Planning Center sync: how it works in FlockConnect

How does the owner connect Planning Center?

A church owner connects FlockConnect to Planning Center once, using Planning Center's official OAuth login. You sign in on Planning Center's own screen and approve the connection there. There are no passwords or access tokens to copy, paste, or store yourself, and the connection FlockConnect keeps is scoped to your church. How that connection is protected is covered on the trust and security page.

Only owners connect the integration. Everyone else on your team simply benefits from it. Members never log in to FlockConnect, so this is a one-time setup a pastor or administrator handles.

• Owner connects once through Planning Center's official OAuth login. No tokens to copy.
• Imports pull People: name, email, phone, active or inactive status, home address, and profile photo. You pick the scope, starting from Active adults.
• Groups, households, and check-in history inside your scope come along with an import run, and are refreshed in the background on a rolling nightly cycle.
• Sync health shows whether the connection is active and when the last update arrived.
• Conflict review surfaces every difference in plain language for row-by-row decisions.
• Write-back is name corrections and active or inactive status only, and only when you opt in.
• A separate optional switch sends Sunday attendance as one weekly Last seen at service date field, for linked people only. It stays off until you turn it on.
• Email and phone import but are never written back to Planning Center.
• Revoke FlockConnect's access from Planning Center anytime to stop syncing. Reconnect via the same login.

What imports from Planning Center?

When you run an import, FlockConnect pulls your People from Planning Center: first and last name, email address, phone number, active or inactive status, home address, and profile photo. You choose the scope before anything moves. Active adults is the starting point, and you can widen it to include children, bring in everyone, or build a custom slice from your Planning Center lists. The import panel tells you plainly when someone falls outside the scope you chose and will not come over.

You can re-run an import whenever you like. People already imported are matched, not duplicated, and a re-run fills in anything that was missing the first time, like addresses and photos, on the records you already have. An import run also carries the groups, households, and check-in history inside your scope, and those are refreshed in the background on a rolling nightly cycle too, so a re-run is a way to get them sooner rather than the only way to get them. Between runs, updates made in Planning Center flow into FlockConnect in the background for People, so your people stay in step. Writing back to Planning Center remains opt-in and reviewed, and FlockConnect complements Planning Center rather than replacing it.

What is sync health, and how do I read it?

FlockConnect shows the state of your Planning Center connection so you always know where things stand. You can see whether the connection is active and when the last update arrived from Planning Center, which makes it easy to tell at a glance that Planning Center and FlockConnect are in step.

If the connection needs attention, FlockConnect surfaces that plainly so an owner can reconnect. Nothing changes in either system without you, and the health view is there to keep the picture honest.

How does conflict review work?

After an import, FlockConnect compares what it pulled with what you already have and surfaces any differences in plain language. For each row where something differs, you decide: keep the Planning Center value, keep the FlockConnect value, or decide later. Nothing is overwritten silently, and broad changes never clobber your records on their own.

This is the heart of the sync. You see exactly what changed and you choose, row by row, before anything moves. A difference sits in review until a person resolves it.

Which changes write back to Planning Center?

A change travels back to Planning Center only when you choose to keep the FlockConnect value and opt in to the write-back. The record write-back is limited to two fields: name corrections and active or inactive status. Email and phone are not written back to Planning Center in this scope, even though they import.

Every write-back is reviewed and approved by a person first. FlockConnect never writes to Planning Center without your approval, and it never edits or deletes your Planning Center records on its own.

One more write is available, behind its own switch. If your church turns on Send Sunday attendance to Planning Center in Settings, FlockConnect keeps a single date field in Planning Center People, named Last seen at service, up to date once a week, and only for people already linked to Planning Center. Nothing else is written, notes never leave FlockConnect, and the switch stays off until you choose it. The Sunday attendance guide covers where that date comes from.

How do I disconnect or reconnect?

You can revoke FlockConnect's access from your Planning Center account at any time, which stops all syncing. Revoking never deletes or edits anything inside Planning Center. Your records there stay exactly as they are.

To reconnect, an owner runs the same Planning Center login and approves the connection again, then imports when ready. If you get stuck at any step, reach the team through support, and see trust and security for how FlockConnect handles your data.