What's new

October 18 improvements and fixes

Derived badges, group oversight for Connections, current-people reports, a faster Connections table and more accurate counts.

• New

  Derived badges label people from their live activity. Built-in badges such as Baptized, Member and Serving are ready to use, and you can define your own under Settings, then Derived badges, including badges that expire after a set number of days.

• New

  Group oversight, under Settings, then Connections, gives a team member Connections access to a chosen set of Planning Center groups.

• New

  People reports can count current people, not filtered by date, and add People filters such as an age range.

7 more changes in the full update

All your church's apps in one place

A new Apps directory lets you browse, install and manage the tools connected to Parable, with a dedicated page for each installed app.

Ask Parable runs on newer models and looks further

Ask Parable and the report builder now use newer Claude models, and Ask Parable checks every report and metric you have when it looks for an answer.

Connections: pastoral care for every church

Connections brings the people who need care, the teammates caring for them and every touchpoint into one shared place. It's now available to every church.

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Connections in Threefold Church's demo workspace.

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• New

  Save a filtered, sorted Connections view and reopen it from the view menu. Owners and Admins can share a view with everyone who has Connections access.

• New

  Tag people with your own labels, then filter Connections by tag.

• New

  Care follow-up alerts send a daily email listing the people in your care who need contact. Turn it off under Settings, then Notifications.

Tasks, comments and mentions for your care team

Assign follow-up tasks, talk through a situation in private comment threads, and get notified when a teammate needs you.

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Tasks in Threefold Church's demo workspace.

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Draft a caring check-in in your church's voice

Parable can draft a check-in email or text for someone who needs a follow-up, written in your Brand Voice. Nothing is sent until you approve it.

See who needs a follow-up

Alerts flag changes that may call for a conversation. Start with a suggested rule, or define the conditions your church wants to watch.

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Suggested alerts in Threefold Church's staging workspace.

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Find your way around faster

The sidebar separates the pages you use every day from your records and chats, so it stays short as your workspace grows.

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Navigation in Threefold Church's demo workspace, as an Owner sees it.

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Turn a report into mailing labels

Open the people in any report on the People page, then export them or print mailing labels for exactly that group.

See who is new this period

Reports with a comparison period now mark the people who weren't there last time, so you can welcome them and follow up.

A guided setup for new churches

New churches set up Parable one clear step at a time, from their profile and church details to connecting Planning Center and starting a free trial.

October 7 improvements and fixes

A clearer Billing page with downloadable receipts, an offline notice, name editing for team members, and steadier dashboards and attendance.

• New

  Settings, then Billing, shows your plan, next renewal and upcoming bill at a glance, and you can download each invoice and payment receipt as a PDF. Plan comparison now lives under Settings, then Plans.

• New

  Owners and Admins can correct a team member's or invitee's name with Edit name in Settings, then Team.

• New

  Group attendance reports can include or exclude several group types at once, and show which weeks had attendance taken.

9 more changes in the full update

Find any setting in seconds

Settings has been rebuilt around search. Type what you're looking for and Parable takes you straight to the right row, on any screen size.

• Improved

  Ask Parable settings are split in two. Your own preferences and saved prompts sit under Personal, and the workspace's usage and custom context sit under Workspace.

• Improved

  Settings pages work on phones and tablets, with stacked layouts, tables that scroll on their own and larger tap targets.

Set an Ask Parable budget that fits your church

See Ask Parable spending in dollars, choose what happens when the monthly budget runs out, and set a monthly cap for each member.

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The When the budget runs out setting with Switch to the lowest-cost model until reset selected, and Email billing contacts at 80% turned on.

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Define giving tiers in your church's own words

Name your church's giving tiers, set where each one starts, and keep each person's current tier on their Planning Center profile.

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The default donor tiers.

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Choose report columns and copy everyone's email

Pick the columns a report shows and exports, see who is missing contact details, and copy the email addresses for everyone in a report at once.

• New

  New person columns for People and report records, including Groups, Teams, Team positions, Communication lists, First gift date, Last gift date, Gift count, Total given and Last pledge.

• New

  Scheduled reports can be delivered as a Records PDF or Records CSV.

