Serving requests and the schedule

When a coordinator sends the schedule, the ask lands inside the churchHQ member app. This walks through what the volunteer sees at each step, what gets back to the coordinator, and the controls people go looking for that are not there.

How the ask arrives

Staff build the schedule in the dashboard and then send it. The moment a slot moves from planning to requested, Scout sends one push notification to that person's churchHQ account. The title reads Can you serve Sunday? and the body names the team and the date: "Worship: Sun, Jun 15. Tap to confirm or decline." Someone asked for several spots on the same day gets one notification for all of them.

Two limits on that notification matter:

• It only reaches the churchHQ app from the App Store or Google Play, signed in to an account linked to that person's record. A browser tab or a home-screen shortcut receives no push.
• Scout sends no email and no text message for a serving request. If someone is not on the app, the request sits there until they open it. Reaching them another way is the coordinator's job.

The request is in the app whether or not the push lands. It shows on Home as a card headed You're serving: {position}, and on the Schedule tab. Home shows one slot, the soonest by date. The Schedule tab shows every upcoming slot.

Confirm and Decline

While a slot is waiting on an answer its status pill reads Requested and two buttons sit beside it, Confirm and Decline.

On the Home card both buttons take effect on the tap. From Schedule → Upcoming, Confirm takes effect on the tap and Decline opens a sheet first:

Can't make it this time? We'll let your team leader know. Yes, decline · Keep serving

Keep serving closes the sheet and changes nothing.

A slot a coordinator has penciled in but not yet sent shows on the volunteer's schedule with a Planning pill and no buttons. That is normal and needs no action from them.

No decline reason is captured, and what the coordinator sees

Scout records the answer and who gave it. There is no reason box, no menu of reasons, and no message field attached to a decline.

The coordinator gets three things instead:

• An email, subject [Action needed] {Name} can't make {date} {role}, with a Find a backup → button into the staff schedule. It goes to the team's leads, or to owners, admins and anyone who can assign volunteers when the team has no lead. Confirming sends the matching email, {Name} confirmed for {date} {role}.
• A struck-through name on the schedule. The declined person stays visible on the slot, tagged Declined, and the slot counts as open again.
• A memory. Scout stops suggesting that person for that particular slot, so the backup list does not offer them again.

Reading an upcoming card

Each card carries the date, the position, the service time and the team. The Home card shortens the date to This Sunday, Next Sunday, or a short date like Jun 28. An upcoming card can also show a row of faces and a line like with Sarah, Marcus +2. Those are teammates who have already confirmed on the same team, and on per-service teams, the same service time. Anyone still deciding is left out, so the line grows as the week goes on and is absent when nobody else has confirmed yet.

Upcoming and History

My Schedule has one toggle: Upcoming and History. History lists past slots newest first, up to 20 of them.

A card at the top of History counts serves: a number, then "times served this year. Thank you." It counts confirmed slots since January 1, minus any the volunteer marked as couldn't make it, so it will usually be larger than the 20 rows underneath it.

After a serve

At 7pm on the day of the service, church time, Scout pushes How did it go? to everyone confirmed for that day who has not already answered.

On History, a past confirmed slot shows How was it? above four buttons: Difficult, Fine, Good, Great. Tapping one opens an optional note box (Any thoughts to share? (optional)) and a Submit button. Once submitted, the card keeps the rating as a pill. Staff who can see the serving schedule can read both the rating and the note, so do not describe it to a volunteer as anonymous.

Under the rating buttons is a quieter link, I didn't end up serving. It opens:

Couldn't make it after all? No problem. This just keeps the serving record straight. Right, I didn't serve that day · Never mind

The card then reads Marked as couldn't make it with an Undo link, and the slot drops out of the yearly tally. The link only appears before a reflection is left. Once someone has rated a serve, the link is gone and the record stands as served.

Stepping back for a season

On Profile, reached from the avatar in the top right, the Need to step back? card has a Pause button. After tapping it the card reads You're on a serving pause with a Resume button.

A pause shows up wherever staff assign volunteers, and Scout stops suggesting that person for open slots. It does not send anyone an alert, and it does not cancel slots already on the schedule: existing requests stay put and still need an answer. When a pastor or staff member set the pause instead, the card explains that and shows no Resume button, because only the person who set a pause can lift it.

What per-team mutes do and do not cover

The Update notifications card on Profile lists each team and group with its own switch. Switching one off stops push notifications for posts that leader sends to that team or group. Those posts still appear in the Updates feed.

Muting a team does not silence serving. Requests, the day-before reminder, and the evening How did it go? prompt all follow the master Notifications switch on Profile, and on Android they land in the Serving reminders channel. Notifications and profile covers those settings in full.

What a volunteer cannot do in the app

• No swap and no find-a-sub. Decline is the only way out, and it puts the slot back in the coordinator's hands.
• No claiming an open slot. Open slots are visible only to staff. Someone who wants more serving uses the Connect tile on Home and picks I'd like to serve.
• No blockout dates and no availability calendar. The closest thing is When you're available under About you (Sunday AM, Sunday PM, Weekday evenings, Saturdays), which coordinators read when recruiting. The scheduler does not check it, so a coordinator can still be asked for a date the volunteer marked off.
• No team roster. The only teammates a volunteer sees are the confirmed ones on their own dates.
• No leaving a team. That is a staff change, made on the team.

Everything on the other side of this, sending requests, filling the gap a decline leaves, and reading who has answered, is in Scheduling volunteers.