Church CSV import: get started without Planning Center

You can start on day one, with or without a ChMS

CSV and manual setup are available the moment you sign in. You do not need Planning Center, and you do not need to move off the church management system you already use. Export your people to a CSV, or add them by hand, and FlockConnect builds your directory from there.

Most church management systems can export a directory to CSV, so almost any starting point works. FlockConnect reads the file you have rather than asking you to reshape it first.

• Available on day one, with no Planning Center required.
• Preview your file before anything is saved.
• Column mapping with sensible defaults you can override.
• Duplicate detection by email and phone, scoped to your church.
• Your approval before any import is committed.
• Imports name, email, phone, and status.
• Re-run an import later to add new people without doubling up.

How a CSV import works

You upload your file and FlockConnect shows a preview of the rows it read, so you can confirm it understood your spreadsheet before going further. Nothing is saved at this stage.

FlockConnect then maps your columns to the right fields: name, email, phone, and status. It makes a best guess from common header names so the mapping starts filled in, and you can change any column or set one to skip before you commit.

Duplicate detection before anything is saved

Before your import is committed, FlockConnect checks the rows against the people already in your church and flags ones that look like a match by email or phone. You see those flags in the review, so you decide what to keep and what to leave out.

This matters most on a second import, when you are adding new families without doubling up on the ones you brought in last time. The duplicates are surfaced for your judgment, not merged behind your back.

You approve every import

FlockConnect never writes your people in silently. You review the preview, the column mapping, and the flagged duplicates, and the import is saved only when you approve it. Because the review comes first, the time to catch a problem is before anything is committed, not after.

If you spot something off in the preview, adjust the mapping or fix the file and run it again. The safety here is the review step, not a promise to undo a finished import.

Planning Center churches get more

CSV import works for everyone, and it is the right path for any church not on Planning Center. If you are on Planning Center, you have the option of a native, two-way integration instead, which keeps your two systems in step with reviewed, opt-in sync rather than a one-time file.

Either way, FlockConnect complements the system you already run. It adds the relational layer on top of your church management system and never replaces it.