How AssemblyFlow works.

Getting started

Install AssemblyFlow on the booth laptop. On first launch, the app unpacks the 85-song library and pre-renders each one to PNGs — about ninety seconds on an SSD. When you see 85 songs loaded in the toolbar, you're ready.

Open CCLI from the toolbar (round © icon) and enter your church's license number. This isn't required to use the app, but reporting won't work without it.

Building a service

A service is a list of items, in order. Items can be any of:

• Songs — drag from Library, or click the + on a song row
• Scripture — type a reference in the "Add passage" input and press Enter
• Sermon PowerPoint — drag a .pptx onto the "Add Sermon PPT" field, or pick from disk
• Countdown — pre-service timer to a target clock time
• Announcement — quick text-on-theme slides (Welcome, Offering, Communion…)

Click any item to select it; the right pane previews its first slide. Press Project (or F5) to put it on the screen.

Reordering

Drag items by their number badge to reorder. The little ▲ ▼ buttons on each row do the same thing one step at a time.

Per-item overrides

Each item has an Override menu where you can pin a specific background or attach speaker notes that only the Stage Display can see. Useful for a communion song that wants a different theme, or a sermon slide that has a transition cue.

Bible translations

Three translations ship bundled and work offline. Two more API endpoints unlock dozens of additional translations — once you've added a free API key.

• BSV (default) — Biblical Standard Version, translated & published by Straight Truth Press. Bundled, offline.
• KJV — King James Version, bundled, offline
• ASV — American Standard Version, bundled, offline
• ESV — via api.esv.org. Free key, 5,000 verses/day, non-commercial use only.
• api.bible Starter — a free key from scripture.api.bible lets you pick 3 copyrighted Bibles (NIV, NASB, CSB, NLT, NKJV, The Message, and others) plus a large library of Creative Commons and Public Domain Bibles in many languages. 5,000 calls/month, no overage, strictly non-commercial.

When you reference a verse, every response is cached to disk. The same verse on the same translation is instant after the first fetch — and works offline next time.

How to add an API key. Open the Bibles panel in the toolbar (the open-book icon), paste in your ESV or api.bible key, and choose which translations to enable. Keys are stored locally in data/keys.json — never sent anywhere except to the respective API.

Projection

The Projection window is a borderless fullscreen on your second monitor. It has no chrome — hover anywhere in the bottom inch to reveal Prev / Next / Blank / Exit controls.

Every slide transition is a ~350 ms cross-fade. Themes are 9 bundled images plus anything you drag into the Themes panel; files are copied to data/backgrounds/ and rendered with a 45% darken overlay for legibility.

Three blank modes

• Standby — your church's logo (or the AF mark) centered on a dark background
• Blackout — true black, for prayer or silent reflection
• Logo — your custom static slide (drag any image into Settings → Logo screen)

Stage display

A second output for the people on stage. Run the same AssemblyFlow executable on a separate machine and tell it to act as Stage Display in the Mode picker — or use a 3-output graphics card with the same machine.

What you get:

• Current slide text, sized for distance
• UP NEXT — the next slide rendered small below current
• Live clock plus elapsed-since-launch timer
• Amber-bordered speaker notes the congregation never sees

Web remote

AssemblyFlow runs an HTTP server on port 8788 bound to your LAN IP. Connect any device on the same Wi-Fi to http://<your-LAN-IP>:8788 — the Planner's status bar shows the exact URL plus a QR code.

The remote is a PWA: tap the share icon in Safari (or browser menu in Chrome) and "Add to Home Screen" — you get the AssemblyFlow icon on the home screen and it launches fullscreen.

CCLI reporting

What is CCLI? CCLI is Christian Copyright Licensing International — the license most congregations carry to legally project copyrighted song lyrics. If your assembly sings a cappella from public-domain hymns only, you may never need one. If you do, your church's CCLI Church Copyright License number goes in Settings → CCLI; AssemblyFlow handles the logging from there.

Every time a song projects (not previews), AssemblyFlow appends a row to data/ccli-usage/<year>.csv. The row includes timestamp, song title, CCLI Song #, authors, copyright, publisher, and your church's CCLI license number.

Open the CCLI panel (round © icon) when reporting season comes. Pick a date range — defaults to the last 6 months for the biannual — and click Export CSV. The result is in the column order CCLI expects.

Missing data

If a song is missing its CCLI Song #, the row is highlighted amber in the report preview. Fix it in the song's metadata panel before exporting.

Keyboard shortcuts

Where your data lives

Everything you create — services, custom backgrounds, custom songs, CCLI logs, cached scripture — lives under %USERPROFILE%\Documents\AssemblyFlow\:

• services/ — one JSON per saved service
• songs/ — your custom songs (the 85 bundled ones live in Program Files)
• backgrounds/ — custom themes you've imported
• cache/ — pre-rendered PNGs, scripture API responses
• ccli-usage/ — yearly CSV logs
• settings.json — CCLI #, default theme, font preferences

Back this folder up. That's your whole installation.

Troubleshooting

The Projection window appears on the wrong monitor

Settings → Output → pick the right display. Order matches Windows Display Settings numbering. Restart the projection after changing.

A sermon .pptx won't render

AssemblyFlow drives PowerPoint via COM to render slides — so PowerPoint must be installed and licensed on the booth machine. The free PowerPoint viewer doesn't expose COM. LibreOffice doesn't work for this.

The web remote won't load on my phone

Check that your phone is on the same Wi-Fi network as the booth laptop. Corporate / guest networks often isolate clients from each other — ask your IT person for an SSID without client isolation.

"Holy Bible Church" appears in the report header

That's the placeholder. Settings → Church → set your church name.

Still stuck? Email support@assemblyflow.net with the version number (in Help → About) and your logs/latest.log.