How to Make Bulk Changes in Planning Center People

Training Summary:

Learn how to make bulk profile changes in Planning Center People with ease! In this step-by-step tutorial, you'll discover three powerful methods to update multiple profiles at once—without editing each one manually. Whether you're adjusting membership types, assigning groups, or updating custom fields, these bulk actions will save you time and streamline your workflow.

We’ll cover:

✅ How to use the bulk actions menu in the People tab
✅ Making changes directly from lists you’ve created
✅ Importing CSV files for advanced multi-field updates

Perfect for church admins and team leads looking to keep data clean, accurate, and up to date in Planning Center. Skip the repetitive clicks and make efficient, large-scale edits in just a few minutes.

📌 Pro tip: CSV imports skip administrator profiles for security—plan accordingly!

Training Transcript:

Hey everybody! Today, we're going to learn how to make bulk changes in Planning Center People. This means making a change across many profiles all at once, without needing to open and edit each profile individually. Let’s dive in.

There are actually three different ways to do bulk changes in Planning Center People. We’ll start with the most intuitive, though the location of this option isn’t super easy to find. First, you need to be in the Planning Center People app and make sure you're on the "People" tab. If you're not on that tab, you won't see the gear icon that gives you access to "Bulk Actions."

Clicking on "Bulk Actions" opens a window with a few options. One way to make changes is by manually selecting individuals from your system and applying a change to all of them at once. For example, you can select three people randomly and decide to update the same profile field for all of them at once.

Another powerful feature is the ability to apply changes to an entire list. Say you want to update membership status for everyone between the ages of 10 and 15—you can do that without having to select each person individually. You just need to make sure you’ve created the right lists ahead of time. Once you’ve selected the people, you use the panel on the right-hand side to choose the kind of change you want to make. First, choose the application—like People, Groups, or Registrations—then pick what kind of profile change you want to apply. If you’ve created custom tabs or labels, those options will also appear here, giving you a lot of flexibility in how you sort and update profiles.

For example, you might choose to change the "Membership Type" for all selected people to “Attender.” When you hit “Perform Action,” the system will confirm the change and then update all the selected profiles. You can verify the update by checking a profile, like Dan’s, and seeing the new label applied.

The second method is to go directly into any list you've created. For some, this approach feels more intuitive. If you've already grouped people into a specific list, such as “Membership List” or “All Women,” you can go into that list, select multiple people, and then click “Perform Bulk Action on Selected People.” This brings up a similar window as before, but it skips the step of selecting individuals manually because you've already done that via the list.

The third and most advanced method is by using a CSV import. This is especially useful if you need to make multiple changes across many profiles. You might first export a CSV file, which is similar to a spreadsheet with rows and columns. You would include identifiers like name and email, then add columns for each of the changes you want to make. Planning Center offers tutorials on how to properly structure these files. Once your CSV is ready, you import it, map the fields correctly, and the system will update all the relevant profiles.

Keep in mind, CSV imports will not update any administrator or organization administrator profiles. This is a safeguard to prevent critical admin data from being accidentally overwritten.

These three bulk update methods—manual selection, list-based updates, and CSV imports—can save you a lot of time when managing your church’s database. Instead of editing one profile at a time, you can make broad updates efficiently, helping your church stay accurate and organized with Planning Center People.

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