Get ready for your next Sunday

Add the people in your unit

Go to People. An Administrator can add people one at a time, or add many at once with Import or export people. Download the sample file, type in the names, then upload it. Names that already exist are skipped, so you can upload again safely after fixing a mistake. Adding someone to People does not create a login for them. It only lets you assign them to take part in a meeting.

Record who spoke before you started

Most units already keep a list of who has spoken recently, on paper or in a spreadsheet. On the People page choose Set last-spoke dates. You get one row per person and a box to type a date in. Only people with no date yet are shown, so the list stays short; choose Show everyone when you need the rest.

These dates do not create meetings or agendas. They only tell the planner where to start the speaking rotation, so your first Sundays suggest sensible names instead of treating everyone as though they had never spoken. They apply to your main meeting only, and not to prayers. If a talk is later recorded at a meeting in the planner, that talk is used instead of the date you typed here.

Invite the leaders who help you plan

Go to Unit settings → Users. Enter an email address, choose what that person may do, and create the invitation. Copy the link and send it yourself, by email or text message. They will need to sign in with the same address you invited, or the link will not work. Keep at least two Administrators in your unit. That way you never lose access to your own records when one leader is released.

What each role can do

An Administrator can change unit settings and manage who has access. A Planner can prepare meetings and assign people, but cannot change settings. A Viewer can read and print agendas but cannot change anything. Belonging to one unit never gives anyone access to another unit.

Meeting types

A meeting type is a kind of meeting your unit holds: sacrament meeting, ward or branch council, missionary correlation, a baptism. You will find them in Unit settings → Meeting types. Your unit starts with a few common ones, and you can rename them, add your own, or archive ones you do not use. Archiving keeps past meetings and their history but stops it from being offered for new meetings. Meeting types do more than keep your list organized. The planner tracks participation separately for each one. So if someone gave the spiritual thought in council last week, that does not affect their suggested rotation for speaking in sacrament meeting.

Give each meeting type a usual day and time

Open a meeting type and set the usual day, the usual time, and how often it happens. When you plan a meeting of that kind, the planner fills in the next date and time for you. That saves you from correcting the date by hand every time you add a Wednesday correlation meeting or a Saturday baptism.

Agendas for each meeting type

An agenda is the running order of a meeting: the hymns, prayers, speakers, and anything you read out. You will find them in Unit settings → Templates. Each agenda belongs to one meeting type, and a type can have several. Sacrament meeting, for example, comes with agendas for two speakers, three speakers, fast and testimony meeting, and ward conference. Because those all belong to the sacrament meeting type, a talk given at any of them counts the same way when the planner works out who to suggest. Each agenda also carries its own planned length, so your council can be half an hour while sacrament meeting is an hour.

Your main meeting

One meeting type is marked Main meeting. For nearly every unit that is sacrament meeting. It is the meeting the Overview page follows, so a Tuesday council never takes the place of Sunday on your home page. It is also the meeting that the earlier last-spoke date on a person’s profile refers to. You can move the mark to another type if your unit uses the planner primarily for meetings other than sacrament meetings.

Plan a meeting

On the Meetings page, choose Plan a meeting and pick the kind of meeting. Set the date and time, choose which agenda template to start from, and save. If you want a series of meetings, use Repeat before saving. The spacing follows the how-often setting on that meeting type, so a weekly council repeats weekly and a monthly meeting repeats monthly. Every meeting gets its own copy of the agenda. Editing one meeting never changes your saved agenda templates or any other meeting. Later changes to an agenda template in Unit settings only affect meetings you create afterwards.

More than one meeting on the same day

You can plan several meetings on one day. A Sunday might hold council in the morning and sacrament meeting after it, and a baptism could follow in the afternoon. Lists show the time beside the date so you can tell them apart. Your main meeting also has a dark green border around the date, so it stands out from the rest of the day. Should you plan a second meeting of the same kind at the same hour, the planner points it out once in case it was a slip. Save again and it accepts it.

Change the heading or length for one meeting

When you edit a meeting you can change the Agenda heading, which is the title printed at the top. Use it for a one-time occasion such as a Christmas program. You can also change the Planned length for that meeting alone. Neither change affects any other meeting, and renaming an agenda template in Unit settings later will not rename meetings you have already held.

Choose hymns

On the meeting agenda, choose a hymn slot and search by number, title, or book. The number is printed on the agenda. The hymn library is maintained centrally rather than by your unit, so titles, numbers, and books are always correct and you do not have to keep your own list. New hymns added centrally appear for you right away. If you need a musical number that is not in the books, use a text line on the agenda to describe it.

