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Tags and Tag Groups

Tags are labels that categorize calendar events on your church's website. They allow visitors to browse events by topic or ministry area — for example, filtering to see only youth events or only community outreach events. Tags and tag groups are managed in Planning Center Calendar and synced into GatherCMS automatically.

What Are Tags​

  • A tag is a label applied to an event that describes what it is or who it is for — for example, "Worship," "Youth," "Kids," "Outreach," or "Social."
  • Tags are assigned to events in Planning Center Calendar.
  • One event can have multiple tags. For example, "VBS Kickoff" might be tagged with both "Kids" and "Summer."

What Are Tag Groups​

  • A tag group is a named container that organizes related tags together.
  • For example, a tag group called "Ministry Area" might contain the tags "Worship," "Youth," "Kids," "Women," and "Men."
  • Another tag group called "Event Type" might contain "Service," "Bible Study," "Social," and "Conference."
  • Tag groups are displayed on your church's website as browseable categories, allowing visitors to filter events by the groupings that make sense for your church.

Public vs. Private Tags​

Each tag in Planning Center has a visibility setting — public or private.

  • Public tags are visible on your website. Visitors can browse and filter events by these tags.
  • Private tags are used internally. They are not shown on the website and are not available for visitors to filter by.
  • For an event to appear on your public website, it must have at least one public tag assigned to it. An event without a public tag will not be visible to website visitors, even if the event itself is marked public in Planning Center.
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If one of your events is not appearing on the website, check that it has at least one public tag assigned in Planning Center Calendar. A tag must be explicitly marked as public — being assigned to an event is not enough on its own.

Viewing Tags in GatherCMS​

  • Navigate to Calendar > Tags in the Staff Portal to see all synced tags.
  • The tag list is sorted alphabetically by name and is searchable.
  • Click any tag to view its details.
  • Tags are read-only in GatherCMS. No editing is available from this screen.

How Tags Connect to Events​

  • When a visitor browses your church's website and selects a category (such as "Youth"), they are filtering events by that tag.
  • Any event tagged with "Youth" and marked public will appear in that filtered view.
  • Tags are assigned to events in Planning Center Calendar and sync automatically into GatherCMS — no action is needed in GatherCMS to apply or update tag assignments.

Managing Tags​

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Tags and tag groups are managed entirely in Planning Center Calendar. Changes sync into GatherCMS automatically — typically within a few minutes of being saved in Planning Center.

  • To create a new tag, add it to the appropriate tag group in Planning Center Calendar.
  • To make a tag visible on your website, mark it as public in Planning Center.
  • To add a tag to an event, assign it in Planning Center Calendar.
  • To remove a tag from an event, unassign it in Planning Center. The sync will remove the association in GatherCMS.
  • Tags deleted in Planning Center are removed from GatherCMS and will no longer be associated with events.

Frequently Asked Questions​

I created a new tag in Planning Center but it is not showing in GatherCMS yet. When will it appear?

Tags sync along with events on a periodic schedule, typically within a few minutes. If the tag still does not appear after 15 minutes, verify it is saved and active in Planning Center.

An event has tags assigned in Planning Center but is still not appearing on our website. Why?

Confirm that at least one of the assigned tags is marked as public in Planning Center Calendar. Events with only private tags will not display on the public website, even if the event itself is public.

Can I see which tag group a tag belongs to from within GatherCMS?

The tag detail view in GatherCMS shows the tag name. For full tag group context, refer to Planning Center Calendar, where tag group associations are visible and manageable.

How many tags can one event have?

There is no limit in GatherCMS. Events can have as many tags as are assigned to them in Planning Center Calendar.