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Visitation ministry

The Visitation ministry is one of the parish's most personal ministries — bringing Holy Communion, the sacrament of the sick, and pastoral presence to parishioners who cannot come to church. Sacramentum gathers the people, places, schedules, and routes this ministry depends on into one connected workspace, so priests, deacons, and Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion can find who needs a visit, when, and where, without juggling spreadsheets or paper lists.

The Visitation menu​

Navigate to Admin Dashboard → Visitation. The menu groups five management areas under a single roof:

  • Visitees — the directory of parishioners who receive visits, their addresses, contact people, and pastoral needs.
  • Facilities — the external places where visitees live: hospitals, nursing homes, assisted-living centers, hospice, memory care, and rehabilitation centers.
  • Calendar — the upcoming and past visits, generated automatically from each visitee's preferences and assigned minister.
  • Availability — the windows of time each minister can offer for visits.
  • Route planning — driving routes that group nearby visits on a single day to save time.

Each area has its own dedicated article. This page describes how they fit together so you know where to start and what to expect.

Who this ministry serves​

Visitation in Sacramentum is broader than just "Communion to the sick." A visitee can be:

  • A parishioner who is homebound because of age, illness, or limited mobility.
  • A patient currently admitted to a hospital for a short stay.
  • A resident of a nursing home, assisted-living community, or memory care unit.
  • A patient in rehabilitation after surgery or a hospital stay.
  • A parishioner in hospice care.

Each visitee is tracked individually with their own address, contact people, and visit preferences — even when several visitees live in the same facility. That way, when a minister arrives at a nursing home, they see exactly which residents on that floor are part of your parish and what each one needs.

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Visitees are distinct from your People records. People is the canonical directory of every parishioner; visitees are the subset who specifically receive visits. A visitee can — but does not have to — be linked to a Person record.

How the five areas work together​

Most parishes follow the same arc when bringing a parishioner into the visitation ministry:

  1. Add the visitee. When the parish learns that a parishioner needs visits — through a phone call from a family member, a hospital chaplain referral, or a ministry coordinator — you create a visitee profile with name, address, contact people, and any pastoral flags (needs Communion, needs Anointing soon, has requested confession).
  2. Assign a facility, if applicable. If the visitee lives in a nursing home or care center, link them to the facility record so the minister has the full address, room or unit number, contact person, and visiting hours.
  3. Set the visit preferences. Choose how often the visitee should be visited — weekly, biweekly, monthly, or a custom pattern — and which weekdays and times work best.
  4. Assign a minister. Pick the priest, deacon, or Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion who will normally make the visit. You can also do this in bulk for a whole facility at once.
  5. Visits appear on the calendar. Sacramentum generates the upcoming visits on the visitation calendar according to each visitee's preferences and assignment. The minister sees their visits both here and on their own calendar.
  6. Plan an efficient route. Before visiting day, use route planning to order the day's visits geographically and see the driving route on a map.
  7. Make the visits. Ministers see their assigned visits in the field through the Minister App, Sacramentum's mobile companion for sacristy and door-to-door work. They mark visits complete, log brief notes, and capture any pastoral flags (such as "needs Anointing soon").

When a visit is logged, it becomes part of that visitee's history — useful for the next minister, for pastoral planning, and for keeping the family informed.

Coordination with the Minister App​

The desktop admin work described in this section is the planning side of the ministry. The doing side happens out in the field, on phones and tablets, through the Minister App (also called Sacramentum Go). The two are continuously in sync:

  • A visit you schedule from the admin console appears on the minister's phone.
  • A visit logged as completed in the field updates the visitee's history in the admin console.
  • A pastoral flag set by the minister ("urgent — please send a priest for Anointing") shows up on your dashboard the next time you open Visitees.

This split is intentional. Coordinators usually have a desk; ministers usually have a car key in one hand and the host pyx in the other. The same data shows up where each person needs it.

Permissions​

Visitation ministry data — addresses, phone numbers, pastoral and medical notes — is sensitive. Sacramentum restricts access by role. See Roles and access for the full breakdown, but in short:

  • Admins can see and edit every visitee, every facility, every assignment, and every visit.
  • Priests see the visitees assigned to them and the facilities they cover, plus any visitee they are about to visit.
  • Deacons and Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion see their own assignments only.
  • Volunteers and parishioners have no access to visitation data.

Note any change you make here — adding a visitee, reassigning a minister, archiving a facility — is recorded with your name and the time of the change.

A typical first month​

If you are setting up the visitation ministry for the first time, the natural order is:

  1. Add facilities first. If your parish regularly visits one or two nursing homes, set those up in Facilities. That way every visitee you add later can be linked to a facility in one click.
  2. Import or add visitees. Add each homebound parishioner and each resident your ministry serves. Set their visit frequency and pastoral flags as you go.
  3. Capture minister availability. Have each minister tell the parish office when they can visit, and record those windows in Availability (or have ministers enter their own availability from their account).
  4. Assign ministers. Match each visitee to a minister. You can use Reassign minister in bulk to assign every visitee at a facility to the same minister at once.
  5. Generate the first month of visits. Sacramentum builds the schedule from the preferences and assignments you have entered. Review the calendar, adjust anything that does not look right, and the ministers can begin.

After the first month, the ministry largely runs itself: you only need to come back when a visitee's situation changes (admitted to hospital, moved, deceased) or when a new parishioner is added to the ministry.

What's next​

  • Visitees — add and maintain the directory of parishioners who receive visits
  • Visitation facilities — the external hospitals, nursing homes, and care centers where visitees live
  • Visitation calendar — month and list views of all scheduled visits