When using Clearstream's Planning Center integration, you may see a contact with incorrect information, like a child's name instead of a parent's, or info from the wrong spouse. This can happen when multiple People in Planning Center have the same phone number listed under their profiles.

Clearstream requires each contact to have a unique phone number to prevent them from receiving duplicate messages. When Clearstream syncs a Planning Center Person whose number is also listed on other profiles, we have to decide which profile to bring over. This determines which name and email are synced to your Clearstream account with that mobile number.

Clearstream connects with Planning Center in several different ways, and each type of sync handles shared numbers a little differently.

When an unknown contact texts your Clearstream number, we look up the number in Planning Center. If we find more than one person, we look for the best match.

Here's how we prioritize which phone number to sync to Clearstream in this scenario:

If none of these match, we will use the most recently updated profile with that number — even if it's inactive.*

*If you don't want to include inactive profiles, you can disable them from syncing in your integration settings. More on that below!

When a Person's information is updated in Planning Center, Clearstream will update that contact's information in your Clearstream account.

If the updated contact shares a phone number with other contacts, we'll run through the above steps to make sure the best available match stays synced.

When you sync a Planning Center List, Clearstream will update or create contacts using the data directly from that list. Because lists can include hundreds or thousands of people, we don't look up every subscriber and look for the best match — we simply sync the contacts who are in that list.

This means that if your list includes a contact who shares a phone number with another profile, Clearstream will sync the name of whichever person is on that list, even if they aren't the best match.

Kate and her son Johnny share the same mobile number: Kate's cell phone. When Kate texts your Clearstream number for the first time, Clearstream finds her in Planning Center and correctly syncs her name and adds her as a new contact in Clearstream.

The next day, Johnny is added to your Youth list in Planning Center. When that list syncs to Clearstream, Johnny's profile data overwrites Kate's contact information in Clearstream.

This back-and-forth can lead to confusion, especially when multiple family members share one phone number. We'll explain how you can prevent this from happening below!

If you have contacts with a shared number in Planning Center that you don't want to sync to Clearstream, you can categorize the shared number as Other.

Clearstream looks for phone numbers listed in the Mobile, Home, or Work fields, so we won't pull profile information for a number listed as Other.

Clearstream allows you to exclude child profiles and/or inactive profiles from your Planning Center sync. This can quickly help you prevent the wrong profiles from syncing over.

Note: This setting will prevent all child and/or inactive profiles from syncing to Clearstream. So if your team has a Youth list that includes child profiles, these numbers will no longer sync to Clearstream.

To move forward with changes to your sync, just log in to your Clearstream account, go to the Integrations page, and click View under Planning Center.

When two or more Planning Center People share the same phone number, we have to pick one contact to sync into Clearstream using a best-match process to prioritize active adults with mobile numbers. However, when a list syncs, it can still bring over different contact information depending on who's in the list.

To prevent the wrong person from syncing:

These steps should help ensure that the right contacts are synced into Clearstream.

Have any questions? Just reach out to us in the chat!