For most opportunities, the Schedule provides many useful features. However, sometimes you may want to use a simpler and quicker scheduling method. Instead of using the Schedule to schedule volunteer shifts, you can use roles or form questions to represent the event’s time slots. These alternative scheduling methods:
- Make it easier to create and maintain your schedule
- Make it easier for volunteers to view and sign up for shifts
- Allow you to integrate shift signup into your signup workflow
However, keep in mind that the Schedule provides many useful features, which these alternative scheduling methods do not provide.
In this article:
- Advantages of Using the Schedule
- Setting Up an Opportunity Without the Schedule
- Using Roles as Shifts
- Using Form Questions as Shifts
Advantages of Using the Schedule
Although these alternative scheduling methods are simpler and quicker than using the Schedule, they have significant drawbacks. The Schedule provides many useful features, which these alternative methods lack. These include:
- Tracking for hours worked.
- Shift reminders.
- Email automations.
- Shift conflict resolution. This includes conflicts between shifts in the same opportunity and between opportunities.
- Time tracking. The Schedule can track late arrivals and no-shows.
Because it offers these features, the Schedule is usually the best way to schedule volunteers.
Setting Up an Opportunity Without the Schedule
To effectively set up your opportunity for these alternative scheduling methods:
- In the opportunity’s Page Settings, set a minimum and maximum number of volunteers. This helps ensure that you have enough coverage of the opportunity’s time slot.
- If possible, add the details of the time commitment to the opportunity’s public page.
- Turn on one-click signup for the opportunity. If you enable only the signup button, volunteers can sign up for the opportunity with a single click.
Tip: You can also disable the signup button and manually assign volunteers to the opportunity.
Using Roles as Shifts
With this method, you create a role and put the required time commitment in the role’s description or title. This could be the event’s start and end time, or the amount of hours that the event will take to complete.
For example: your opportunity could have the following roles:
- Morning greeter
- Afternoon parking director
- AM table setup
- PM trash cleanup
If you enable the Role step in the signup workflow, volunteers can self-select the role to sign up for the shift. You can also assign the role to volunteers individually or in bulk.
Using Form Questions as Shifts
You can also create custom form questions that offer the shift times as responses.
For example, you could create a question that asks “What shift would you like to sign up for?” with responses like:
- “8:00 AM to 10:00 AM”
- “10:00 AM to noon”
- “Afternoon”
- “PM”
Enable the Form Questions step in the signup workflow to allow volunteers to self-select the shift times. You can also fill out the form question for each volunteer.