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Planning Center sync

One-way PCO directory sync, test imports, progress, cancellation, households, campuses, and scheduling.

Planning Center Online sync is one-way: PCO is the source of truth for directory demographics, and Epimely never writes pastoral-care data back to PCO.

The sync imports people, contact fields, membership type, birthdays, anniversaries, photos, campus IDs, address fields, name extras, child/student fields, remote IDs, households, and household relationships where available. It intentionally skips PCO notes, medical notes, and other sensitive note fields.

How to

  1. Connect credentials

    In Settings -> Planning Center, enter the PCO Application ID and Secret. Once connected, the credentials are hidden and a Disconnect button is available.

  2. Run Test import one

    Use Test import one to fetch a single person and validate credentials and field mapping before running a full sync.

  3. Run Sync now

    Sync now imports PCO people in batches, updates progress, records the import job, imports households/relationships, and can be stopped with Cancel while running.

  4. Set automatic sync

    Choose Off, Nightly, or Weekly and a sync time. Automatic sync uses the church timezone and records each run in import jobs and audit history.

  5. Use campus matching

    PCO campus IDs are stored on campus records. If a PCO campus is found during sync, Epimely can match or create campus records and associate people with the imported campus.

  6. Review admin-only PCO info

    Admins can see imported PCO metadata in a PCO Info block on the person page. Non-admin responses redact those technical metadata fields.

Tips

  • PCO sync should never overwrite app-owned pastoral notes, care requests, tasks, care plans, forms, or safety documentation.
  • Use Disconnect if credentials should no longer be stored. Reconnect later with fresh PCO credentials.
  • For Apple push notifications and mobile delivery, use the server notification setup and Apple Developer push configuration separately from PCO.

PCO settings and sync controls are admin-only and may require admin mode depending on the action.