Estimated read time: 5 minutes
Overview
Every CarePortal request moves through stages, from submission to closing, and each stage has its own tools for keeping the record accurate: canceling, approving or declining, closing, and pausing. This article covers what each option does, who can use it, and a step-by-step walkthrough for closing a request.
Intended audience
Included in this article
- Why closing requests matters
- Canceling a request before approval
- Approving or declining a pending request
- Closing a request after it's approved
- Updating a request
- Pausing a request
- How to close a CarePortal request
Why closing requests matters
The CarePortal Essential Reading for Requesting Agencies, which new Agencies agree to, includes a commitment to close requests in a timely manner. Closing requests matters for two reasons:
- When you close a request, you're asked to give a 1–5 star review. This gives CarePortal helpful feedback on how your Agency is experiencing the platform and how effective it is for serving families.
- Closing a request also prompts follow-up questions about the long-term impact on the family that only your Agency knows.
Canceling a request before approval
Canceling is only available before a request is approved, and only if your Agency uses a request approval process, where a Supervisor or Agency Rep reviews requests before they go live. While a request is Pending, the Agency Worker who submitted it can cancel it from their dashboard.
Important! Only the Agency Worker who submitted a request can cancel it, and only while it's Pending. Once a Supervisor or Agency Rep approves the request, canceling is no longer available.
Canceling typically happens when a request lacks clarity, contains inappropriate or confidential information, or doesn't align with CarePortal's standards, and the submitter catches it before approval. Canceling a request doesn't affect impact statistics, such as Percentage of Requests Met or Children Served.
If your Agency doesn't use a request approval process, requests go live as soon as they're submitted, so canceling isn't available at any point. If a live request needs to come down, close it instead — see Closing a request after it's approved below.
Approving or declining a pending request
If your Agency uses a request approval process, Supervisors and Agency Reps see pending requests waiting for their review in the Requests tab of their dashboard. From there, you have two options: select Approve or Decline. There's no option to cancel a pending request from this view — canceling belongs to the Agency Worker who submitted it.
Choosing Decline asks you to select a reason and add any additional feedback. This helps the Agency Worker understand what to fix so they can resubmit a request that's ready to help the family faster.
Closing a request after it's approved
Once a request is approved and live, canceling is no longer an option. Closing is how you take it out of an active state, whether or not the need was fully met. The submitter, an Agency Rep, an Agency Admin, or a Network Leader can close a request.
For most closing reasons, the request is marked as met or unmet based on what actually happened. You'll adjust the quantity of any item that was or wasn't provided, confirm the number of adults and children served, and answer whether meeting the request led to a meaningful connection with the family.
Best Practice: Adjust the needs-met quantities every time you close a request, even one that was Fully Met. Accurate numbers keep your Agency's impact reporting reliable for your whole network.
Select There's a problem with this request when something about the request itself means it shouldn't be evaluated as a typical met or unmet outcome — for example, duplicate or inaccurate information, or an issue that came up after it went live. Because these requests didn't reach a normal outcome, they're handled separately from your Agency's usual met and unmet reporting.
Updating a request
If details on a live request change, you don't need to cancel and resubmit it — you can update it directly.
Agency Workers, Agency Reps, and Agency Admins can update any of their Agency's requests. Your Field team — Regional Managers, Area Directors, and Field Directors — can also update a request if needed.
Updating a request automatically sends an email to everyone following the request and anyone who has already responded to it, so they're always working from the latest information.
The update will appear below the original description on both the Request Management page and the Request Details page.
Request Management Page:
Request Details Page:
Pausing a request
Pausing is used less often, but Agency Workers, Agency Reps, Agency Admins, Regional Managers, and Area Directors can all pause a request from the CarePortal dashboard. This is helpful when a request needs to stay open, but new responses need to pause temporarily — for example, while you clarify details or work through other considerations. You'll need to provide a reason before the request is officially paused, and any of these roles can unpause it once things are clear.
While a request is paused, no new responses can be made. However, if a local Church already offered resources, it can still Take the Lead and claim them, so it can connect with the Agency Worker or Rep and keep serving the family, even while the request is paused.
How to close a CarePortal request
To get to the close screen, you can either:
- Select
Close Requestin an email notification about a response to the request, or -
Log in to CarePortal, open the Requests tab of your dashboard, and select the hyperlinked request ID for the request you'd like to close. This opens the full request details page, where you'll find a
Closebutton in the top-right corner.
1. Identify who worked with the family
This will either be you or someone else within your organization.
2. Confirm what happened with the request
What happens next depends on the outcome of the request: met, unmet, or canceled.
Closing as met
If any needs were met, you'll see each item on the request with a dropdown showing how many were met, for example 0 items met or 1 item met. Adjust any quantity that doesn't reflect reality, or select Mark all as unmet if nothing was actually provided.
Best Practice: Adjust the needs-met quantities every time you close a request, even one that was Fully Met. Accurate numbers keep your Agency's impact reporting reliable for your whole network.
Confirm the number of adults and children served, and answer whether meeting the request led to a meaningful connection with the family, using a scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. Sharing more detail about your experience is optional.
Closing as unmet
If no needs were met but the request still reached a normal outcome, you'll see a callout confirming that, with an Edit link in case that's not accurate. Select what best describes the situation:
-
Request didn't receive a response— the need is still there but hasn't been fulfilled -
Need was met outside of CarePortal— someone outside the network took care of it -
The family's situation changed— the child moved placements, the family relocated, or circumstances shifted
Add any optional details in the comment box, then confirm the number of adults and children served and answer the same connection question described above.
Closing as canceled
If the problem is with the request itself rather than the need going unmet, select There's a problem with this request, then choose a more specific reason:
-
It's a duplicate— submitted more than once or should be combined -
Needs more information— missing details needed to move forward -
What's requested isn't eligible— the item or amount doesn't meet CarePortal guidelines -
Details are incorrect— something was entered wrong and needs to be corrected -
Contains something it shouldn't— inappropriate or confidential content was included -
Something else— describe what's going on
Add context in the comment box. Because these requests didn't reach a normal outcome, they're handled separately from your Agency's usual met and unmet reporting — functionally a cancellation, just happening after approval instead of before.
3. Rate your experience
Give a 1–5 star review and share any additional feedback. This step is optional, but deeply appreciated as CarePortal works to keep improving the platform.
Once a request is closed, you'll find it in the Submitted Requests view of your Requests table for future reference. Requests that were met also appear in the Met Requests view.
Comments
1 comment
Is there a video to go along with these instructions? That would be useful for people with invisible disabilities.
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