Center lead guide

This article is for center leads assigned to manage Paint The Province sign requests at a Forever Canadian center. Platform admins can use the same request queues for any center.

Reaching your center's request queues

Open your center's page at /centers/[id]. Authorized center leads and platform admins see four tabs:

• Scheduled pickups — active pickups whose time has been arranged.
• Accepted/Awaiting pickup — accepted requests waiting for the volunteer to choose a pickup time.
• Requests — pending requests waiting for a decision.
• History — requests that were picked up, rejected, or cancelled.

Scheduled pickups opens by default. A request link opens the request's current queue and highlights it: pending requests open Requests, accepted requests open Accepted/Awaiting pickup, arranged pickups open Scheduled pickups, and picked-up, rejected, or cancelled requests open History.

When browsing a queue normally, it has Search by volunteer name. The search keeps the existing results visible while the next set loads, and Load more appears when another page is available. A highlighted single-request view hides the search while it shows that request.

What appears with a request

Each pending request appears as a card with the requested sign quantity in a prominent block. The same card keeps the volunteer's name, current city (with FSA when both are available), their requested, picked-up, installed, and pending totals, the request timestamp, and Request ID together. This makes it easier to match the request to an internal spreadsheet.

Authorized center agents and platform admins also see Current residential address. This is the volunteer's current profile address when the queue or request detail loads; it is not a snapshot captured at approval time. If no residential address is available, the row shows Address not provided.

Email addresses and phone numbers are not shown in these request queues.

Private internal tracking notes

Every manager request surface has an Internal tracking note. Use it for a spreadsheet reference, a pickup-day arrangement, or other operational context that another authorized center agent may need.

The note is private to authorized agents assigned to that request's center and platform admins. Ownership alone never reveals it. On the shared request page, it appears only to a viewer who also has assigned-agent or platform-admin access. It is never included in an approval, rejection, scheduling, reminder, or pickup email.

To add a note from a queue or request detail page:

1. Select Add internal note.
2. Enter up to 5,000 characters. The editor supports headings, bold, italic, underline, lists, links, and quotes. User mentions and attachments are not available in this editor.
3. Select Save note.

After a note exists, select Edit internal note to change it. Select Clear note in the editor to remove it. If saving fails, the editor stays open so you can retry without losing the draft.

The same current note stays attached when the request is approved, scheduled, picked up, rejected, or cancelled. It remains editable in Accepted/Awaiting pickup, Scheduled pickups, and History, including after the request reaches a final status. There is one current editable note, not a timeline of past versions.

Reviewing and approving a pending request

Open Requests. Cards are ordered from oldest to newest and have three actions: Accept, Change Sign Number & Accept, and Reject.

Use Accept when the center can provide the requested quantity. It opens Approve request and keeps the sign quantity unchanged.

The approval dialog keeps two different fields:

• Internal tracking note is the center-private rich-text note described above. Saving approval updates this note on the request.
• Optional message to volunteer is plain text, up to 1,000 characters. It follows the existing volunteer-facing path: it is sent in the approval email and appears as Message from center on the volunteer's request page.

These fields are deliberately separate. Do not put private spreadsheet or pickup-office context in Optional message to volunteer.

Select Approve to approve the request. It leaves Requests and moves to Accepted/Awaiting pickup, where it stays visible while the volunteer chooses a pickup time from the request detail page. The volunteer receives the existing approval email with that invitation. If another lead already decided it, the page reports "Request already decided."

Use Change Sign Number & Accept when the center can provide a different quantity. The dialog shows the volunteer's requested quantity and prefills Number of signs to accept with that number. Enter a whole number from 1 to 400, optionally update the same private note or volunteer message, then select Change Sign Number & Accept to confirm. The quantity change and approval happen together: the request moves from Requests to Accepted/Awaiting pickup, and the accepted quantity is used in the approval email and the volunteer's next pickup steps. Blank values, zero, negative numbers, decimals, non-numeric text, and values above 400 are not accepted.

To decline instead, select Reject to open Reject request, enter a Reason between 10 and 1,000 characters, and select Reject again. The separate internal tracking note stays on the request and is available in History.

Running scheduled pickups

After the volunteer arranges a pickup, the request moves from Accepted/Awaiting pickup to Scheduled pickups. Open Scheduled pickups to see active arranged pickups in pickup-time order. The row shows the current address, request ID, pickup time, and private note beside the volunteer and quantity. If an older row does not have a usable pickup time, it stays in this queue and shows Pickup: —.

When the volunteer receives the signs, select Mark as picked up. The request moves to History. If another agent already completed it, the page reports "Already picked up."

Looking up completed requests

Open History to see only picked-up, rejected, and cancelled requests with their status. Accepted requests waiting for a pickup choice and active scheduled pickups remain in their work queues; they are not History. The current address, request ID, quantity, volunteer name, and internal tracking note remain together for later lookup. Although lifecycle actions are finished, Edit internal note and Clear note remain available for spreadsheet cross-reference or follow-up context.

If History has no terminal requests, it shows "No closed requests yet."

Privacy reminder

Only put volunteer-facing instructions in Optional message to volunteer or the rejection Reason. Keep staff-only context in Internal tracking note. If you are not assigned to a request's center and are not a platform admin, you cannot read or edit its internal note.