Using Passport alongside Breeze or Planning Center
Plenty of churches keep Breeze or Planning Center as their church database and use Passport for the part those systems leave to you: welcoming guests and following up with them. The Companion plan is built for this. It includes the Guests hub, your Visit Page, Guest Journeys, the connection card, the Inbox, follow-up tasks, and the connection to Breeze or Planning Center. Plus and Pro include the same connection. See Plans.
This page sets out what travels in each direction, so you know which system holds which answer. In short: guests Passport captures go into Breeze or Planning Center, and if you take attendance there, Passport reads it back to see which guests returned.
What you need
- A Companion, Plus or Pro plan
- Admin access in Passport
- For Breeze: your Breeze subdomain and an API key, from Account Settings → Extensions → API in Breeze
- For Planning Center: a Personal Access Token, from Developer → Personal Access Tokens → New in Planning Center (you paste its Application ID and Secret)
Connect
- Go to Admin → Settings → Breeze & Planning Center. This is the one place you enter credentials.
- Paste your Breeze subdomain and API key, or your Planning Center Application ID and Secret, and select Update credentials. Passport checks them before saving.
- If you are keeping that system, switch on Sync to Breeze (or Send new guests and milestones to Planning Center). Both are off until you turn them on, so a church that is leaving simply leaves them off.
- To bring your data across, go to Admin → Settings → Import & export and choose Import from Breeze or Import from Planning Center. The importer uses the connection you just saved. Importing & Exporting Data covers this step in detail.
The same page is where you update your credentials later, switch sending on or off, and say where you take attendance.
New guests go into your database
When Passport captures a new guest, it adds them to Breeze or Planning Center straight away, so your database has everyone your team met. That covers guests from the Visit Page, the connection card and its QR welcome card, kiosk sign-in, community event registration, ad leads, and first-time givers.
- A guest is sent once, when Passport first creates them. Somebody Passport already knew is not sent again as a new person.
- People you imported from Breeze or Planning Center are never sent back as new people.
- Breeze: new guests are sent while the connection is set to keep Breeze updated, not Import only. Before adding anyone, Passport looks for a Breeze person with the same email, or the same phone, and the same first name or nickname. One match is linked rather than duplicated. If two people in Breeze could be the guest, Passport holds that guest back instead of guessing.
- Planning Center: nothing is sent until you choose to. Turn on Send new guests and milestones to Planning Center under Admin → Settings → Breeze & Planning Center, or choose it when you connect. Someone already in Planning Center is matched by email or phone and linked, not added twice.
Breeze
The connection with Breeze is not two-way. Breeze data comes into Passport when you run an import, and Passport sends its own people back to Breeze while sending is on. Attendance is the exception: if you take attendance in Breeze, Passport reads it on a schedule (see Attendance from Breeze or Planning Center).
| Direction | What travels | When |
|---|---|---|
| Breeze → Passport | People (with families and milestone dates), tags (you choose which tag folders become groups), events, and event attendance | Each time you run an import |
| Passport → Breeze | New guests Passport captures, people your team adds in Passport, people who register themselves through the member portal, edits to a person's profile, and baptism and Holy Ghost milestones | As it happens, while Sync to Breeze is on |
| Breeze → Passport | Attendance at the Breeze events you mark as worship services, or at any event on a service day if you count every event | Every six hours, and on Sunday evening and Monday morning, once you choose Breeze as where you take attendance |
When Passport updates somebody in Breeze, it sends only the fields that changed in Passport, so an edit somebody made in Breeze is not overwritten by an older copy.
Passport does not send attendance to Breeze. Apart from attendance, changes made in Breeze after your import are not picked up automatically.
To stop sending, switch Sync to Breeze off under Admin → Settings → Breeze & Planning Center. Your credentials stay saved, so you can switch it back on later.
Planning Center
| Direction | What travels | When |
|---|---|---|
| Planning Center → Passport | People with their households, groups and their rosters, calendar events, Check-Ins history, and Services (service types, plans and your song library) | Each time you run an import |
| Planning Center → Passport | Changes to the name, email, mobile number and address of people already linked between the two systems | As they happen, once live updates are on, or when you select Check for changes now |
| Passport → Planning Center | New guests Passport captures, and the changes you make to them in Passport (email, phone, address and photo). Someone already in Planning Center is matched by email or phone and linked, not added twice | As it happens, once you turn on Send new guests and milestones to Planning Center |
| Planning Center → Passport | Check-Ins attendance at the events you mark as worship services, or at any event on a service day if you count every event | Every two hours, once you choose Planning Center as where you take attendance |
| Passport → Planning Center | Baptism, Holy Ghost and attendance fields, on a Passport tab in Planning Center People | After you select Create Passport fields |
| Passport → Planning Center | Gifts given through Passport, as a daily batch that is committed overnight | While sending is on, if your church takes giving in Passport |
Some things do not travel to Planning Center:
- Households, groups, group membership and Services (plans, songs and scheduling) are not sent. They stay yours to manage in Planning Center, and Passport never changes them.
