers, or new salvations, people can text in on a Sunday morning and they'll automatically join your workflow in Planning Center.

5. Send texts based on Planning Center Campus ID - If you're with a multi-campus church, you know it can be difficult to ensure all members are getting the correct, campus-specific information. With Clearstream, you can use the same call to action at every campus (ie. text CONNECT to 94000), but have each person receive a customized response based on their campus ID in Planning Center. When people text in, we'll automatically scan Planning Center and route them to the correct campus. For guests and people who don't have a Planning Center Campus ID, you can automatically send a list of campuses to choose from.

How to set up your texting integration with Planning Center

1. Log into Clearstream and click Integrations on the left menu.

2. Click Connect under Planning Center.

3. If you've received permission to text the people in the lists you want to sync, check the box and click Connect Planning Center.

4. Enter your Planning Center username and password.

5. Select the Planning Center lists you want to sync into Clearstream. Click Continue.

6. Click Run Sync Now.