A little more context for every person

Badges add labels such as Donor, Serving or In a group to a person's profile. Choose the conditions that make each label meaningful for your church.

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Suggested badges offer a starting point for your church's definitions.

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Choose the emails you get from Parable

Notification settings now list each kind of notice on its own row, so you can keep the emails that help you and turn off the rest.

September 27 improvements and fixes

Safer team access changes, a faster People table, a new report source for recurring giving, and more careful Ask Parable answers.

• New

  A Scheduled commitments report source covers recurring giving schedules, including active, paused and canceled commitments, active scheduled donors, and monthly and annualized committed amounts.

• Improved

  Removing someone from your team also removes any access granted to them individually, including giving access.

• Improved

  Permission changes reach an already open app without a reload, and revoking someone's access also clears their cached exports and shared links.

9 more changes in the full update

Keep your favorite pages in the sidebar

Star the people, reports, dashboards and chats you return to most. They appear in a Favorites section in the sidebar, sorted into folders the way you like.

Five clear roles for your team

Team access now comes down to five roles, Owner, Admin, Editor, Viewer and Billing Manager, with giving access set separately for each person.

September 19 improvements and fixes

More complete calendar bookings and song schedules from Planning Center, reliable monthly giving totals, and clearer errors when a page can't load.

• Fixed

  Room and resource bookings from Planning Center Calendar sync completely and stay correct when they change later.

• Fixed

  Song schedules from Planning Center Services finish syncing reliably.

• Fixed

  Giving totals by month load reliably again.

1 more change in the full update

See your church family by household

A Households view in People shows each family's members, engagement, giving and recent activity, and who in the home may need attention.

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Households in Threefold Church's demo workspace.

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A person profile that explains itself

Profiles lead with engagement and alerts, show when someone was last seen in each kind of activity, and reveal the records Parable merged.

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A profile in Threefold Church's demo workspace.

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Teach Parable how your church sounds

Set your church's voice once, with an identity, a few rules and the words you prefer, and Parable writes the Weekly Digest in that voice.

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The default voice, before any customization.

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Bring your Church Metrics numbers into Parable

Connect Church Metrics and use its categories as sources for your Parable metrics, alongside your Planning Center data.

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Church Metrics under Settings, then Apps.

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September 7 improvements and fixes

Pin up to 12 metrics on Overview, open the records behind any dashboard tile, safer CSV exports and faster pages for larger churches.

• Improved

  Overview holds up to 12 pinned metrics. Select Add a metric to open customize mode, and press Escape to leave it.

• Improved

  Dashboard tiles link to the records behind them. Hover over a tile to see View records, or click a chart segment to open the matching records for the tile's date range.

• Improved

  Charts, metric tiles and gauges use each column's number format, such as currency or percent.

8 more changes in the full update

September 3 improvements and fixes

Registration payment totals in reports, billing interval changes without switching plans, and more complete giving, check-in and Services data.

• Improved

  The Registrations report source includes each signup's total cost, amount paid and amount due, so you can see what is still owed for an event.

• Improved

  In Settings, Billing, you can move your current plan between monthly and annual billing without changing plans.

• Improved

  Recurring gifts sync with their payment method from Planning Center Giving.

5 more changes in the full update

August 28 improvements and fixes

Dashboards open on their saved time range, voice dictation works in more browsers, and recurring gift and serving data sync more accurately.

• Improved

  Dashboards open on the default time range saved with them.

• Improved

  The Chart, totals and Records tabs on a report match the rest of Parable, and Records no longer flashes while the page loads.

• Fixed

  Voice dictation in Ask Parable works across browsers.

3 more changes in the full update

Reports that work like a spreadsheet

Freeze and reorder columns, filter any column in a click, and explore charts from the keyboard, on reports and dashboard tiles alike.

• New

  Every results table has quick filters on each column, matched to the column's type: text, number, date or true and false.

• Improved

  Charts can be explored from the keyboard. Tab into a chart, step through segments with the arrow keys and press Enter to open the matching records.

August 18 improvements and fixes

Clearer dashboard tiles, consistent tables, a more specific activity feed and a sidebar that only shows pages you can open.

