Most congregations - and dioceses - have boxes of books recording baptisms, confirmations, funerals, weddings. Now we have a way of digitizing these records and keeping them where they are searchable and organized.

Entering Records in Planning Center for baptism and confirmation

This guide covers transferring church records from written registers to Planning Center database.

1. Log into Planning Center.
2. Navigate to People in the upper right corner, then ‘people’ again across the top.
3. In the search bar across the top of the page, make sure that ‘profile status’ is checked for both ‘active’ and ‘nonactive’ (click the arrow next to the word ‘active’ for the drop down).
4. Type the first name from the register.
5. If the correct name is listed already, click it to begin.
   1. Check to see that their full name is listed in Planning Center as it is in the written register (Click the ‘+’ sign next to the box for options to add Middle Name, Given Name, Nickname, and Suffix.)
   2. Check to see that their birthdate is listed as it is in the written register, and update as necessary.
   3. Click ‘save’.
6. If the name is not listed (make sure to try first name and last name separately, or similar spellings), click ‘add person’ in the upper right hand corner
   1. When you click ‘add person’, you’ll get a box that prompts you to search again for the name, go ahead and do that.
   2. If it doesn’t find anyone with that name, there will be a bar at the bottom of the box that says ‘create new person’. Click that.
   3. Enter First Name and Last Name in the box. (Click the ‘+’ sign next to the box for options to add Middle Name, Given Name, Nickname, and Suffix. Enter what is available to you.)
   4. If the written records indicate gender and birthdate, add those as well (if birthdate incomplete, enter what you have in ‘birthdate approximate’ field.
   5. If there is a confirmation record, but no date for baptism, type ‘unknown’ as a marker in ‘baptism approximate’ field (we’ll assume they’re baptized if we know they’ve been confirmed.
   6. Click save.
   7. Next to the person’s name on the upper left, you’ll see a button that says ‘actions’. Click that button, then click ‘set as inactive’. Click ‘no reason given’, unless you either know the person to be deceased or the record is old enough that the person is definitely deceased - then click ‘deceased’. If you click ‘deceased’ it will ask for a date. If you don’t know the date, type ‘01/01/01’ as a marker.
7. On the person’s Planning Center record, first change their Membership type to ‘Member’ in the upper right (if it doesn’t say so already).
8. Along the left side of the Planning Center page, you’ll see ‘baptism date’. Click that.
9. If ‘no answer given’ is shown, click ‘edit answers’ on the upper right, and fill in the baptism date from the written register (or mark ‘unknown’ or put what you do know of the date in the ‘baptism approximate’ field).
10. Click ‘Save’.
11. Along the left side of the Planning Center page, you’ll see ‘confirmation date’. Click that.
12. As with baptism date, fill the confirmation date from the register into the box.
13. Click save.
14. Click ‘people’ at the top of the Planning Center page to bring you back to the whole database (don’t forget to check ‘inactive’ along with ‘active’ again next to ‘profile status’. It will reset every time!).