HOW TO REQUEST A SUBSTITUTION FOR A SERVICE
Recently, some ministers have been responding to substitution requests by replying to the email rather than clicking the "volunteer now" link provided. Replying to the email doesn't work because the reply goes to the MSP Administrator, not the minister requesting the substitution. To clear up any confusion, here is a detailed explanation of how substitutions are supposed to work..
Assume we have ministers John Doe and Mary Roe. John is scheduled to be a Reader at a (fictitious) weekday Mass, but he cannot serve, so he requests a substitute. John clicks on the "request sub" link in the email (or on his My Schedule tab on the Web Terminal),
fills out the comment field, and clicks the "Request sub" button.
All ministers who are qualified as Reader and are available at his time get an email. Let's assume that Mary wishes to substitute for John. Mary clicks the "volunteer now" link in the email:
She gets logged into her Web Terminal, goes to the Accept substitute request page, fills out the Comments field, and clicks Accept sub request:
Emails will be sent to both Mary Roe and John Doe showing the substitution is complete. Mary's email looks like this:
And John's email looks like this:
Special note: If you volunteer but the substitution has already been made, when you go into the Web Terminal, you will see this:
If you have any questions about this procedure, please email stpatschedules@gmail.com.
ACCEPTING A SUBSTITUTION VIA THE MSP APP:
Currently, you cannot request a substitution via the MSP App, but if there are any positions listed on the Open Positions tab, you can volunteer for them as shown below. The emails sent afterwards will be the same.
