Follow Ups allow tasks to be assigned to staff or volunteers in relation to a specific person in the database. One of the most common uses for Follow Ups is for following up with someone who is interested in more information about a specific area in the church.
For instance, imagine John Smith shows up at your church and fills out a connection card indicating that he's interested in information on volunteering in the middle school youth group and joining an adult small group.
An administrator would enter John's connection card into Breeze and an email would automatically be sent to the youth pastor notifying them that John was interested in volunteer information. An email would also automatically be sent to the small groups pastor informing them that John was interested in joining a group.
The youth pastor and small groups pastor can then reach out to John in regards to John's interest and afterward, mark the assignment as complete and include an optional note.
Using Follow Ups for processes like these and many others can ensure that people don't fall through the cracks, provide accountability for staff and volunteers in charge of ministries, and can ultimately help you serve your community better.
Creating or Editing Follow Up Options
You can create or edit follow up options for your Breeze account. You can assign new owners to existing options, or start from scratch.
- Navigate to "Follow Ups > Options."
- Click "Add New Option" in the upper right.
- Fill in the fields.1
- Click "Create." This will now be an eligible follow up option when assigning a follow up.
Understanding the Fields in the Add Follow Up Option
Name: The name of the Follow Up. Commonly used Follow Up names are "New Attendee", "Baptism", "Membership", "______ ministry", etc.
Description: A description of the purpose of the Follow Up. For example, if the name is "New Attendee, " the description could be "please send 'thanks for visiting' card in the mail". If the name is "Children's Ministry" the description could be "interested in learning more about Children's Ministry"
Assigned to: This is who should receive the Follow Up notice. A user must have a role with "Follow Ups" checked off to be displayed in this list. The person who the Follow Up is being assigned to will be the one who receives an email and is responsible for completing the Follow Up.
Time to Complete: This is the number of days before the follow up will be "due".
Assigning a Follow Up
Click on the options below to see the instructions for how to assign follow ups from the different locations in Breeze:
When Entering a New Person
- Select the "People" tab from the top.
- Click the "Add Person" button from the right.
- Fill in the person's details as normal.
- Prior to clicking "Add Person" at the bottom, click "Assign Follow Ups" on the right.
- Select the Follow Ups you'd like to assign and then click "Add Person" at the bottom.
- Navigate to the person's profile.
- Click "Follow Ups"
- Click "Assign Follow Up" in the upper right.
- Select the Follow Up you want to assign and click the "Assign" button.
- Navigate to "Follow Ups"
- Click "Assign Follow Up" in the upper right
- Select who the follow up should be assigned for
- Select the Follow Up you want to assign
- Click the "Assign" button
You can choose to create follow ups for multiple people at the same time.
To do this:
- Navigate to "Follow Ups"
- Click "Assign Follow Up" in the upper right
- Type the name of the first individual you need to create a follow up for
- Click "Add Another Person"
- Repeat steps 3 & 4 for as many people as needed
- Choose the follow up assignments
- Click "Assign"
You can create a follow up for a whole tag at once.
To do this:
- Navigate to "Follow Ups"
- Click "Assign Follow Up" in the upper right
- Type in the name of the tag
- Choose the follow up assignments
- Click "Assign"
If needed, you may remove individuals from the list or add in additional people.
Editing or Reassigning a Follow Up
- Navigate to the follow up by searching for it.
- Click the edit icon to the right of the follow up.
- Make your changes and click "Save."
Marking a Follow Up as Complete
Users who have had Follow Ups assigned to them can mark those Follow Ups as completed by either:
- Clicking the "Complete" button in the email notification they receive, or
- Viewing their list of Follow Ups within "Follow Ups > Assigned To Me" and clicking the checkbox in front of the Follow Up
When clicking "Complete" in the email notification, they will have the opportunity to enter a note about that specific followup as well. There is not a way to mark follow ups as complete in bulk.
Searching Follow Ups
You can search for completed and incomplete Follow Ups directly from the Follow Ups page if you would like to revisit an old assignment or Follow Up again.
To search Follow Ups:
- Navigate to "Follow Ups > All Assignments."
- Use the search criteria at the top to search Follow Ups.
- Follow Ups that match your criteria will automatically appear below.
You can adjust the columns that are visible by clicking the columns option towards the right of the screen to add or remove columns of information related to the follow ups.
Deleting a Follow Up
If you would like to remove a follow up because you no longer need it, it won't be completed, it was a duplicate, etc., you can do so from the Follow Up page.
To delete a follow up:
- Navigate to the follow up by searching for it.
- Click the delete icon to the right of the Follow Up.
- Click "OK" to confirm you want to delete it.
Follow Up Notification Settings
By default Follow Up Notifications are turned on for each user, ensuring they receive an email when a follow up is assigned to them, but also a weekly of pending / incomplete followups as a reminder.
The New Assignment notifications are emailed to the assigned user when the assignment is made, allowing the person the follow up was assigned to quickly view the Follow Up name, description, due date, note associated (if applicable), and some contact details for the person the follow up is for. The email also contains a link allowing the recipient to mark the follow up as complete. The link does not require the user to log-in or have Breeze access.
-
Nagivate to "Follow Ups"
-
Click the bell icon in the upper right.
-
Deselect or Select the notification settings to what you desire.
-
Click "Save."
Additional Weekly Notifications
If you would like to receive weekly notifications listing all assigned, completed, and past-due follow-ups from the previous week connected to your user. Use the notifications under your user settings to set this up.
To set up this follow up notification:
- In the top right of the screen, click your user account icon (
). - Click "Notifications" in the dropdown menu
- Select the Follow Ups notification.
- Click "Update"