Priority & urgency

At a glance

Who uses it: Submitters set urgency at intake; facilitators set priority on the case.
Purpose: Document the two related-but-distinct severity fields and how each is used.

Two fields, two purposes

Urgency is set by the submitter on the intake form. It's the referring teacher's read on how time-sensitive the concern is.

Priority is set by the facilitator on the case. It's the case owner's read on how the case should be triaged against other cases on their caseload.

Both fields use the same three-value scale: Low, Medium, High.

Why both?

The submitter knows the classroom context. The facilitator knows the caseload context. Sometimes a teacher marks a referral High because the situation feels urgent to them; the facilitator, looking at five other cases, may set Priority Medium because the others are more immediately at risk. Keeping the two fields separate preserves both signals.

Where each appears

Urgency shows on the referral in the New inbox and on the case Overview.
Priority shows in the case header and is the primary sort key on the facilitator's caseload view.

[SCREENSHOT: case-priority-urgency-fields] Cases → open case Overview tab with the Priority pill in the header and the Urgency field in the intake source panel below.

Step-by-step

Set urgency (intake)

Urgency is a field on the staff intake form. Submitters pick Low / Medium / High at submission time. Most student intake forms also include it.

Set or change priority (facilitator)

Open the case.
Click the Priority pill in the header.
Pick Low / Medium / High.
Change is audit-logged.

Tips & best practices

Don't let everything become High. If 60% of cases are High Priority, the field stops differentiating.
Combine Priority + next follow-up date for sorting your daily work, not Priority alone.
Revisit Priority every couple of weeks — it should drift down as cases stabilize.

Common mistakes

Treating Urgency and Priority as the same field. They aren't — Urgency is the submitter's signal; Priority is the owner's plan.
Setting Priority once at case open and never changing it.

FAQ

Can I add a custom severity level (e.g. Critical)? No — the three-value scale is shared across orgs to keep cross-school reporting comparable.

Is priority included in reports? Yes — Reports → Caseload includes a priority breakdown. Average time-in-status by priority is on the intervention trends report.