Planning Center logo Planning Center automation · runs weekly

Send Planning Center scheduling emails with AI

You pencil volunteers into Sunday's plan during the week, and nothing reaches them until a team leader sends the email. Every plan, every team, every week.

Cotlet does it in your own Planning Center account with list_service_plans, get_plan_team and send_scheduling_emails, called by your AI agent, an n8n workflow or a script.

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Hosted · nothing to install or maintain

Can Planning Center do this on its own?

Planning Center's official MCP can read plans and teams but has no Services write tools, so it cannot send the emails (checked 22 Oct 2026). Its Zapier integration lists five triggers (New Form Submission, New Donation, New Profile, New Workflow Card, New List Result) and no scheduling action. Sending stays a click in the Teams tab.

How you do it in Planning Center today

  1. A team leader opens Plans in the top navigation, picks the folder that holds the service type, and chooses the plan.
  2. On the Teams tab, a ✉️ icon marks every person whose scheduling email is still waiting. Send at the top of a team emails that team, the ✉️ beside a name emails one person, and the ✉️ at the top right of the plan emails everyone.
  3. The popup lets the leader edit the message, then Send [number of team members] finishes it. For several plans at once, the leader uses the matrix view.
  4. Replies come back later, so the leader returns to each Teams tab to see who accepted, who declined and who has not answered.
  5. The ✉️ icons are easy to miss: someone added to a plan on Thursday stays invisible to them until the email goes out.

How to send Planning Center scheduling emails with AI

Prompt

Look at Sunday's Sunday Gathering plan. Send the scheduling emails still waiting to the Band team, then list who declined or has not answered.
  1. 01

    Find the plan

    Your agent calls list_service_plans for the service type you named and takes the plan on the date you gave. If two plans share the date, it stops and asks which one, because emails to the wrong plan cannot be recalled.

  2. 02

    Read who is waiting

    get_plan_team lists every position with a status and a prepared flag. The prepared flag is the ✉️ icon: true means the first email has not gone out yet. The agent counts confirmed, declined and unconfirmed people before it sends anything.

  3. 03

    Send only what is waiting

    send_scheduling_emails runs for the team you named. It emails only people whose prepared notification is unsent, so someone who already got a request is not emailed twice. Each call waits for your OK by default, and shows the names first.

  4. 04

    Report the gaps

    Declined people and people who have not answered are listed by team and position, so you can fill the gaps. The agent does not reschedule anyone; that stays your decision as team leader.

What you get back

Example data

Sunday Gathering, 25 Oct: 14 scheduled
Confirmed 9, declined 2, unconfirmed 3
Emailed Band (3): Dana Whitfield, Marcus Bell, Priya Nair
Declined: Tom Reyes (Sound), Lena Ortiz (Greeters)

Other ways to ask

  • Every Thursday at 9, send all waiting emails for the next two Sunday plans and post the gap list in this chat.
  • Send the waiting email only to Marcus Bell and leave the rest of the Band team prepared.
  • List unconfirmed people for the Christmas Eve plan, but send nothing.

What Planning Center allows, and what to know first

  • Planning Center marks a not-yet-emailed person as prepared, and an unconfirmed scheduled viewer in that state cannot open the plan or see it on their schedule until the email is sent.
  • Conflict warnings are suppressed for plan dates where a team member has a prepared notification, so the first email also starts the conflict checks.
  • The scheduling email carries the assigned times, the plan items the person leads, any custom text, Accept and Decline buttons and a plan link.
  • Prepared is on by default and can be switched off per team in People > Teams > the team > Settings > Scheduling Defaults, or per person on the plan.
  • The help article refers to team leaders sending the emails and links to Permissions in Services for the exact roles, so the account behind this job should lead the team.

send_scheduling_emails 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: Send scheduling emails · Planning Center Help: Manage your schedule · Planning Center Help: Connect AI tools to Planning Center · Planning Center: Zapier integration

Call send_scheduling_emails from a script

curl

curl -X POST https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/planning-center/plans/71234/scheduling-emails \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"team":"Band"}'

Example response

{
  "plan_id": "71234",
  "team": "Band",
  "sent": [
    {
      "person_id": "48215",
      "name": "Dana Whitfield"
    },
    {
      "person_id": "48377",
      "name": "Marcus Bell"
    },
    {
      "person_id": "48642",
      "name": "Priya Nair"
    }
  ],
  "skipped_already_emailed": 0
}

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the call is planning_center_write → send_scheduling_emails. Example data.

Schedule it in n8n, Make, Zapier or cron

Planning Center tools this automation uses

Cotlet Planning Center tools used to send Planning Center scheduling emails with AI
Tool Parameters
list_service_plans service_type, from, to
get_plan_team plan_id, status, team
send_scheduling_emails plan_id, team, person_id, message
All 12 Planning Center tools with descriptions

Frequently asked questions

Will my agent email people who already got a request?

No. Planning Center only shows the ✉️ icon for people whose first email is unsent, and send_scheduling_emails follows the same rule, so a second call right after the first sends nothing.

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.

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