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Pending approvals

When your parish requires admin review of Mass intention requests, every public submission lands in Pending Approvals first. This is where you confirm the details, accept the request into your active intentions list, or reject it and refund the offering. Approval keeps you in control of what enters the parish bulletin, the priests' rosters, and the canonical record.

When approval is needed​

By default, Mass intentions submitted through the public request form are queued for admin review before they appear in your main Mass Intentions list. The decision sits with the administrator, regardless of whether the parishioner has already paid for the Mass.

Some parishes prefer to skip review and let paid requests flow directly into the queue. Others always want a human to look at every request. Either way, the queue described here only shows requests that are awaiting your decision — already-approved intentions appear in the main Mass intentions overview.

The pending approvals page​

Navigate to Admin Dashboard → Masses & Intentions → Pending Intentions. The page lists every request currently waiting for review, sorted oldest first so the longest-waiting requesters get attention first.

For each pending request you see:

  • Intention — the person or cause the Mass is offered for.
  • Requester — the parishioner's name and contact details.
  • Type — the intention type they selected.
  • Mass Details — if they chose a specific Mass, the date, time, and location appear here. Otherwise it reads as an unscheduled or special request.
  • Amount — the offering amount, if any.
  • Payment Status — paid, unpaid, or processing.
  • Created — when the request was submitted.

A search bar at the top filters by requester name, email, or intention text. Filter chips for type and Mass form let you narrow the list further. A Refreshing latest requests… indicator briefly shows when the page polls for new submissions.

If the list is empty, you see "All caught up! No pending intentions require your attention."

Reviewing a request​

  1. Click View / Edit on any row.
  2. The review dialog opens with three sections:
    • Intention Details — the requester information, intention text, type, and Mass form preference (no preference, ordinary form, or extraordinary form).
    • Mass Details — read-only summary of the requested Mass (if any) while the request is pending.
    • Payment Status — read-only summary of the offering and how it was paid.
  3. Adjust requester or intention details if needed — typos in the intention text, a missing email, or a wrong type. Editing here does not approve the request; it just corrects the data so the approved intention is clean.
  4. Click Save to save edits, or close the dialog to return to the list.
info

Mass assignment and payment fields are read-only on this page. Once you approve the request, you can schedule it onto a specific Mass and adjust payment from the main Mass Intentions page.

Approving a request​

  1. Click Approve on any row, or open the request and click Approve from the dialog.
  2. A confirmation dialog summarizes the intention, requester, type, payment status, and Mass details (if a specific Mass was requested).
  3. Click Approve in the confirmation dialog to finalize.

When the request is approved:

  • The intention moves into the main Mass Intentions list with the appropriate status — Pending if it is unscheduled, Assigned if it has a priest, or Scheduled if it was tied to a specific Mass on the calendar.
  • If your parish has approval emails enabled, the requester receives a confirmation email letting them know their intention was accepted.
  • The action is recorded in the audit trail along with your name and the timestamp.

Early request guardrail​

If a request is for a date that falls inside an Early Request period — that is, more than the standard window allowed for direct booking — Sacramentum surfaces a guardrail before the approval completes. The dialog tells you how many pending Early Requests already exist for that date and location and lists potential matches.

You have three choices:

  • Cancel — back out and allocate the intention through the Early Requests workflow instead, which preserves the financial and audit linkage.
  • Continue — provide an optional override reason and proceed with the approval anyway.
  • Edit — close the dialog, fix the requested date or location, and resubmit.

The guardrail is informational. It does not block you, but it strongly encourages you to use the Early Requests workflow when one is available.

Rejecting a request​

  1. Click Reject on any row, or open the request and click Reject.
  2. Enter a Rejection Reason in the dialog. The reason is required and is included in the email sent to the requester (if rejection emails are enabled), so write something the parishioner will understand — for example, "We are unable to accommodate this date due to a scheduled funeral. Please choose another Mass."
  3. Click Reject to confirm.

When a request is rejected:

  • The pending request is removed from this queue.
  • If the requester paid online with a credit card, Sacramentum initiates a Stripe refund automatically. The intention's refund status is tracked and can be reviewed in the Refunds queue.
  • If the offering was paid manually (cash, check, bank transfer) the rejection is marked as Manual Required so an administrator can issue the refund outside of Stripe.
  • An optional rejection email is sent to the requester explaining the decision.
warning

Always provide a clear, charitable rejection reason. Many parishioners experience a rejected Mass intention as a disappointment, especially when the intention is for a deceased loved one. A specific, compassionate explanation helps maintain trust.

Bulk approve and bulk reject​

When several requests are clearly safe to accept or reject at once, use the bulk actions to save time.

  1. Tick the checkboxes on the rows you want to act on.
  2. Click Approve Selected or Reject Selected in the toolbar.
  3. For bulk reject, every selected request is rejected with the reason "Bulk rejection by administrator." Issue refunds for each rejected request as needed.
  4. For bulk approve, Sacramentum processes each request one by one and shows a progress dialog with Processing X of Y, success and failure counts, and the most recent items handled.

You can click Run in background to dismiss the dialog and continue working — the bulk operation keeps running, and you receive a toast notification when it completes. Cancel remaining stops the run after the current request finishes.

If any approvals trip the Early Request guardrail, the bulk run pauses with a summary showing how many were approved, how many failed, and how many were blocked. You can review the blocked requests, optionally provide an override reason, and approve them in a second pass.

The bulk reject results dialog summarizes refunded counts, manual-refund-required counts, failed refunds, and any rejection errors. Failed refunds are listed individually so you can follow up on each one in the Refunds queue.

What's next​