Check-ins & Feedback
Check-ins are the heartbeat of Scout. Every time a volunteer serves, they check in through the mobile app and optionally share feedback about their experience. Over time, this builds a rich picture of your team’s engagement and wellbeing.
How Check-ins Work
When volunteers open the Scout app on Sunday (or whenever they serve), they check in by selecting their team and service time. It takes about 10 seconds. After their service, they can share quick feedback about how it went.
Check-ins are what drive Scout’s engagement scores. Without check-ins, Scout can’t track who’s showing up or how they’re feeling.
Feedback Sentiment
After serving, volunteers rate their experience on a simple four-point scale:
- Great — Everything went well, they’re energized
- Good — Solid experience, nothing notable
- Fine — Not bad, but not great either. Worth watching.
- Difficult — Something was hard. This flags for follow-up.
Volunteers can also add optional notes to give context. These notes are visible to church staff on the Check-ins page.
The Check-ins Page
The Check-ins page is where you see everything that’s happening with your volunteer team. At the top, you can switch between date ranges — This Week, Last Week, Last 30 Days, or a custom range. Changing the date range updates everything on the page.
Weekly Summary Stats
The stats bar gives you a quick pulse on the selected period:
- Check-in count with a week-over-week percentage change
- Unique volunteers who checked in, also with a comparison to the prior period
- Feedback breakdown — a visual bar showing how many Great, Good, Fine, and Difficult responses you received
Needs Follow-Up
When a volunteer submits “Difficult” feedback, it appears here until someone on your team takes action. Each item shows the volunteer’s name, their feedback note, and quick-action buttons so you can respond without leaving the page:
- Log Contact — You’ve reached out to the volunteer
- Snooze — Come back to this in 7, 14, or 30 days
- Dismiss — No action needed
Once you take action, the item fades out. This keeps your team accountable for pastoral follow-through, and makes sure difficult feedback doesn’t get lost.
Inactive Volunteers
Scout also flags volunteers who haven’t checked in for 30 or more days. This section helps you catch people who may be quietly stepping back before they fully disengage. You can log contact, snooze, or dismiss — the same workflow as feedback follow-ups.
Team Insights
A grid of cards showing activity by team. Each card displays the team’s check-in count, how many unique volunteers checked in, and a mini sentiment breakdown bar. Teams are sorted by activity, so your most active teams appear first.
Recent Check-ins Feed
Below the insights sections, you’ll find a chronological feed of individual check-ins. You can filter by:
- Search — Find check-ins by volunteer name, team, or service
- Team — Filter to a specific ministry team
- Service — Filter to a specific service time
- Has Note — Show only check-ins where the volunteer left a feedback note
Click on any check-in to open a detail view with the full feedback, the volunteer’s recent check-in history, and any badges they’ve earned.
Monday Rollup
Every Monday, Scout sends a digest email to church staff summarizing the previous week. The rollup includes check-in counts (with week-over-week comparison), new badges earned, and any at-risk volunteers. It’s designed to give you a pulse on your team without having to log in.
Encouraging Feedback
Feedback is optional, but the more you get, the more useful Scout becomes. A few tips:
- Let your team know their feedback is seen and valued — when someone shares “Difficult” feedback and you follow up, it builds trust.
- Remind volunteers that feedback is simple (one tap) and that honest responses help your church care for them better.
- Don’t worry about getting 100% feedback rates. Even 40–50% gives you meaningful data.