We know this is a very busy time of year. So, we'll keep this somewhat brief and allow you to get on with planning your Christmas events. During this holiday season, we pray you have time everyday to quiet your cellphone, email, and mind, and allow God to speak softly to you. Doing so shows Him and your team members how important personal worship of God truly is.

Serving with you,

Tom Metz
Worship Sense President

In late October, Tommy Walker was our first guest in a new webinar series we have started. Tommy provided some wonderful advice on how to avoid burn out as a worship leader, and then answered a dozen or so very good questions asked by the attendees. We hope to soon have the recorded event available to subscribers of Planning (keep an eye on our Twitter/Facebook updates). Thanks so much, Tommy, for the informative evening!

Toward the end of January, we plan on holding another free webinar with another experienced worship leader / song writer. Be on the look-out for more details in the coming weeks.

Planning 101

We are continuing to present WP101, our free, weekly webinar for subscribers (both paying and in trial) wanting to learn the fundamentals of the site. And, by request of several churches, we are going to start offering the webinar on days other than Wednesday. Visit our webinar registration page to learn more and sign up! http://worshipplanning.com/webinars The webinar typically lasts about 75 minutes and are followed by a few minutes for Q&A.

Given the importance of everything running as smoothly as possible during the Christmas season, we are intentionally not rolling out big, new (and thus risky) features to Planning this month. However, we have been busy improving existing functionality.

Easier Payment Process

Admittedly, the payment process is neither fun nor glamorous. But if it doesn't work right or is a pain to use, it can cost you time. So, we improved the existing payment process in a few ways that should make paying for your subscription much easier.

1. Far fewer fields are required.
2. Our new Auto Renewal feature (optional) will automatically draft your credit card before your account expires.
3. We now automatically email you a copy of the transaction details.
4. Anyone can make a payment (not just Planners of a specific security level).
5. You can still pay with PayPal or Check.

People Scheduling Improvements

We're making two needed improvements here that should be applied to the site in a few days.

1. Drop indicator - As you drag a person or role to a service, a small box will pop up showing you what will happen if you drop the item at that position. An example of this can be seen in this 22 second video.
2. Scheduled for Linked Service Also? setting - For those that schedule people for master and linked services, this feature will be a HUGE time-saver. No longer will you have to click "yes" or "no" to tell WP you want the assignment applied to the linked service also. WP will remember your setting, and you can change it at any time in your Teams Settings tab.

Sending Messages from WP

Need to send a message to an individual, ministry team, or serving team? You can do all three of those actions right in WP. Here's how: (you must be of high enough security level to do some of these)

1. To send an email to a single person, click on the person's name anywhere in WP, and select the "Send a Message" link. Short video demo
2. To send a message to an entire ministry team, click on People >> Teams tab >> desired team. Find the "Email the Team" button on the Members tab. Short video demo
3. To send a message to a serving team, go to the page where people are scheduled, and use the "Send Notification Email..." button. Short video demo
4. To send a message to an arbitrary list of people, click on Msg Board >> Send a Message.