Understanding Your Dashboard

The Dashboard is the first screen you see when you open Field Service Companion. It is designed to help you answer one simple question: Who should I visit next?

Next to the greeting at the top you'll find an add-person button. It's on the Dashboard at all times, so adding someone new never takes more than one tap from the home screen.

Continue the Conversation

The top section of the Dashboard shows contacts you are most likely to want to visit soon. There are three lenses you can swipe through — each surfaces a different angle on "who's worth visiting":

• Ready to Continue (default) — The conversations most ready to continue, considering how recent the last visit was, whether there is an open thread (literature you left, a question they asked), and whether you are conducting a study with them. The contacts most likely to benefit from a visit now surface first.
• Nearest to Me — The five contacts closest to your current GPS location. Useful when you're already out in the ministry and want to add another stop while you're in the area. Requires location permission.
• Longest Since Last Visit — Sorted by days since the last visit, oldest first. Helps surface the people who may be slipping out of mind.

Below the cards is a small row of dots showing which lens is active. You can swipe horizontally between lenses, or tap a dot to jump.

Tap any contact card to go directly to that contact's detail screen, where you can see the timeline or update their information. Each card also carries a Log visit button on its right edge — tap it to skip straight to the visit form for that person, no detour through the detail screen.

First-Time on Dashboard

Until you've logged your first visit, the Dashboard is a simple three-step starting point:

1. "Your conversations will appear here." — a short welcome.
2. "Add someone you've already met." — tap it to choose how to begin: Add by hand, Pick from your phone's contacts, or Bring records from another app. Once you've added someone, this step shows their name instead.
3. "Log what you talked about." — tap it after your next conversation to record your first visit.

When that first visit is saved, the full dashboard takes over. The richer sections (Continue the Conversation, Coming Up, Your Month) stay hidden until there's something real to show, so the first launch never reads as a wall of zeros.

When Someone Isn't Interested

If the last visit you logged with someone had the Not interested outcome, that contact steps off the Dashboard entirely — every lens skips them. They stay in your contact list (shown subdued) and their record keeps everything you wrote. Logging any later visit with a different outcome brings them right back.

Coming Up

This section shows scheduled follow-up reminders for the next several days. Each card shows the person and when you said you'd come back. Tap the card's Log visit button to go straight to the visit form (logging the visit dismisses the reminder), or tap anywhere else on the card to jump to the contact, where you can also reschedule.

If you don't have any reminders scheduled, this section is hidden. To learn how to schedule reminders, see Reminders and Follow-Ups.

Your Month

This section gives you a warm summary of your activity for the current month:

• How many different people you've spent time with this month.
• How many visits you logged this month.
• How many people you've studied with this month — counted from visits you logged with the Study outcome, the same way the Report tab counts them.

The numbers update live as you log visits. The whole card is tappable — tap anywhere on it (you'll see a small arrow on its right edge) to open the Report tab, where you can confirm your study count and copy your numbers for your report.

Why No Hours or Placements Here?

Field Service Companion is built around people, not metrics. The Dashboard surfaces the next conversation to continue, not numbers to optimise — so hours and placements never appear here. If you report hours, you can turn on time tracking and your time appears in the Report tab instead; if you don't, the app never asks about time at all.

If you need to report your study count, see Preparing Your Monthly Report.

Need More Help?

If you have questions about how the Dashboard works, a friend who is familiar with Field Service Companion may be able to help you. You can also contact us at support@returnvisits.org.