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Volunteer Assignment & RSVP

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Contents

Introduction

Once you are happy with your role configuration, you can assign volunteers to each role. This is done using the Assign button, which is available for each role. Please remember that your volunteer needs to be added to your list of People (See how) before they are available to select here. 

You can assign volunteers individually or in groups. You can also browse recent volunteers for recurring events or registered members for one-time events. If you use Volunteer Teams, you can also browse the people who usually serve in a particular role. 

Assignment

Overview

Assigning volunteers will create a list of assignments under each volunteer role. This list will show everyone who is assigned as a volunteer for that role, along with a visual indication of whether they have accepted or rejected the assignment, or whether it is pending. The list is in alphabetical order.

Here is what a list of assignments might look like:


 

You can filter assignments across roles by status: Accepted, Rejected, or Pending. This is available both in the Occurrence tab, above the roles, and in the Calendar tab, above the calendar cells.

Here is what this looks like in the Occurrence tab:

 

And here is what it looks like in the Calendar tab:

 

Assignment Cases

Individual Volunteers

To assign individual volunteers to a role, click Assign > Members under the respective role. In the popup, you can search for members and select one or multiple people using the checkbox next to their names. When you are ready, click Add.

By Group

This option lets you assign volunteers based on the groups they are part of. 

  1. Go to Assign > Groups,
  2. Your ChMeetings groups are listed. You can search for groups and expand each group to select members. You can assign all members as volunteers for the event or just use the group as a filter to find specific people.

 

Registered Attendants (One-Time Events)

For one-time events, there is a Registered Members tab that lists people who have already registered for this event. People registered for other events are not displayed. 

 

Recent Volunteers (Recurring Events)

If you are working with a recurring event, you will see a Recent tab: This tab displays members who have recently volunteered for an occurrence of the event you are working with. Volunteers from other events are not displayed. 

 

Volunteers Who Usually Serve Within a Role

If you have used a predefined Team for your event, you will have information about who usually volunteers for a specific role. This will be reflected in the Served By list, where you can find those people already filtered. Along each person, you will also find the date when they last served within that role. This does not mean the people are scheduled for the event. They are just suggested for your consideration, as potential volunteers for the role. You can choose to schedule them or select someone else from under the list of Members, Groups, or Registered Members (if the event has registration enabled). 

 

Recurring Volunteering

Individual Assignment Recurrence

You can configure recurring assignments for all individual volunteers once you assign someone to a role during a recurring event. When assigning someone recurrently, they are assigned to the role they are listed under. This feature does not work for one-time events. 

To configure a recurring assignment, please follow the steps below:

  1. In the Volunteers window, find the person for whom you want to configure recurring assignments. If they are not assigned to the desired role and date, then please assign them first. 
  2. Click the options button next to the desired person, then click Set Recurrence. 
  3. In the Set Volunteer Schedule window, configure the following: 
    1. End Date: Set the date and which the recurrence ends.
    2. All Events: Check this option if you want to assign someone to all occurrences of the event you’re working with. ChMeetings will automatically select all event occurrences. 
    3. Specific Dates: Check this option to assign someone to specific occurrences of the event you’re working with. No selection is made automatically and you can select desired dates.
    4. Every Other Event: Check this option to assign someone to every other occurrence of the event you’re working with. ChMeetings will automatically select every other occurrence. 
    5. Select days in the event to assign the volunteer: The calendar tool in this section lets you select desired dates to assign someone to. No matter the selection above, you can freely adjust the dates.

Here is a demo of this process: 

 

Once you configure recurring assignments, the selected person is assigned to their role on all selected dates. To switch roles, remove them from their current role and assign them to the new one on the desired change date, then set recurrence for the new role.

There will also be a date at the top right of your volunteer assignment screen, where you can edit existing assignments.. Click the arrows to navigate the dates and assign volunteers to each date. Your roles will be predefined per day - you can edit the number of volunteers needed and assign volunteers separately, for each date. For the moment you cannot add or remove roles for specific instances of a recurring event.

 

Recurrent Role Assignees

If you have assigned specific people to a role, on a certain date, and you know that the same people will be working together in the same role on a recurring basis, you can assign them together using the Set Role Recurrence option.

You can find Set Role Recurrence in the Calendar Tab, under Cell Actions > Set Role Recurrence, which displays only once you have assigned someone to a role.  

 

In the Set Role Recurrence screen, you can configure the following: 

  • The volunteers assigned to the role - The field shows you the role name and date you’re using as a reference point. You can keep everyone or uncheck those who are not relevant to your current assignment. The purpose of this feature is to assign multiple volunteers together, in the same role, on dates you’ll be setting up next.
  • End Date: This is when the current recurrent assignment you’re making will end. After this date, the selected volunteer will no longer be assigned to the role. 
  • Repeats: 
    • All occurrences means you are assigning selected volunteers to all occurrences until the end date. 
    • Specific dates lets you select specific dates in the calendar below. Selected volunteers will be assigned to the role only on those dates you select. 
    • Every other occurrence assigns selected volunteers for every other occurrence of the event, until the end date.
  • Select days in the event to assign the volunteer is where you can select the exact dates when to assign the selected volunteers. Selections adjust according to the selected option under Repeats, above, but you can adjust those selections by adding or removing dates. The automatic selection is not mandatory to keep. Just note that at the moment, your Repeats selection will not change according to your date adjustments.
  • Check the summary below, and click Save when done. Selected volunteers will then be assigned to the selected role and dates.  

