Engagement: knowing and caring for every family
The Engagement module gathers what Vianney already knows about each person and household into one place, so the parish can ask a simple question: *who might we be losing touch with, and what is the next kind thing to do?*
It is built on things you already record — sacraments, Mass intentions, envelope returns, visits, replies, ministry service — never on guesswork or a hidden "score."
What it gives you
- The Story — one dated feed, on each person and household, of everything between them and the parish.
- Saved lists (segments) — reusable groups like "new households" or "baptisms this year," ready to view in People or hand to Communications.
- Lifecycle stages — a gentle, evidence-based read of where a household stands, from newcomer to engaged to drifting.
- Families we may need to reconnect with — the flagship: households that have gone quiet, with one click to a warm, human-approved letter.
- Suggested actions on Today — a welcome for the newly registered, aftercare after a funeral, a remembrance on an anniversary.
- Intelligence — a plain-English question about your own people, answered from the parish's own records.
- Admissions is no longer here — if your parish runs a school, the inquiry-to-enrolled funnel has its own School area in the sidebar. See School advancement.
Where to find it
Engagement sits under Care & Engagement in the sidebar, alongside Care — the two belong together, because knowing a family and caring for one are the same work.
It opens on a Dashboard: the counts at a glance and the spread of lifecycle stages. Beside it you'll find My Follow-ups (what is waiting on you), All Follow-ups, Reconnect (the families who have gone quiet), Recently Reconnected, Lists, Intelligence, and Setup.
Intelligence
Ask about your people in plain English — *"Who speaks Spanish and could help at the festival?"* — and press ✦ AI Search. Answers come back as a table you can sort, and the columns are chosen from the question you asked: ask about volunteers and you get a Volunteering column; ask about widows and you get the date their husband died. A question library sits beside the box; tap one to run it. If the records cannot answer, the search says so plainly instead of handing you a nearly-right list. This rides the parish's AI add-on — see What the AI can and cannot see.
Setup
Two catalogs the parish owns, and neither of them is code: the service bodies people are elected or appointed to (Finance Council, Parish Council, whatever else you keep) and the volunteer opportunities people turn out for (the fall festival, the fish fry, the counting team). Tag a form or an event with an opportunity and sign-ups become volunteering automatically. Ministry positions are not edited here — they come from Ministry Scheduling and appear on their own. A catalog entry with records against it cannot be deleted; mark it inactive instead, so a stint from 2014 keeps the name it was served under.
The promise
Nothing here sends itself, ever. Every message is a draft a person reviews and approves. And the system always shows its evidence — it never pretends to a certainty it doesn't have.