A few years ago (6 years ago!), I shared about a solution I came up with to create the weekly “talking points” Google documents that my team relies on. We’ve been using that same solution with Google Apps Script ever since. It’s been rock solid, and saves us a lot of time from creating each one of these documents by hand.
I decided it was time to refresh this script and document, since we now have a third venue (at a new campus). And, when it’s time to refine – why not consult some AI in the process?
This was my starting prompt.
I started by sending ChatGPT my existing script and asking if it had any ideas to improve the prompts.
The response
We immediately got to work redesigning the script – mostly focusing on the dialogs and flow.
I came up with a basic new design that featured the church logo and a simpler header. ##VENUE## and ##DATE## are placeholders that get replaced with the actual Venue name and Date of the document.
After some back and forth, here’s what the new dialog looks like:
This looks a lot better! I even added a progress bar:
If you’re hesitating to jump in using generative AI – give it a whirl! It can save you a lot of time and propose ideas you may not have thought about.
If you’re involved in tech ministry and like to tinker, chances are you’ve heard of — and maybe even used — micboard.io.
This is Micboard.
Straight from their website, “Micboard simplifies microphone monitoring and storage for artists, engineers, and volunteers. View battery, audio, and RF levels from any device on the network.” It’s a neat tool and has helped a lot of teams over the years.
I always liked the idea of Micboard because it would be a great way to show who is serving that day. We tried to implement it at my church but eventually moved away from it, mainly because it hadn’t been updated in quite a while (over 6 years now), and we needed some additional features. Specifically, we were looking for integration with Planning Center Services — something that could automatically pull assignments from an interface our team was already familiar with. And – something we could use for more than just people on stage.
At first, I forked the Micboard repo (since it’s open-source) and started making improvements, cleaning up some code, and tweaking it to run more easily on modern MacOS systems. But pretty quickly, I realized I had too much on my plate to maintain a whole fork long-term.
Fast forward a year or so. I came across a few posts on some Facebook groups that I was in where people were using my ScreenDeck project to essentially create a Micboard style interface using Companion.
I wish I had my own Acoustic Bear.
What I loved about this approach is that it leveraged something we were already using — Companion — and could still be viewed from anywhere on the network, just like Micboard. Plus, Companion supports a lot more devices beyond just Shure systems.
Even better, this opened the door to that Planning Center integration I had wanted without introducing a bunch of extra overhead — we were already using the PCO module to control our LIVE service plans!
One thing I’ve wanted for a while was a digital roster — something simple to show who’s serving each day, helping everyone put names to faces across band, tech, safety, and more. A “Serving Board,” if you will.
About a year ago, I had modified the PCO module to pull scheduled people into variables — showing their names and assigned roles. I recently took it further by adding a feedback: “Show Person Photo based on Position Name.”
Now, the module pulls the photo from the person’s assignment, converts it into a PNG, and stores it internally as a base64 image — which can be shown directly on a button.
Pretty cool – and it looks like this:
Say “hi”, Adam.
But I didn’t want to stop there — I wanted the person’s status (Confirmed, Unconfirmed, or Declined in PCO) to show too.
Using the companion-module-utils library (thanks to another awesome Companion dev!), I added a simple colored border overlay for statuses.
A few extra lines of code later:
And you can get this look!
Thanks for confirming!
At this point, it was looking great — but I started thinking:
What if I don’t want to redo all my buttons every week? What if my teams and roles change?
So I added a new option: a generic “position number” approach.
You can now pick a position number in the plan (or within a specific team) — and the module will automatically pull the right person’s info, week to week, without you having to manually reconfigure anything.
For example:
• Pick any number across the entire plan.
• Or pick a number within a specific team, like Band or Tech.
With this option, you can choose any number, regardless of the team.
This picks the first person scheduled in the band.
I also built some Module Presets to make setting this up super easy:
• Generic Position Number (no specific team)
• Position Number Within a Team (like “Band” only)
Generic without regard to what Team
In this example, you can choose a number within the Band team.
And here’s where it all comes together:
Let’s say you have a “Wireless Assignments” team in PCO, and you assign a person to a position called “Wireless 4.”
Now, using the Shure Wireless module in Companion, you can match that name and see live RF and battery stats for Wireless 4 — tied directly to the person assigned!
All together, you get a clean, dynamic, reusable Micboard-style dashboard — all inside Companion, no extra tools required.
Here’s a walk through video showing it all in action:
The updated PCO Services Live module is available now in the Companion betas — go check it out if you want to try it!
