October was all about making your emails more personal and your Planning Center connection more powerful. We added a way to pull your own custom fields right into your emails, gave you control over your unsubscribe page, shipped two brand new blocks, and made it easier to bring in content from Planning Center Calendar. Here is a look at the highlights.
Use Planning Center custom fields as merge tags
You can now use your Planning Center custom fields as merge tags in your emails. We love this for things like confirming we have the right information for our people, or letting someone know who their deacon or assigned staff member is, but the possibilities are endless.
To try it, add a text block to an email, click "Merge Tags" in the sidebar, and click "Add Custom Field from PCO."
Customize your unsubscribe page
While the hope is that no one ever visits this page, the reality is that people will unsubscribe and update their email preferences. We are happy to share that you can now shape what that experience looks like for your people.
New HTML and Icons blocks
Two new blocks are now available in the editor. You can add social media icons to point people to where you are online, and drop in custom HTML when you need something a little more specific. There is room for one more block, so any guesses on what is next?
Import from Planning Center Calendar
Importing from Planning Center keeps getting better. In addition to bringing in content from Groups and Registrations, you can now import content from Calendar too, so sharing what is coming up is just a few clicks away.
RSS feeds (beta)
You can now set up an RSS feed for a list category that people can subscribe to and receive in the RSS reader of their choice. You can also use it in an RSS feed embed on your website, giving your people another way to stay in the loop.
Fixes and improvements
A few smaller updates that made October better:
- We improved how headers in a text block render in Gmail so they more closely match what you see in the editor and other email clients.
- We gave you more control over which Planning Center apps you connect to Flowforth, and made it easier to retry domain verification when it fails.
- You can now archive an email after sending to keep your emails table clean.
- We fixed an issue where email templates were tied to a Planning Center list, so people who could not see the list could not see the template.
- We fixed bugs with importing unsubscribes and with the "sent" status sometimes overwriting "delivered."
That is a wrap on October. Log in to try these out, and as always, tell us what you would like to see next.