The Dashboard is the first screen you see when you open Shepherd, and it’s the reason the app exists. It answers the question every pastor asks on Monday morning and Saturday night: Who needs me this week, and what did I say I’d do?
How it works
The Dashboard is a stack of cards. Each card is a section; each section surfaces a different pastoral concern. Sections order themselves roughly from most urgent at the top to keep in mind at the bottom. When a section has nothing in it, it collapses quietly — you won’t see empty cards cluttering the view.
Most sections come from the Disengagement Calculator, a pure-function engine that looks at every person you’ve entered and decides whether they need attention. It considers:
- Attendance — have they shown up recently?
- Contact — have you talked to them recently?
- Visits — when was the last pastoral visit?
- Pastoral status — is it set to something urgent?
- Follow-ups — did you promise to circle back, and is that date past?
Each person is bucketed by severity and given a human-readable reason string so the card can tell you why they surfaced. The Dashboard doesn’t just say “check on Linda” — it says “No contact in 73 days; last visit October 4.”
The sections, in order
In Crisis
Anyone whose pastoral status is explicitly set to inCrisis. This wins over everything — if you’ve flagged someone as in crisis, they belong at the top of the screen. Tap to open their detail view; a quick Log Visit action sits on each card.
Follow-ups Due
Pastoral visits you logged with Follow-up needed turned on, whose follow-up date has arrived or passed. Tapping a card takes you to the source visit in the person’s timeline, so you can re-read what you promised and act on it.
Disengaging
People whose pastoral status is disengaging, plus any active member whose total touch-gap (no attendance, contact, or visit) has exceeded your disengagement threshold (set in Settings; default 60 days).
New — Needs Follow-up
People with pastoral status new who have had no touch for 21 days or more. Visitors who came in and haven’t been circled back to. This section is where evangelism quietly becomes neglect if you aren’t careful.
Homebound — Needs Visit
Homebound members who haven’t received a pastoral visit within half of your disengagement threshold. Homebound members don’t register on attendance, so the normal signals don’t catch them — this section exists specifically so they are never forgotten.
Upcoming Anniversaries
Birthdays, wedding anniversaries, baptism anniversaries, and other recurring life events falling within your anniversary lookahead window (Settings; default 14 days). A quick Log Contact action lets you mark a call or card without leaving the Dashboard.
Continuing Care
Recent pastoral visits of type hospital or bereavement, within your continuing-care window (Settings; default 30 days). A reminder that a pastoral arc is still open — the funeral was two weeks ago, the family still needs you.
Pressing Tasks
Event tasks and standalone ministry tasks due soon or overdue, ranked by component importance and urgency. Tapping a task takes you to its event (for event tasks) or opens it inline.
Upcoming Events
The next five events on your calendar. Each card shows type icon, date, and — for events with a planner — a progress bar.
Prayer Reminders
A compact count of stale prayers and urgent prayers, with a Pray Now button that launches the Prayer Carousel.
Tapping through
Every card in every section is tappable. The Dashboard is a triage surface, not a do surface — it points you at the right person or task, and you act from there. Don’t try to resolve everything from the Dashboard itself.
Quick actions
Where it makes sense, cards expose a single quick action without requiring you to navigate:
- In Crisis / Disengaging / New / Homebound cards → Log Visit.
- Upcoming Anniversaries cards → Log Contact.
- Follow-ups Due cards → Open Visit (jumps to the source visit).
Tuning what you see
Three settings shape the Dashboard:
- Disengagement threshold — how many days without contact before an active member surfaces as disengaging.
- Anniversary lookahead — how far ahead birthdays and anniversaries appear on the Dashboard.
- Continuing-care window — how long after a hospital or bereavement visit the Continuing Care section keeps reminding you.
Adjust these in Settings to fit your tradition’s rhythm. A small-town parish where you see everyone twice a week will want a shorter threshold than a large suburban congregation.
What the Dashboard won’t do
- It won’t surface people you haven’t entered yet. Start with a roster import (see Importing and Exporting Data) if your congregation is large.
- It won’t make pastoral decisions for you. The reason strings are there to inform, not to accuse.
- It won’t replace your own prayerful attentiveness. Shepherd catches what you might miss; it doesn’t carry what you’re called to carry.
Leave a Reply