Follow-Ups

Follow-ups are tasks that help your team stay on top of pastoral care, visitor outreach, and other important action items. You can create follow-ups for individual people, assign them to team members, set priorities and due dates, and track them to completion.

Why Use Follow-Ups?

Without a system, it is easy for well-intentioned plans to fall through the cracks. Follow-ups ensure that:

• Visitors get a welcome call within the first week
• Hospital visits are scheduled and completed
• Prayer requests are acted on
• Membership inquiries receive a timely response
• No one is forgotten -- every task has an owner and a due date

The Follow-ups Page

TimelyChurch provides a dedicated Follow-ups page where you can see and manage all follow-up tasks across your church.

1. In the left sidebar, open People and click Follow-ups.
2. You will see a list of all active follow-ups, with overdue items at the top, then pending and in-progress items by due date.

Summary Tiles

At the top of the page, you will see four tiles:

• Open -- All pending and in-progress follow-ups
• Overdue -- Tasks past their due date that have not been completed
• Today -- Tasks due today
• This Week -- Tasks due within the current week

Filtering Follow-Ups

Use the filter options to narrow down the list:

Click Filter to apply your choices, or Clear to reset. (On a phone, open the filter panel and tap Apply Filters.)

Creating a Follow-Up

From the Follow-ups Page

1. On the Follow-ups page, click Add Follow-up (Add on a phone).
2. Fill in the form:
   • Person (optional) -- Search for and select the person this follow-up is about. Leave it empty for a general task.
   • Category (required) -- Choose the type of follow-up:
     • General
     • Pastoral Care
     • Home Visit
     • Hospital Visit
     • First-Time Visitor
     • Baptism Preparation
     • Prayer Request
     • Event Invitation
     • Volunteer Opportunity
     • Membership Update
     • Meeting
     • Phone Call
     • Equipment Repair
     • Equipment Maintenance
     • Equipment Issue
     • Facility Maintenance
     • Facility Repair
     • Facility Issue
   • Method (required) -- How should this follow-up be done?
     • Phone Call
     • In-Person Visit
     • Message/Email
     • Meeting
   • Due Date (required) -- When should this be completed?
   • Due Time (optional) -- A specific time, if applicable.
   • Assign To (optional) -- Who is responsible? Choose Staff to pick someone with a TimelyChurch login (you are pre-selected; choose Unassigned to leave it open), or choose Person to search your whole directory. A person without a member login can be assigned too: an amber note says "[Name] has no member login yet — they will see this task as soon as one is linked."
   • Priority (required) -- How urgent is this?
     • Low
     • Normal
     • High
     • Urgent
   • Notes (optional) -- Additional notes or context about what needs to be done.
   • Enable reminder notification (optional) -- Sends the assignee a reminder before the due date (assignees with a login only).
3. Click Add Follow-up.

Tip: The title is generated automatically based on the category and person name. For example, selecting "First-Time Visitor" for "Sarah Johnson" will create a follow-up titled "First-Time Visitor - Sarah Johnson."

From a Person's Profile

1. Open the person's profile.
2. Go to the Notes & Tasks tab.
3. In the Follow-ups section, click Add Follow-up.
4. Fill in the same fields as above (the person is pre-selected).
5. Save the follow-up.

You can also add a follow-up date while writing a note -- see Person Profile Overview.

Automatically, for First-Time Visitors

When someone whose membership status is Visitor is checked in for the first time, TimelyChurch creates a First-Time Visitor follow-up for them so someone reaches out during the week (unless they already have an open one). To decide who gets it:

1. In the left sidebar, open Planning and click Check-In, then click the gear icon (Check-In Settings) and open the Options tab.
2. Find the New visitor follow-ups go to card.
3. Search your people and pick the person who should own the first outreach (a greeter, your visitor pastor, anyone). They do not need a member login.
4. Click Save Options.

Leave it empty to keep new visitor follow-ups unassigned. The setting only affects new visitor follow-ups from then on.

Managing Follow-Ups

Updating a Follow-Up

1. Find the follow-up on the Follow-ups page or on a person's profile.
2. Click its Edit button. The Edit Follow-up panel opens.
3. Edit any of the fields: person, category, method, due date, assignee, priority, notes, or status.
4. Click Update Follow-up.

Changing the Status

Follow-ups move through these statuses:

To change the status, either:

• Edit the follow-up and select a new Status, or
• Click the green Complete check mark on the follow-up's row for a quick completion.

Completing a Follow-Up

• Quick: click the green Complete check mark on the follow-up's row. It is marked Completed straight away.
• With notes: click Edit, set Status to Completed, and fill in Completion Notes (e.g., "Called and left a voicemail. Will try again Thursday."). Then click Update Follow-up.

The completion date and the person who marked it complete are recorded automatically.

Assignees can also complete their follow-ups from My Tasks in the member portal, or from Telegram if they have linked it.

Deleting a Follow-Up

1. Find the follow-up.
2. Click its delete (trash) button.
3. Confirm the deletion.

Tip: Instead of deleting, consider editing the follow-up and setting its status to "Cancelled" if it is no longer needed. This preserves a record of what was planned, which can be useful for accountability and reporting.

Follow-Up Priority Levels

Priority helps your team focus on what matters most:

Overdue items appear at the top of the Follow-ups page.

Who Can Work on a Follow-Up

The Complete, Edit, and delete buttons appear only on follow-ups you are allowed to change. You can change a follow-up when:

• it is assigned to you,
• you created it,
• it is assigned to a team you lead, or
• you are a church administrator.

If your role's reach is set to Their teams, the Follow-ups page lists only follow-ups connected to the people in the teams you lead, and you can work on those. See What Team Leaders See in People and Families.

Follow-Up Categories Explained

Tip: The equipment and facility categories are typically created automatically when staff log a repair or issue note on a resource (such as a sound board or van) or a room. They can also be chosen manually for ad-hoc maintenance tasks.

Best Practices

1. Create follow-ups for every first-time visitor -- A timely phone call or email within the first week dramatically increases the chance they will return.
2. Assign a specific person -- Tasks without an owner tend to be forgotten. Always assign someone.
3. Set realistic due dates -- Do not set everything as urgent. Reserve urgent priority for truly time-critical situations.
4. Add completion notes -- When marking a follow-up as complete, briefly note what happened. This creates a valuable record for the team.
5. Review overdue items weekly -- Make it a habit to check the Follow-ups page at the start of each week and address anything overdue.

Related Articles

• Person Profile Overview
• Managing Your People Directory
• Check-In Settings