Your Planning Center People database holds some of the most personal information your church has: home addresses, phone numbers, family relationships, birthdays, and sometimes notes about pastoral care or background checks.
Most churches set up permissions once, during setup, and never look again. Over time, access spreads. A volunteer who needed one list ends up able to see everyone, and a staff member who left two years ago still has a login.
Good permissions protect your people’s privacy and your church’s trust. Here’s how to decide who should see what.
1. Start from the least access, not the most
When someone asks for access, the easy answer is to give them a lot and move on. The better answer is to give them exactly what their role needs and nothing more.
Ask two questions for every person:
- What do they actually need to do in People? Look someone up, update a record, or build reports?
- Whose information do they need? Everyone in the church, or just their team, class, or group?
If the honest answer is "look up a few people now and then," they don’t need edit rights to the whole database. You can always raise someone’s access later. Taking it back after a problem is much harder.
2. Know the permission levels
People has three main permission levels, plus the organization administrator role that sits above them. Here’s what each one can do and who usually needs it.
| Level | What they can do | Who typically gets it |
|---|---|---|
| Viewer | See profiles, send emails, and work with lists assigned to them | Pastors and ministry leaders who need to look people up |
| Editor | Everything a viewer can do, plus add people and edit profiles | Church office staff and the person who handles data entry |
| Manager | Everything an editor can do, plus merge profiles, manage custom fields and tabs, import and export data, and change permissions in People | One or two trusted staff who own your database |
| Organization administrator | Everything, including deleting profiles and controlling who can see background checks | Your senior pastor or executive pastor, plus one backup |
One detail worth knowing: People is designed for staff, not the whole congregation. If your goal is helping members find each other, that’s what the Church Center directory is for. (Planning Center: Permissions in People)
3. Lock down your sensitive fields
Not every piece of information deserves the same audience. A phone number is one thing. Pastoral care notes, background check results, and custody details are something else entirely.
Planning Center lets you share specific resources, like custom fields, profile note categories, lists, and forms, with chosen collaborators instead of everyone at a given level. Use that:
- Keep pastoral care notes in their own note category, shared only with your pastors
- Limit background check access to the few people who manage your safety process
- Put medical or custody information only where the people caring for those kids can see it
- Ask, field by field, "Would this person be comfortable knowing who can read this?"
If the answer makes you wince, tighten it.
4. Share lists, not the whole database
Most ministry leaders don’t need the whole church. The youth pastor needs students and their parents. The hospitality coordinator needs the greeting team. The deacon chair needs the deacons.
Instead of giving each of them broad access, build a list for each need and share it with the person who uses it. Lists update automatically as people meet the criteria, so the leader always sees a current roster without ever browsing everyone else.
The same idea works for follow-up. Rather than giving a volunteer access to new guest records, assign them cards in a workflow. They see the people they’re responsible for, and nothing more.
5. Remember each app has its own permissions
Here’s the part many churches miss: someone with no access to People can still see contact information through another Planning Center app.
A Check-Ins editor can edit contact details. Group leaders can see everyone in their group. Depending on your settings, Services schedulers and editors can see, or even edit, the people on their teams.
So when you review access, don’t stop at People. Look at who holds a role in Check-Ins, Groups, Services, Giving, and Calendar too, and make sure each role still makes sense.
6. Review access when roles change
Permissions drift. Staff leave, volunteers step down, and a temporary project ends but the access never does. Planning Center won’t email someone when their access is removed or lowered, so nobody notices the cleanup that never happened.
Build review into your rhythm:
- Remove access the same day a staff member or key volunteer leaves
- Lower access when someone moves to a role that needs less
- Run a full review at least once a year, ideally alongside your annual budget or background check renewals
- Keep at least two organization administrators, so you’re never locked out if one person is unavailable
7. Write it down
A one-page permissions policy saves a lot of awkward conversations. When a volunteer asks why they can’t see the full directory, you can point to the policy instead of making a judgment call on the spot.
Keep it simple. List each role at your church, the access it gets in each Planning Center app, and who approves changes. Have your elders or leadership team sign off on it, and revisit it during your annual review.
A written policy also makes onboarding faster. New staff get the right access on day one, without anyone guessing.
Protect your people
Permissions aren’t about distrust. They’re about stewardship. The families in your database trusted your church with their information, and thoughtful access is how you honor that trust.
Not sure who can see what in your account right now? My PCO Pro offers permissions audits that map every role across your Planning Center apps and recommend a clean, written structure your team can maintain. Get in touch and let’s take a look together.
