New Collaboration Features for Church Communication Teams: Comments, Assignments, and Workflow Improvements

New Collaboration Features for Church Communication Teams: Comments, Assignments, and Workflow Improvements

Communicate introduces powerful collaboration features like comments and assignments, a customizable notifications system, brand color management, and workflow improvements that make planning and scheduling faster than ever. These updates help church teams work together more effectively while maintaining consistency and reducing last-minute stress.

Key Takeaways

• Comments enable real-time collaboration directly within campaigns and communications, eliminating the need to switch between email, Slack, and other tools
• Assignments help churches delegate work and track progress with status updates, making it clear who's responsible for each campaign or communication
• Customizable notifications keep teams informed about changes that matter to them, with preferences that can be tailored to each team member's role
• Brand color palette management ensures visual consistency across all campaigns by saving and reusing organization colors throughout the app
• Workflow improvements like drag-to-duplicate, channel reassignment, and streamlined creation processes make planning and scheduling significantly faster

Why Did We Build These Features?

Church communication teams told us they needed better ways to collaborate, delegate work, and stay organized. These new features address these needs by adding team-focused capabilities that make Communicate feel more like a true collaboration hub—not just a scheduling tool. Whether you're coordinating a major campaign or managing weekly announcements, these updates help your team work together more smoothly.

How Do Comments Help Church Teams Collaborate Better?

Comments let your team discuss campaigns and communications directly inside Communicate. Instead of switching to email or Slack, you can ask questions, share updates, and provide feedback right where the work lives.

Comments help churches:

• Ask questions about upcoming communications without leaving the calendar
• Share progress updates on campaigns and communications
• Provide feedback and context that helps team members understand decisions
• Coordinate work on assigned items without juggling multiple tools

When someone comments on a campaign or communication you're following, you'll receive a notification so you never miss important updates. Comments appear in chronological order, making it easy to follow conversations from start to finish. You can edit or delete your own comments, keeping the conversation clean and relevant.

This feature is especially valuable for teams managing multiple campaigns or coordinating across ministries. Learn more about how churches can reduce last-minute communication stress by improving collaboration.

How Do Assignments Help Churches Delegate and Track Work?

Assignments let you delegate campaigns and communications to specific team members and track progress in one central place. When you assign work to someone, they receive a notification and can update their status as they complete tasks.

Assignments help churches:

• Clarify who's responsible for each campaign or communication
• Track progress with status updates (Received, In Progress, On Hold, Complete)
• View all assigned work in one place on the My Assignments page
• Reassign work when priorities shift or team members need support

You can assign work when creating a new campaign or communication, or assign existing items at any time. Each assignment shows a progress badge, making it easy to see what's done and what needs attention. Team leads can view assignments across the entire team, helping balance workload and identify bottlenecks before they become problems.

For churches managing busy seasons or coordinating multiple ministries, assignments provide the clarity needed to stay organized. See the 2026 church communications playbook for how delegation fits into a larger planning strategy.

How Does the New Notifications System Keep Teams Informed?

The notifications system keeps you updated on changes that matter to you, with customizable preferences that let you control what you see. Notifications appear in the notification center (bell icon in the top navigation) and alert you to new assignments, comments, schedule changes, and more.

Notifications help churches:

• Stay aware of new campaigns and communications
• Know when dates or statuses change
• Receive reminders about upcoming deadlines
• See when work is assigned to you
• Track comment activity on items you're following

You can customize which notifications you receive in User Settings, organized by Communications and Campaigns. Enable notifications for items you're responsible for, and disable types that aren't relevant to your role. This keeps you informed without overwhelming you with updates you don't need.

Default settings include notifications for new items, schedule changes, status updates, deadline reminders, assignments, and comments. You can adjust these preferences anytime to match your workflow. For teams managing high-volume communication seasons, smart notification settings help everyone stay aligned without constant interruptions.

How Does the Color Palette Feature Help Churches Maintain Brand Consistency?

The Color Palette feature lets you save and reuse your organization's brand colors, making it easy to keep campaigns and communications visually consistent. When you save colors to the palette, they appear in color pickers throughout the app, so your team can quickly select brand colors without remembering hex codes.

The color palette helps churches:

• Maintain consistent branding across all campaigns
• Speed up campaign creation by selecting saved colors
• Share brand colors with your entire team
• Keep visual identity organized and accessible

Owners and admins can add, edit, and delete colors, while editors can view and use saved colors. When you're creating or editing a campaign or communication, saved colors appear in a dedicated section of the color picker, making brand consistency effortless.

This feature is especially valuable for churches with established brand guidelines or seasonal color schemes. Instead of manually entering color codes each time, your team can select from your saved palette and maintain visual consistency automatically. For churches building a centralized communication workflow, consistent branding is essential.

What Workflow Improvements Make Planning Faster?

Several workflow improvements make scheduling and managing communications more efficient.

