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Shovel ReadyRichmond, California
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For City staff

Assign and respond to public input

Work through the public input queue: assign, reply, keep internal notes, and publish a reviewed Q&A.

Before you start

A City staff account. Some steps need an administrator, as noted.

Open Public input

The queue

Open Public input. Use Inbox views such as Unassigned, Assigned to me and Closed, filter by team, or search by reference, name or project. Choose an item to open its conversation; Details shows the participant, opportunity and handling.

Assign

In Handling, set Assigned to and the status. The participant sees the status on their tracking page or in My Richmond, but not who it is assigned to.

Reply to the participant

  1. You sendReference number; a guest gets a private tracking link.
  2. Staff reviewAssigned, with internal notes only staff see.
  3. Private replyShown in My Richmond or on the tracking page. Email if configured.
How a submission moves. Nothing is published without a staff decision.
  1. Choose Reply to participant.
  2. Write in plain language, or use Insert saved response and adjust it.
  3. Send it.

The reply is saved and shown to the participant in the app or on their tracking page. Email is attempted only when configured; the conversation shows whether it was sent, failed or not configured. Retry email appears after a failure. A saved reply is not the same as a delivered email.

Internal notes

Choose Internal note to add context for colleagues. Notes are visible only to City staff in this inbox and never appear on tracking pages, in My Richmond or in the public Q&A.

Publish a reviewed question and answer

  1. Original submissionKept as sent, with contact details.
  2. Edit public versionRemove names and personal details; write the answer.
  3. Published Q&ADisplay name or “Community member”; no contact details.
The original stays private and unchanged. Only the edited public version is shown.
  1. Choose Publish to Q&A.
  2. In Edit the public version, adjust the Public title, Public question and Public answer. Remove names, contact details and anything personal.
  3. Choose Publish.

The original submission is kept unchanged. Only the edited public version is shown, under the participant's public display name or "Community member". Contact details and internal notes are never part of it. Use Update public version to revise it later, or Remove from public Q&A.

Record a display decision

Under Public display, choose a reason to keep a submission off public display, for example because it contains personal information. The decision and reason are recorded for the record; the participant can still see their own submission.