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Quickstart

Create your organization, connect Planning Center, and get your first insights

Get Parable Running

Setting up Parable takes about ten minutes of your time. Most of the elapsed time is the first Planning Center sync, which runs in the background while you explore.

Before You Start

Planning Center Access

You'll authorize with an account that has Organizational Admin permissions — plus Giving Administrator if you want giving data

No Card Required

The 30-day trial doesn't ask for payment details

You do not need to bring your own database. Parable hosts the warehouse and provisions a read-only connection for you once your data has synced.

Setup in Four Steps

Step 1: Create Your Organization

Tell us about your church so we can size and contextualize your data.

Organization Details
  1. Organization Name — your church's name
  2. Mailing Address — street, city, state/province, and postal code
Demographics
  • Denomination
  • Average Weekly Attendance
  • Age of Organization
  • Number of Staff Members

These help benchmark your data against similar churches and set sensible defaults for engagement scoring and metrics.

Step 2: Connect Planning Center

People is required — it's the backbone every other module links to. Then pick any of:

AppWhat it brings in
GivingDonations, funds, pledges, recurring gifts, batches
Check-InsCheck-ins, events, locations, headcounts
GroupsGroups, memberships, events, attendance, RSVPs
ServicesPlans, teams, positions, scheduling, songs
CalendarEvents, resources, room bookings, approvals
RegistrationsSignups, attendees, waitlists, selection types
PublishingSeries, episodes, speakers, watch counts
HomeOrganization hub (authorization only — no data sync)

Connect everything you use. Cross-module questions — do people who serve also give? — only work when both modules are synced.

You'll be redirected to Planning Center to approve access. Make sure your account has Organizational Admin, and Giving Administrator if you selected Giving.

Give the integration a nickname if you'll connect more than one Planning Center organization.

Step 3: Start Your Free Trial

Thirty days of full access, no credit card required. You can add billing details later under Settings → Billing.

Step 4: Let the First Sync Run

Parable begins importing immediately. The first full sync pulls your complete history and can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours depending on your church's size — it runs in the background, and you can start exploring as data lands.

After the initial import, Parable keeps everything current automatically. Sync status is visible under Settings → Sync.

What to Do First

Ask a question

On the Overview page, ask something in plain language — "how many first-time guests did we have last month?" — and get an answer, chart, or report back

Browse People

Open any person to see their engagement score, giving pattern, attendance history, and group involvement in one profile

Build a dashboard

Assemble tiles for the metrics your leadership meeting actually needs

Schedule a report

Save a report and have it emailed on a recurring schedule, or export it to PDF or CSV

Going Deeper With SQL

Two ways to query your data directly:

Open SQL Editor in the sidebar. It includes schema autocomplete, query history, saved queries, and CSV export — no setup required.

Your First Queries

Every Planning Center table lives in the planning_center schema, and relationships live in separate *_relationships tables rather than foreign-key columns.

-- Active people, by membership status
SELECT
    COALESCE(membership, 'Unspecified') as membership,
    COUNT(*) as people
FROM planning_center.people_people
WHERE status = 'active'
GROUP BY COALESCE(membership, 'Unspecified')
ORDER BY people DESC;
-- Weekly check-in trend over the last 12 weeks
SELECT
    DATE_TRUNC('week', c.created_at) as week,
    COUNT(DISTINCT cr.relationship_id) as unique_attendees,
    COUNT(*) as check_ins
FROM planning_center.checkins_check_ins c
JOIN planning_center.checkins_check_ins_relationships cr
    ON cr.check_in_id = c.check_in_id
    AND cr.relationship_type = 'Person'
WHERE c.created_at >= CURRENT_DATE - INTERVAL '12 weeks'
GROUP BY DATE_TRUNC('week', c.created_at)
ORDER BY week DESC;
-- Giving totals by fund, this year
SELECT
    f.name as fund,
    COUNT(DISTINCT d.donation_id) as gifts,
    SUM(des.amount_cents) / 100.0 as total_dollars
FROM planning_center.giving_donations d
JOIN planning_center.giving_donations_relationships dr
    ON dr.donation_id = d.donation_id
    AND dr.relationship_type = 'Designation'
JOIN planning_center.giving_designations des
    ON des.designation_id = dr.relationship_id
JOIN planning_center.giving_designations_relationships desr
    ON desr.designation_id = des.designation_id
    AND desr.relationship_type = 'Fund'
JOIN planning_center.giving_funds f
    ON f.fund_id = desr.relationship_id
WHERE d.payment_status = 'succeeded'
  AND d.received_at >= DATE_TRUNC('year', CURRENT_DATE)
GROUP BY f.name
ORDER BY total_dollars DESC;

Don't filter on tenant_organization_id or system_status — row-level security applies both automatically, and adding them yourself can hide rows or slow the query down.

Where to Go Next

Need help? Join the community Slack or email michael@getparable.io.

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