Drag communications to new channels: Quickly reassign which channel a communication belongs to by dragging it to a different channel column. This saves time when you need to move content between email, social, or other channels.

Option/Alt + drag to duplicate: Hold Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) while dragging a communication to create a copy. This makes it easy to duplicate communications across channels or weeks without recreating them from scratch.

Change campaign links inside communications: Update which campaign a communication is linked to directly from the communication modal, without needing to recreate the item.

Preserve day of week in Week View: When you drag and drop communications in Week View, they maintain their intended weekday, making it easier to plan recurring content.

Select any date when creating: When adding a communication from the Calendar, you can now choose any date within the week in the creation modal, giving you more control over scheduling.

Add content during creation: Upload images and add copy directly when creating a communication, streamlining setup so you don't have to create the item first and then add content separately.

These improvements reduce clicks, eliminate unnecessary steps, and make the planning process feel more intuitive. For churches managing multiple channels and campaigns, these workflow enhancements save significant time over the course of a year.

How Do Notes and User Settings Improve Organization?

Two smaller but impactful features help churches stay organized and personalize their experience.

Notes section for campaigns: You can now add general notes to campaigns by clicking the notes icon next to the campaign name. This space is perfect for reminders, context, or key planning thoughts that don't fit elsewhere. Notes are saved within the app and help teams capture important information without cluttering the campaign details.

User Settings section: The new User Settings area lets you manage your personal profile and preferences. You can upload a profile photo, edit your name, set your preferred start of week (Sunday or Monday), and customize notification preferences. These settings are personal to your account, so each team member can configure Communicate to match their workflow.

User Settings also includes the notification preferences mentioned earlier, giving you one place to manage your personal Communicate experience. For churches with team members who prefer different calendar views or notification styles, this personalization helps everyone work more comfortably.

How Do These Features Work Together?

These features are designed to work together, creating a more cohesive collaboration experience. For example:

• Assign a campaign to a team member, and they'll receive a notification
• Add comments on assigned items to coordinate work and provide context
• Use saved brand colors when creating new campaigns for consistency
• Track progress through assignments while staying informed via notifications
• Personalize your experience with User Settings while collaborating through comments

This integration means your team can work within Communicate rather than switching between tools, reducing context switching and keeping everyone aligned. For churches building a comprehensive communication strategy, these features support both planning and execution.

What's Improved for Admins and Owners?

Updates to the Admin Console make it easier for admins and owners to manage their organization.

Updated Admin Console: The Admin Console has been reorganized for clearer access to church information, team management, and billing tools. This makes it easier to find what you need when managing your organization's settings.

Reorganized User Settings and Admin areas: User Settings and Admin Console are now more clearly separated, helping users distinguish between personal preferences and organization-wide settings. This reduces confusion and makes it easier to find the right settings.

These improvements help church leaders manage their teams more efficiently while giving individual team members the personalization they need.

Conclusion

These new collaboration features, workflow improvements, and organizational tools help church teams work together more effectively. Whether you're coordinating a major campaign, managing weekly announcements, or planning a busy season, these updates make it easier to delegate work, stay informed, maintain consistency, and plan efficiently.

The combination of comments, assignments, notifications, color management, and workflow enhancements creates a more complete communication planning experience—one that supports both individual productivity and team collaboration.

Ready to experience these improvements? Start using Communicate today and see how better collaboration and smarter workflows can transform your church's communication planning.

FAQs

Q: Which features are available on which plan?
A: Comments and assignments are available on the Plus tier. Notifications, color palette, notes, and workflow improvements are available on all tiers.

Q: Can I customize which notifications I receive?
A: Yes—go to User Settings and adjust your notification preferences. You can enable or disable specific notification types for communications and campaigns.

Q: How do I add colors to the palette?
A: Click the Colors icon in the sidebar to open the Color Palette Manager. Owners and admins can add colors by clicking "Add Color" and selecting from the color picker.

Q: Can multiple people be assigned to one campaign or communication?
A: Each campaign or communication can be assigned to one person at a time. If you need multiple people working on something, consider breaking it into separate communications or using comments to coordinate.

Q: Do comments appear in PDF exports?
A: No—comments are for team collaboration within the app and are not included in PDF exports of campaigns.

Related Articles

Explore these related guides to improve your church communication collaboration:

• How to Centralize Your Church Communication Workflow - Workflow centralization
• How to Reduce Last-Minute Communication Stress - Planning ahead strategies
• Internal Church Communication Tool: What Churches Get Wrong - Internal communication strategies
• Church Communications Tools for Small Teams - Tools for small staff
• How to Use a Church Communications Calendar: Complete Guide - Calendar usage guide
• Multi-Channel Church Communication: The Complete Guide - Multi-channel coordination

Want to put this into action? Start planning your church communications with Communicate — the only church communications calendar built just for ministry teams.