 

Update Volunteer Assignments

Change volunteer assignments

If you just want to change the volunteer assigned to a particular slot, you can do so by clicking the context menu and selecting Change Volunteer. This will allow you to assign another volunteer and will switch the initial assignment to the new one. 

 

Change Role

You can change the role a volunteer is assigned to from their respective context menu. Simply select Change Role to get started. 


 

Next, select the new role you want to assign the volunteer to. Click Move when ready.

 

Remove One-Time Assignments

You can use the same process to add all of the volunteers you need. To Remove a Volunteer, click the Options menu next to them and choose Remove. If the volunteer is assigned to several occurrences of a recurring event, you can use Delete All Recurrences to remove them from all dates they are assigned to, within the respective event.

 

Remove Recurring Assignments 

Current Assignment

Additionally, if you are working with a recurring event, there will also be a date at the top right of your volunteer assignment screen. Click the arrows to navigate the dates to manage assignments for each date using Remove Assignments in the volunteer’s context menu. This is useful, for example, if you need to remove multiple  assignments for specific volunteers, without removing them all; or if you need to make certain changes to assignments. 

 

All Recurring Assignments

Additionally, you can remove all recurring assignments in one go by opening the volunteer’s context menu and selecting Remove All Recurrences. This will remove all recurring assignments within the event for the respective volunteer. 


 

Volunteer Availability Labels

The table below shows you the availability labels shown next to those volunteers where such a label is applicable - such as a blocked-out date,an assignment conflict, or cases when the volunteer has already been assigned or invited to the same event, role, and date. You can still assign someone who has a Blockout or Conflict label, for example when the volunteer has agreed to serve anyway. These labels only warn; they do not prevent saving.

Label Meaning Can be selected?
Blockout (red) The person has added a block-out date that covers this date (from Volunteering > Block-Out Dates). Learn more about how this works for members and for admins. Yes - it’s only a warning 
Conflict (yellow) The person is already scheduled in another role at the same time. Yes - it’s only a warning
Already assigned (gray) The person is already in this role on this date. Their name is grayed out. No
Already invited (gray) Shown instead of “Already assigned” when inviting people to a sign-up sheet: the person was already invited. No

 

Assignment Conflict Detection

While assigning volunteers, you can rest assured that you will not be assigning the same person to two events at the same time, for example. ChMeetings detects if someone is already assigned to volunteer the following scenarios: 

  1. If someone is already assigned to a different role in the same event or in a different event. 
  2. If the person you want to assign has signed up as a volunteer using the Signup Sheet. This applies if they have signed up to a different role in the same event or in a different event that takes place at the same time.
     

     
  3. If the member you want to assign as a volunteer has blocked out the date of your event. This means that they are unavailable to volunteer on that date. Learn more about how this works for members and for admins.

RSVP Options

RSVP by Volunteers

There are two ways for volunteers to RSVP for your events after having been assigned:

  1. Via Email: Volunteer schedule emails will include an option to RSVP.


     
  2. Via their ChMeetings Account, if the volunteers are also registered members, with active ChMeetings accounts. The RSVP options are available by going to the Volunteer Schedule section. Here is where there is a list of events to which members are added as volunteers, and where they can easily Accept or Reject participation. 

RSVP by Leaders or Admins

Leaders or Admins can manage RSVP on behalf of Volunteers, from within the Volunteers section of an event. Clicking the Options menu allows you to update the status RSVP Status as either Accepted or Rejected.

 

RSVP Status 

Leaders and Admins can view the RSVP status of each volunteer from within the event’s Volunteers section. Here, every volunteer is assigned a color, which is displayed on the left side of their list item, as follows:

  • Green - Accepted,
  • Red - Rejected,
  • Yellow - No response.

 

RSVP Email Replies

If RSVP-d volunteers reply to the email they receive when you assign them, then those replies go to the assigned role leader. When configuring volunteer roles, you must assign a leader for each role, for them to receive these replies. Otherwise, volunteer email replies will go to the Reply-To email address that you configured under Settings > Account Settings > Email Settings. If you have not configured this address, please do so; otherwise the replies will not reach your church. .

Download a Volunteer Sheet

Once you have assigned volunteers to your event, you can also print a volunteer sheet for better management on the event day. Depending on your event type, there are two ways to download a Volunteer Sheet:

  • For one time events, go to the Volunteer Sheet tab, click Download, then select the Calendar Layout or List Layout.


     
  • For recurring events, go to the Calendar tab, click Download, then select the Calendar Layout or List Layout.


     

The Calendar Layout shows Teams/Roles as rows and dates as columns. 

The List layout is the reverse: Dates are shown as rows and Teams/Roles as columns.


 

 

 

 

 

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