- Attendance and check-ins cannot be written to Planning Center, because its Check-Ins API is read-only. Passport writes a "last attended" summary onto the person instead.
- For people who sign in to Passport, email and phone changes made in Planning Center are not copied over, because those details are how they sign in and where their texts go.
- Passport never takes a person's type from Planning Center. Passport works that out from attendance and giving.
:::note Do not see the sending switch? Sending to Planning Center is part of the Companion, Plus and Pro plans. Every church that can import sees the Planning Center connection under Admin → Settings → Breeze & Planning Center; if the panel has credentials but no sending switch, check your plan under Admin → Settings → Plan & billing. Importing from Planning Center, and reading attendance from Check-Ins, work either way. :::
:::caution Opt-outs stay in Passport Planning Center has no do-not-contact field. Someone who opts out of messages in Passport can still be messaged from Planning Center. :::
Attendance from Breeze or Planning Center
Guest follow-up depends on knowing who came back. If you take attendance in Planning Center Check-Ins or in Breeze, Passport can read it from there. Passport only reads this attendance. It never writes attendance to either system.
- Go to Admin → Settings → Breeze & Planning Center, to the panel Where do you take attendance?
- Choose Passport, Planning Center Check-Ins or Breeze. Planning Center or Breeze needs to be connected first.
- Decide what counts as being at church:
- Only the events you tick. Passport lists the events that have had attendance in the last 8 weeks. Tick the ones where people attend a service, and choose the Passport service each one counts as. Leave nursery, classes and volunteer teams unticked.
- Every event on a service day. Turn on Count every event on a service day. Someone at any class, study or service in Breeze or Planning Center on a day you hold a Passport service then counts as being at church that day. Each event counts towards that day's service nearest its start time. Events on days with no Passport service, or on a cancelled service day, do not count. You can still tick an event to tie it to a particular service.
- Select Save.
Passport then reads Planning Center Check-Ins every two hours. It reads Breeze every six hours, with extra reads on Sunday evening and Monday morning in your church's time zone, because Breeze attendance is often typed in after the service. The panel shows when attendance was last read, and Sync now reads it straight away.
Changing which events count starts the reading over: Passport reads the last two weeks again with the new choice.
For Planning Center, Add first-time guests from Check-Ins is on by default. When an adult checks in for the first time and Passport has never met them, Passport adds them as a guest so follow-up can start.
:::note Passport waits for the latest attendance When attendance comes from Breeze or Planning Center, an empty record right after a service can mean the attendance has not arrived yet. So Passport does not mark a planned visit as missed, or decide a guest has stopped coming, until attendance from after that service has been read. :::
The service panel on Today lists your recent guests with a Here button, so your team can mark a returning guest that the other system missed.
What stays in Passport
Guest follow-up runs in Passport and stays there: the Guests hub, each guest's stage, Guest Journeys, follow-up tasks and Inbox conversations.
People you import are not treated as new guests. Nobody is sent a "thanks for visiting" text for a visit they made years ago. An imported person joins guest follow-up only once they turn up in person, plan a visit, or fill in a connection card.
Common questions
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Will importing twice give us two of everybody? | No. Passport matches people it has already seen. |
| Can we stop sending to Breeze or Planning Center? | Yes. Switch Sync to Breeze or Send new guests and milestones to Planning Center off under Admin → Settings → Breeze & Planning Center. Nothing already sent is removed. |
| A guest checked in at Planning Center but shows as not here | Check-Ins are read every two hours, and only for the events you ticked (or, if you count every event, for events on a service day). Select Sync now, or mark them Here on Today |
| Planning Center stopped syncing | Planning Center may have rejected your saved credentials. The Integrations page says so, with a link to reconnect. |
| Some people did not reach Planning Center | Records that cannot be sent are listed under Needs attention on the Planning Center panel, with the reason. |
Next steps
- Bring your data across — Importing & Exporting Data.
- Start with guests — set up your Visit Page and print a connection card.
- Compare plans — Plans.