• Improved

  Each dashboard tile has a menu with View report and Edit report, its own refresh button, and a rows-per-page choice on table tiles.

• Improved

  Gauges fill their tiles, and large numbers such as long currency amounts no longer overflow or wrap.

• Improved

  Report, chat and dashboard tables share one design, with consistent formatting and timestamps.

5 more changes in the full update

Every report now shows how it handles dates

Reports label their date scope, flag when a date picker won't change them, and switch between chart, totals and records in one place.

Overview cards follow your campus filter

For churches with more than one campus, the Overview campus filter now narrows care, workflow, giving, serving and engagement cards too.

August 5 improvements and fixes

Organize the reports library in bulk, download payment receipts, and open person profiles faster.

• Improved

  In the Reports library, select several reports you created and move them to a folder, tag them or delete them together. Use Select all visible, or shift-click to select a range.

• Improved

  The Reports library has a folder list with All reports, Unfiled and your own folders, each with a count.

• Improved

  Billing lists a payment receipt next to each paid invoice, so finance staff have the proof of payment as well as the invoice.

3 more changes in the full update

July 31 improvements and fixes

Church time zones for scheduled emails, pledge campaign reporting, a faster People list and more dependable links and report deliveries.

• Improved

  Your church now has its own time zone in Parable. It starts from Planning Center, scheduled digests follow it, and an owner or admin can change it under Settings, Organizations, Organization Timezone.

• Improved

  The report builder offers Pledges and Pledge progress sources, so you can chart commitments, amounts received and attainment by campaign, fund or donor.

• Improved

  The People list loads faster, especially for staff who can see the whole church.

4 more changes in the full update

Count related donors as one with custom giving units

Group donors, such as a household or a family and their business, so Parable counts them as one in giving analytics and pledge progress.

July 26 improvements and fixes

Settings move into a grouped side menu, temporary Planning Center errors no longer switch off your connection, and failed Ask Parable replies stay visible.

• Improved

  Settings pages are grouped in a side menu instead of a long row of tabs. On mobile, the menu opens from a bar showing the page you're on.

• Fixed

  A temporary permission error from Planning Center no longer disables your Planning Center connection.

• Fixed

  When Ask Parable can't finish a reply, the conversation keeps your question and shows an error instead of losing the turn.

July 21 improvements and fixes

Engagement distribution totals now include Lapsed and Dormant people, flows find all your check-in events, and new visitor households count correctly.

• Fixed

  Engagement distribution totals include people with Lapsed and Dormant warning lights.

• Fixed

  The Check-in step in a flow lists all your check-in events, and wildcard patterns such as *Baptism* match the events you expect.

• Fixed

  New visitor household counts follow Planning Center households correctly.

Filter your Overview by campus

Multi-campus churches can filter the metrics on their Overview to one or more campuses, and Parable remembers the selection for their team.

• Improved

  Headcount metrics follow the campus of the Check-Ins event they were recorded against, so campus filters count them in the right place.

July 20 improvements and fixes

Engagement history from day one, scheduled organization deletion with a review window, and fixes to setup, group widgets and phone numbers.

• Improved

  After a church's first Planning Center sync, Parable fills in past engagement scores, so score trends have history from the start.

• New

  Organization owners can schedule deletion of their organization's data with a review window, and cancel it while it's still pending.

• Fixed

  Setup no longer reports success when the People import from Planning Center failed.

2 more changes in the full update

A full profile page for every person

Each person in Parable now has their own profile page, bringing their warning light, engagement, activity and giving together in one view.

• Fixed

  Searching People by a person's full name finds them.

Share dashboards with your team, or publish them by link

Choose who on your team can view or edit each dashboard, and publish a read-only link for people who don't use Parable, such as your board or elders.

Set goals and benchmarks on your reports

Give a report a goal or a benchmark target, and Parable shows a gauge on the report and its dashboard tile so you can see at a glance how you're tracking.

Reports keep working when Planning Center is disconnected

If your Planning Center connection is disconnected or disabled, reports and tiles now show your last synced data and say clearly that it may be out of date.

A getting started checklist for new churches

New churches get a short checklist in the sidebar that walks them through syncing data, exploring people, asking a question and inviting their team.

