Outreach and Care, in depth

A request starts as New. Staff move it to In progress when someone takes it, and to Scheduled when a visit date is set. Completed records the completion date. Closed fits a request that needs no more action, such as an anonymous prayer the parish has prayed for.

Each request carries a type, an owner, a priest or deacon and a visit date. Staff can change the type when a request turns out to be something else. The save step stores only the fields that changed. Closed and completed requests stay in the list for 90 days after their last change.

Most requests come from online forms.

• Door-hanger prayer form. A neighbor who answers "No" to a follow-up creates an anonymous Prayer request with no contact details. A neighbor who answers "Yes" creates a Pastoral follow-up request with a name, contact details, topics and a preferred contact method.
• Home-blessing form. It creates a Home blessing request with the address, language, preferred days and time. The parish sets a staff notify list on this form, and the app emails that list for each new request.
• Staff. A staff member enters a request taken by phone, at a door, in person or by email, and records how the parish heard.

A form request reaches the queue within seconds. If that step fails, a daily check adds the request the next morning.

Only staff with the Outreach and Care role, and global administrators, open the queue. Someone without the role who follows a request link sees a no-access notice. The parish assigns the role in admin management.

A request can hold health, family or safe-environment disclosures. The app does not decide what to report. Staff follow the diocesan reporting rules.

The queue shows counts for New, In progress and Scheduled, and the days the oldest New request has waited. Chips count each type. Staff filter by type, by status, and by owner: all, mine or unassigned. Each open request should have an owner, so a weekly look at Unassigned catches gaps.

A staff member can reply by email from the request. A request with no email address shows a notice instead, and the reply box stays off. The app tells staff what happened.

• The email was sent.
• The person opted out of parish email, so the app saved the reply and did not send it.
• The email did not go out, so the app saved the reply.
• A reply with the same text is already sending, which prevents a double send.

Notes are for staff only. The timeline lists every note, every reply and every change, with the person who made it and the time.

Staff export the open prayer requests as a CSV or PDF file. The file holds the contact name, or "Anonymous", the reference, the request text and the received date. It holds no email address, no phone number and no street address. A pastor can print the sheet for a prayer group without exposing contact details.