Lists, care workflows and automations

A list answers “who?”. A care workflow answers “what's next for this person, and who's looking after it?”. An automation does the repetitive steps for you. Together: a guest fills in a form, an automation puts them in a workflow, and a caretaker gets a card with a due date.

Lists with rules

People → Directory → Lists. People: View lets you open a list, star it and click Refresh. People: Edit lets you create, change, export and delete. A list with a serving condition is visible only with Teams & roster: View, and one with a form condition only with People: Edit.

New churches start with three lists: New in the last 6 months, Haven't served in a while and Birthdays this month. If your list is empty, click Add starter lists.

To build your own:

1. Click New list, then fill in List name and Description (optional).
2. Under Show people who match, choose all conditions or any condition.
3. Click Add condition and pick the Condition type: Directory status, Recently added, Birthday, Age, Household, Group, Team, Last served, Last attended or Form submission.
4. Watch the Preview: “Matching now: 7 people”, with sample names.
5. Click Save list.

You don't add people by hand. The list follows the rules and refreshes every hour, or when you click Refresh. Last attended counts group attendance, Sunday school and child check-in.

On a list's page:

• The star moves it to the top of your lists. Stars are personal.
• Write to this list starts an announcement (needs Announcements: Manage). See Announcements and notifications.
• Add to workflow gives everyone on the list a card.
• Export CSV downloads the list. It's personal data, so store it with care.
• Edit rules and Delete list. People stay in the directory.

If a group, team or form used in a rule is deleted, you'll see The last refresh failed. The list keeps its last members until you fix the rules.

Care workflows

People → Directory → Workflows. A workflow is the path you walk with someone, e.g. from a first visit to a small group. Steps are columns, and each person is a card.

• People: View: sees the boards.
• People: Edit: adds people and moves cards.
• People: Manage: creates and changes workflows.
• A caretaker needs no directory access, only an account in your church. They see just their own cards.

The easiest start is Add from ready-made, then Turn on: First-time guest (4 steps), Path to membership (5), Serving candidate (5) or Visiting the sick (4). The last one is Confidential and needs Pastoral & confidential notes. You become the workflow leader. Then click Edit and choose a Step caretaker for each step. Steps, due dates and emails can be changed too.

New workflow builds one from scratch: Name, Workflow leader, Default caretaker, Confidential workflow and Steps, each with Due (days), Step caretaker, Hint for the caretaker and an optional email. Set Report to the leader after (days overdue) and click Create workflow.

Working with the board:

1. Add people: Search or From a list. You can also start from a person's card, Workflows tab → Add to workflow. Anyone already in the workflow is skipped.
2. The arrow on a card means Next. On the last step it's Complete.
3. Click a card to open its panel. There you can write a note, change the Caretaker and Due date, or use Move to step, Snooze, Send e-mail and Remove from workflow.
4. Filter with All caretakers, My cards and Overdue only.

Snooze takes a card off the list until the day you choose, then it comes back by itself.

Send e-mail opens the step's template with a preview. Nothing leaves until someone clicks Send, and replies go to the sender. Only the subject stays in the card history. It won't send if the person has no address or withdrew email consent, and a card can send 3 emails in 24 hours.

What people get:

• Caretakers get one summary a day, from 7:00 church time, by push or else by email. It has only numbers, with no names.
• A card overdue by the set number of days is reported once to the workflow leader. A workflow without a leader reports to nobody.
• A confidential workflow is visible only with Pastoral & confidential notes, and to the caretaker of a card.

An archived workflow keeps its cards in progress but takes no new people. Completed and removed cards are deleted after 12 months.

Tasks

For a single job, use a task (People: Edit). On a person's card, open Tasks, fill in Task, Due date and Assign to, then click Add task. The assignee needs an account in your church and gets a reminder on the due date. They see the title and the person's name, so keep pastoral details in Notes.

Automations

Admin → Settings → Automations, or the Automations button on the Workflows tab. You need People: Manage.

Each automation reads like a sentence: “When … then …”.

After When you pick someone submits a form, a new person appears in the directory, a child is checked in for the first time, someone asks to join a group or someone declines a serving request.

After then you pick add to workflow, email this person, create a task, request to join a group or ask the team leader to add them.

Start with From templates → Use:

• Guest form → First visit + welcome email. Turn on First-time guest first.
• Child’s first visit → task for the class leader.
• Declined serving request → task for the team leader.

A template only fills in the builder. For your own, click New automation, give it a Name, choose what starts it and what should happen, and use add action for more steps (up to 10). How it will work shows the whole sentence. Keep On — runs right after saving ticked and click Save.

Before you switch one on:

• It reacts only to what happens after saving.
• Its emails go out with no human check, only to people with an address who haven't withdrawn consent. Replies go to whoever created the automation.
• For forms, tick If this person is not in the directory, create a guest record. Otherwise submissions from new people are skipped.
• Limits per day: 200 runs of one automation and 300 emails from all automations in your church. After 10 errors in a row it switches off, and you'll see Turned off automatically after errors.
• Each automation has a Run log, kept for 90 days. Errors only shows what went wrong.

My tasks and My cards

In the browser, both are on the Dashboard. In the phone app (iPhone, iPad, Android) they're sections at the top of the Church tab, shown when you have something open. A card there has Call, SMS, Email, Next, Snooze, Add note and Write the step email.

Lists, workflow boards and automations are only in the browser.

What's next

• Sign-ups and forms
• The people directory: people, households, import and notes