July 14 improvements and fixes

Prior-period comparisons on metric cards, check-in metrics by location, emailed exports for large data sets, and a round of fixes across reports and People.

• New

  Metric cards can compare against the previous period as well as the same period last year.

• New

  Check-in metrics can be limited to specific locations or rooms with the Locations option in Settings, Metrics.

• New

  Exports of up to 100,000 rows from the SQL Editor and the Report Builder download straight away. Larger exports are emailed to you as a secure download link.

6 more changes in the full update

July 1 improvements and fixes

Stronger protection against double-counted fund giving, more accurate action widgets, and clearer choices when a report request is ambiguous.

• Improved

  Parable's check against double-counting fund giving also catches totals tucked inside larger, multi-step queries.

• Improved

  When a report request could mean more than one thing, the Report Builder offers clearer filter and chart choices.

• Fixed

  Action widgets such as Birthdays, Pending Responses and Expiring Checks count only people whose Planning Center profile is active.

1 more change in the full update

Fund reports count only what was given to that fund

When Ask Parable builds a giving report about a fund, it now counts only the part of each gift designated to that fund, so split gifts no longer inflate totals.

June 29 improvements and fixes

Overserving and pending-response widgets open detailed views, and the Report Builder became the one place to edit reports.

• New

  The Overserving Alert widget opens a detailed view of volunteers at risk of burnout, with a recommendation for what to do next.

• New

  The Pending Responses widget opens Pending Service Responses, showing which teams are still waiting on volunteers to reply.

• Improved

  Chart, table and metric reports are all edited in the Report Builder, with the SQL tab hidden until you choose to show it.

1 more change in the full update

June 26 improvements and fixes

Choose how much of a report to export, focus group widgets on the groups you care about, and see system metrics on custom tabs.

• New

  Exporting a CSV from the Report Builder lets you download just the displayed rows or all matching records.

• New

  Owners and admins can limit the Groups Attendance, Declining Group Attendance and Group Sign-Ups widgets to chosen group types or specific groups in the widget's settings.

• Fixed

  System metrics you assign to the Custom tab on your Overview appear there.

1 more change in the full update

June 24 improvements and fixes

A clear alert when Planning Center needs reconnecting, a more compact Engagement Alerts widget, and records deleted in Planning Center removed from Parable.

• New

  When Planning Center needs to be reconnected, an alert appears in Parable's navigation and links to where you can reconnect it.

• Improved

  The Engagement Alerts widget takes up less space on your Overview.

• Fixed

  People and messages deleted in Planning Center are removed from Parable.

1 more change in the full update

Open birthdays and expiring background checks in detail

The Birthdays and Expiring Checks widgets now open detailed views, so you can reach out on birthdays and renew background checks before they lapse.

• Improved

  Selecting a widget gives immediate feedback and opens its detailed view faster.

June 19 improvements and fixes

Steadier dashboards and widgets, more reliable answers to complex questions in Ask Parable, and paused syncs for disabled integrations.

• Improved

  Ask Parable handles complex, multi-part analytical questions more reliably.

• Improved

  Disabling an integration pauses its scheduled syncs until you turn it back on.

• Fixed

  People segment tiles display on dashboards.

3 more changes in the full update

Lapsed and Dormant warning lights for long absences

Two new warning lights separate people who have been away for months from those with a recent dip, so your team can follow up in the right way.

• Improved

  The Growing Engagement widget has a Trailing window setting of 7, 14 or 30 days, and its drill-in view and Ask Parable use the same window.

• Improved

  The Engagement Alerts widget shows separate counts for red alerts, yellow alerts, Lapsed and Dormant.

June 16 improvements and fixes

Two more Overview widgets open detailed views, and fixes to report saving, recurring giving questions and midnight times.

• New

  The Weekly Giving widget opens a Weekly Giving Snapshot with this week, the same week last year, unique donors, average gift, the last 12 weeks and a fund breakdown.

• New

  The Upcoming Events widget opens an Event Agenda in your church's time zone, with all-day events and events without a location handled clearly.

• Fixed

  The Weekly Giving widget no longer double-counts giving for some churches.

