Engagement and lifecycle status
A lifecycle stage chip on a person's panel gives you, at a glance, a gentle read of how connected the household is — *newcomer, registered, engaged, drifting, lapsed,* or *reconnected*. It replaced the older "Mass engagement" badge with something more transparent: hover the chip for an evidence tooltip, including a 13-Sunday presence strip showing exactly what the read is based on.
Where the signal comes from
The stage is an inference from evidence — envelope returns, recorded contact, ministry service, and a recent electronic gift — never a score and never a judgement on anyone's faith. See Lifecycle stages for exactly how it is worked out, including the calibration period when stages are visible to the pastor only.
Households who give electronically are no longer invisible. A family on bank transfer or automatic card giving never puts an envelope in the basket, so the envelope-shaped signal used to read their steady support as silence — and faithful, committed parishioners surfaced on the "who haven't we seen lately" list. Since 20 August 2026 a recent electronic gift counts the way a presence signal counts. It does not claim they were at Mass, and Vianney does not pretend it does; it shows that the household is still here, and the evidence line says exactly that: *"Electronic giving on file — last gift …"*. Envelope, cash, and check gifts are deliberately not counted this way — those arrive in the basket, and the envelope signal already speaks for them.
A separate lifecycle status
Alongside the engagement stage, a person also carries a simpler lifecycle status — Active, Inactive, Deceased, or Contributor only.
Setting it by hand
- 1. Open the person's profile.
- 2. The pastor can set a stage override; a priest, parochial vicar, or administrator can set a lifecycle status override.
- 3. An override always wins over the computed signal, is recorded, and is marked so everyone knows it was a human judgement.
Where the detail lives
The panel shows the current stage chip at a glance; the full evidence, history, and override control are on the person's full record page, reached from the panel.
Tips
- Use overrides when you know the person better than the data does — a homebound daily communicant should not read as "lapsed."
- These signals power the gentle "who haven't we seen lately" views in Engagement — including the Today suggested-action cards — and they are pastoral prompts, never scores.
- To see everyone at one engagement status at once, use People → + Add filter → Engagement — see Finding a person.