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# Log Planning Center first-time guests with AI

> List first-time guests from Planning Center Check-Ins each week, add a profile note to each new person and get their emails for follow-up.

Source: https://cotlet.dev/integrations/planning-center-api-mcp-server/log-first-time-guests

Monday morning someone has to find out who visited for the first time on Sunday, open each profile and write down that they came. Without that note, nobody remembers to follow up.

Cotlet does it in your own Planning Center account with list\_first\_timers, get\_person and add\_person\_note, called by your AI agent, an n8n workflow or a script.

[Sign up free](https://cotlet.dev/app/signup?app=planning-center) [All Planning Center tools](https://cotlet.dev/integrations/planning-center-api-mcp-server.md)

Hosted · nothing to install or maintain

## Can Planning Center do this on its own?

The official MCP can read Check-Ins and People data and can create notes on profiles (checked 22 Oct 2026). It answers questions such as who visited this month, but it runs only when someone asks, and it does not send the follow-up list anywhere on a schedule. Planning Center's Zapier integration has a New Profile trigger and no first-timer trigger.

## How you do it in Planning Center today

1. In Check-Ins, a staff member opens the event, goes to the Reports tab and builds a report with the First timers only option in the Scope section.
2. For the people in the report, they open each profile in People, go to the Notes tab, choose Add a note, pick a Category, a Date and write the note.
3. A visitor checked in by label only is not saved in People, so the staff member also has to check who has a profile before there is anything to open.
4. The weekly report and the notes are two screens in two products, which is why it often waits until Wednesday.

## How to log Planning Center first-time guests with AI

Prompt

```
Every Monday, list first-time guests from Sunday Gathering for the past week, check their profiles for notes, and add a General note with the visit date to each one who has none. Give me their email addresses.
```

1. 01  
### Pull the first timers  
list\_first\_timers runs for the event and the date range of last week. Planning Center counts a first time per event, so someone who came to a different event before still counts as new here.
2. 02  
### Open each profile  
get\_person returns the contact details and the notes your account can see. The agent skips anyone who already has a note from the same week, so a person Check-Ins registered twice is not noted twice.
3. 03  
### Write the note  
add\_person\_note adds one note in the category you named with the visit date. The category must be one where your account can create notes; if not, the call fails and the agent lists the person instead.
4. 04  
### Hand over the list  
The agent finishes with names, emails and phone numbers of everyone it noted, so the pastoral team can write or call. It sends no message to the guest itself.

### What you get back

Example data

```
First-time guests, 12 to 18 Oct, Sunday Gathering: 3
Noted 2: Hannah Cole (hannah@example.org), Ben Ortiz (ben@example.org)
Already noted this week: Maya Singh
Not in People: 1 visitor checked in by label only
```

### Other ways to ask

- Do the same for the Kids check-in event and add the note to the Children category.
- Only list this week's first timers and their emails, and add no notes.
- On the first of each month, list everyone who was a first timer in the past 30 days and has no note.

## What Planning Center allows, and what to know first

- Check-Ins offers First timers only in the report Scope section, and a first-timer check-in is the person's first for that event.
- Visitors checked in by label only are not saved to People and do not appear in People lists, so they never reach this job.
- Planning Center recommends creating a profile and checking someone in as a Guest if you want to follow up with them later.
- Each note category has its own access: View / Create lets a person add notes, View only does not, so a call into a view-only category fails.
- A note can be deleted by the person who created it or anyone with Manage access to its category, and notes show the date and their creator.

add\_person\_note asks for your OK by default. To run it weekly without you, switch confirmation off for that tool in your dashboard.

Sources: [Planning Center Help: Use reports to track trends (Check-Ins)](https://help.planningcenter.com/en/138339-use-reports-to-track-trends.html) · [Planning Center Help: Check in visitors](https://help.planningcenter.com/en/138322-check-in-visitors.html) · [Planning Center Help: Profile notes](https://help.planningcenter.com/en/138566-profile-notes.html) · [Planning Center Help: Connect AI tools to Planning Center](https://help.planningcenter.com/en/151880-connect-ai-tools-to-planning-center.html)

## Call add\_person\_note from a script

curl

```
curl -X POST https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/planning-center/persons/51207/note \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"category":"General","body":"First visit at Sunday Gathering on 18 Oct. Follow up this week.","date":"2026-10-19"}'
```

Example response

```
{
"note_id": "330142",
"person_id": "51207",
"category": "General",
"date": "2026-10-19",
"author": "Grace Miller",
"body": "First visit at Sunday Gathering on 18 Oct. Follow up this week."
}
```

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the call is planning\_center\_write → add\_person\_note. Example data.

[Schedule it in n8n, Make, Zapier or cron](https://cotlet.dev/integrations/planning-center-api-mcp-server.md#automations)

## Planning Center tools this automation uses

__Cotlet Planning Center tools used to log Planning Center first-time guests with AI__
| Tool | Parameters |
| ------------------- | -------------------------------- |
| list\_first\_timers | event, from, to |
| get\_person | person\_id |
| add\_person\_note | person\_id, category, body, date |

[All 12 Planning Center tools with descriptions](https://cotlet.dev/integrations/planning-center-api-mcp-server.md#tools)

## Frequently asked questions

### Is it safe to connect Planning Center to Cotlet?

Yes. You sign in to Planning Center yourself, in your own Cloud Browser in the EU, and we never save your password. Your agents only get Planning Center once you enable it, every background request is listed, and the browser profile is stored encrypted with AES-256-GCM, the cipher 1Password uses for its vaults. The AI model never sees a login, posts and messages wait for your OK, and Disable for agents cuts access in one click. Independent scanners grade cotlet.dev A+ on Qualys SSL Labs, securityheaders.com and Mozilla Observatory; live results are on https://cotlet.dev/security.

## More Planning Center automations

- [Send Planning Center scheduling emails with AI](https://cotlet.dev/integrations/planning-center-api-mcp-server/send-volunteer-scheduling-emails.md)
- [Clear Planning Center workflow cards with AI](https://cotlet.dev/integrations/planning-center-api-mcp-server/clear-workflow-cards.md)
- [Planning Center API and MCP server: every tool](https://cotlet.dev/integrations/planning-center-api-mcp-server.md)
- [All use cases](https://cotlet.dev/use-cases.md)

## Give your agent access to Planning Center.

Free 7-day trial with 2,000 credits, no card needed. Cotlet is independent and not affiliated with Planning Center.

[Sign up free](https://cotlet.dev/app/signup?app=planning-center)

---

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## For AI agents: sign your user up

Is your user asking you to sign them up for Cotlet? You can do it for them, no account or key needed.

1. Read the fields and their allowed values: GET https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/access-requests
2. Ask the user for each value: email, apps, what you will do with them. If they leave the password to you, generate a strong one and show it to them.
3. Show the user what you will send, then POST it as JSON to https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/access-requests.

One call creates the account and sends the access request; we email the user when access is granted.