4 more changes in the full update

Ask Parable builds reports and dashboards for you

Ask Parable can now save reports, build dashboards and point you to the right page, and it shows its work while it answers. A new canvas covers group sign-ups.

Set the thresholds behind your Overview widgets

Decide what counts as a dropoff, overserving, a lapsed gift or an expiring background check, so your Overview widgets match how your church works.

June 12 improvements and fixes

Delete your own account with a 30-day grace period, a separate Planning Center tab for giving fields, choose where a metric appears, and faster syncs.

• New

  You can delete your own account from Settings, under General. Access ends right away, and your account is permanently removed after 30 days unless you sign in again to cancel. This removes your sign-in, not your church's data.

• New

  When you create or edit a metric, Overview tab sets which Overview tab it appears on.

• Improved

  Planning Center write-back puts engagement tier and warning light on a Parable tab in Planning Center People and giving fields on a separate Parable: Giving tab.

8 more changes in the full update

Faster, more reliable nightly Planning Center syncs

Parable's nightly Planning Center sync now fetches only what changed in larger data sets, so it finishes faster and your morning numbers are more dependably current.

• Fixed

  Registrations pick up where they left off after a long sync instead of starting over.

• Fixed

  People custom field data syncs reliably for larger churches.

• Fixed

  Totals from nested Services, Check-Ins and Calendar records are corrected, and duplicate Planning Center transfer records are removed.

Flow steps that match more than one condition

A step in a flow can now combine several conditions, such as a form submission or a group join, and complete when a person meets any or all of them.

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A Guest to Connected step with a second condition added. This example has not been saved.

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Reports as tables and single-number scorecards

The AI report builder can now produce a table or a single key number as well as a chart, and save either to a dashboard.

• Improved

  The report page has a clearer header that shows when a report is a fixed snapshot.

• Improved

  Dashboard reports have help tooltips, and year-over-year giving growth follows the date range you select.

• Fixed

  Reports that show a single metric display correctly instead of returning an error.

June 10 improvements and fixes

Sort people by warning light, a Core Ratios view in Ask Parable, clearer lapsed recurring giving, and more accurate totals across giving, check-ins and the weekly digest.

• New

  People can be sorted by warning light, so those who need attention rise to the top.

• New

  Ask Parable can show a Core Ratios view of key church health ratios.

• Improved

  Lapsed recurring givers are grouped by how long ago their giving lapsed, and each donor is listed by name.

9 more changes in the full update

May 12 improvements and fixes

A real activity timeline on each person, a clearer Metrics & Flows page, editable Planning Center apps, PDF references in the report builder, and recalibrated engagement tiers.

• New

  Each person's Recent activity now shows a real timeline of what they did, newest first, with an Activity types filter for check-ins, giving, forms, groups, messages, registrations and serving.

• New

  You can change which Planning Center apps Parable syncs with Edit apps, without disconnecting and reconnecting.

• New

  The AI report builder accepts an exported report PDF as a reference, as well as an image, and builds the closest matching chart.

9 more changes in the full update

Parents who check in their kids now count as present

When a parent or caregiver checks children in through Planning Center Check-Ins, their own engagement score now reflects that they were there.

A weekly digest of your church every Monday

Every Monday, Parable emails each team member a short summary of the past week, from attendance and new people to giving, volunteers and groups.

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Digest sections under Settings, then Notifications.

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See which volunteers showed up to serve

The Service Attendance widget compares who was scheduled, who confirmed and who checked in, so team leaders can follow volunteer reliability over time.

April 25 improvements and fixes

Search and sort in the People sidebar, recurring gifts from Planning Center Giving, steadier warning lights, and better layouts on phones.

• New

  A search box in the People sidebar filters both your segments and your Planning Center lists, and lists can be sorted alphabetically, by recently used or by date created.

• New

  Recurring donations from Planning Center Giving now sync, giving a fuller picture of recurring giving.

• New

  When a question is missing a key detail, Ask Parable can ask one follow-up question before it answers.

7 more changes in the full update

Introducing Parable, the Church Data Platform

Parable brings your Planning Center data into one place, so your team can see who is thriving, who is drifting, and ask questions in plain language.