Planning Center News

  • By katiewillard

Text Messaging Changes

Hey PCO users! We have some very important information for you about text messaging through PCO. Up until today, we have been using TextMarks.com for sending out the automatic text messages. However, after over 12 hours of downtime today from TextMarks, we’ve decided to take the text messaging feature into our own hands. Here’s how it will affect you:

All current text message users: You must log in to your PCO account, go to ‘My Account’ in the top right corner of the screen, and then enable text messaging again. As of now, everyone’s has been cleared because of this switch. We do apologize for this inconvenience but we are trying to better your experience.  Now when you indicate that you want to enable text messaging, it will ask you for your carrier. You must indicate this in order to receive text messages. Once you’ve re-enabled and clicked ‘Save Person’ at the bottom, you’re all set to receive PCO text messages from here on out!

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All International PCO users: You can now have access to the text messaging option! Just log in, go to ‘My Account’ in the top right corner, and then enter in a mobile number (make sure to indicate that it’s mobile or it won’t work). After you’ve entered your number, click ‘Enable Text Messaging’ and indicate the carrier you have. You’ll be all set!

Thanks to all PCO users for your understanding with any inconveniences this may have caused. We wanted a more reliable texting process, so that is why we are going through this transition stage with this feature.

If you do not see your carrier or need help with our new text messaging support please e-mail support@ministrycentered.com.

Thank you and have a wonderful rest of your week!

8 comments

~JOSh-X #permalink

My carrier is Helio. Will this new way work with Helio?

I chose Sprint PCS anyway, but is there supposed to be some sort of verification process so I know it’s working? I didn’t receive anything…

Batsirai #permalink

sweet! Yay International!
Who are you using for this?

Daniel Jagt #permalink

Thank you from Canada!

Dan Richardson #permalink

Awesome! Now us Canadians get this sweet feature. Thanks so much! This site is by far the most useful one we have with our church. The improvements you make on a such a regular basis are worth far more than we pay (even though I like paying what we do :-) Keep this up. You have an edge on the competitors no questions asked!

ministrycentered #permalink

Josh: Helio is now available

Chantelle #permalink

Excuse my ignorance, but what level of planning centre do you need for your team to be able to access this and how can you do that? We are international users and haven’t had the chance to use this feature. Is there a tutorial or something that shows us and our volunteers how to make the most of this service and the costing etc.

Paul Rigby #permalink

Superb. Is there a cost involved?

katiewillard #permalink

@Chantelle Any plan will do. Each individual has to set this up for themselves. All you do is have people go into their account page, enter a mobile number and indicate that it’s mobile. Then they can enable text messaging. They will receive a text whenever an email is sent to them via PCO. The text just says that they have an email waiting for them.

@Paul No extra cost involved from our end. Just whatever it costs people to receive a text on their phone. Standard text messaging rates apply but from our end, you don’t pay us anything extra.