Check how long the meeting will run

The meeting agenda adds up the speaking times you have entered along with estimates for hymns and other items, and compares the total against the planned length for that agenda. Anything still missing an estimate is flagged so you know the total is incomplete. Remember to leave room for the sacrament and for moving between items. A warning that you are over time is only a note to you; it never prevents you from saving.

Announcements and events

Add activities, conferences, and holidays under Events. Then, while editing a meeting, choose Add upcoming events and pick the ones that belong on that week’s agenda. Anything you write in an event’s private planning notes stays with your planning team and is never printed or shared.

Assign a speaker or a prayer

Open the meeting agenda and choose Assign person on the slot you want to fill. No one is chosen for you, so pick the person yourself. You can add a topic and how long they will speak. Each assignment also records the status. A new one starts as Considered, meaning you have someone in mind but have not asked yet. Change it to Awaiting response once you have asked, then to Accepted or Declined when you hear back. The planner never contacts anyone for you. You invite people the same way you always have; this only helps keep track of what you have done.

How the planner decides whom to suggest

When you pick a person, the list is ordered to answer one question: who hasn’t spoken in a while? People with nothing recorded come first, then the person who participated longest ago. Speakers and prayers are counted separately, and each kind of meeting is counted separately, so filling a council prayer does not affect the list for sacrament meeting. Anyone already booked for a coming meeting moves down the list and shows the date they are due. That way you will not ask the same person twice while planning several Sundays in one sitting. Everyone is still available to choose. The order is only a suggestion, never a recommendation about who ought to speak. And a blank record only means nothing is recorded. It does not mean the person has never spoken.

Visiting speakers and people kept out of the rotation

On a person’s profile you can mark them as a Visiting speaker, for someone from the stake or another unit. Their talks are kept in your records but they show up at the bottom of the suggestion list so the focus is on unit members. You can also set Speaker rotation to Excluded for one of your own members. That is useful for someone who already speaks often for another reason, such as a member of the bishopric. They will still appear when you are choosing someone, near the end of the list with a short note explaining why. Excluding someone from the speaker rotation doesn’t affect prayer candidates, so they will still come up when you need someone to pray.

Speaking time and planning categories

Each person can be marked Adult, Youth, Child, or Not specified. This is only for planning and no birthdate is needed. A new adult talk defaults to ten minutes and a youth talk to five, and you can change either on the assignment.

Record who actually took part

Once a meeting has passed, open it and choose Review assignments. Mark each person Fulfilled or Not fulfilled. This step is what keeps the suggestions trustworthy, because someone who accepted may have been sick or away, and the planner has no way of knowing unless you tell it. For a talk given before your unit started using the planner, use Set last-spoke dates on the People page instead.

Cancel a meeting

Open the meeting and choose Cancel meeting. For a meeting that has already passed the button reads Mark as canceled, which is the right choice for one that was called off. A canceled meeting keeps its record but stops counting: it does not affect anyone’s rotation, it drops off your upcoming list, and it is no longer offered for review. Its agenda shows a cancellation notice, and that notice prints as well. Choose Restore meeting if you change your mind.

Print an agenda

Choose Print agenda and pick which copy you want. The public copy leaves out leadership notes and business items. The conducting copy includes them and is marked so you can tell the two apart. If you have not written any leadership notes, that space prints faintly, leaving room to write by hand.

Notes that stay on every agenda

Open a meeting type and fill in Standing agenda notes to add something that belongs at the bottom of every agenda of that kind, such as the missionaries serving from your unit. Because the notes belong to the meeting type, your council agenda does not carry notes written for the congregation. Anything you type in Leadership notes on a single meeting stays private to your planning team and never appears on a shared or public agenda.

Share a link or copy the text

An Administrator can create a Public agenda link for a meeting whose type allows sharing. Anyone holding that link can read it, so read through the agenda before you send it. Copy agenda gives you the text to paste into an email or a message instead. Both leave out leadership notes and business items.

Who can see what

Each meeting type is either shareable or private, set under Agenda sharing on the meeting type. A private type has no public links and does not appear for Viewers, which is appropriate for meetings you do not want to be publicly known. New meeting types you create start private, so you decide when something may be shared. If you make a type private later, links you have already sent stop working immediately. Whatever the setting, leadership notes and business items are never included in a shared or printed public agenda. Keep in mind that ordinary text lines on the agenda are included, so keep anything confidential in Leadership notes or in a business item.

Trouble saving

If another leader saved a change while you were working, the planner asks you to reload before you save, so that neither of you loses work. Reload, check your change is still needed, and make it again. If you are told your access has been removed, ask an Administrator in your unit.

Moving to another unit

Ask your new unit to send an invitation to the email address you already use. Each unit manages its own members. Your former unit can remove your access without affecting your new one, and the records of what people did stay with the unit.