The gold star indicates that the slot has enough ongoing assignments to meet the minimum requirement, and won't usually be "pink" (i.e. short-handed) in future weeks. If a slot has the gold star but it is pink or has a green substitute assignment on this particular day, it's due to a cancellation or time off for one of the "regular" assignees.

This allows you to tell the difference between slots that are short-handed (or have a green one-time assignment) due to a temporary situation (cancellation or time off), and those slots that have a recurring short-handed status, and could really use an ongoing assignment.

A Job has one or more Positions. The main difference between multiple Jobs vs multiple Positions in the same Job is in how they're displayed – each Job gets its own row on the weekly schedule, while all Positions for a Job are shown together in the same “slot”.

Jobs are displayed if their Visibility is set to Public (this is set at the job profile), and the Job has at least one "open" shift in the displayed week.

A job shift is "open" if there's at least one position that has fewer volunteer assignments than the "minimum required workers" specified in Job Settings.

If you're a volunteer coordinator, you can look at it this way: a job with visibility set to "Public" will be shown on the public Help Wanted page if it has at least one pink slot on your weekly schedule.

We'd recommend that you define a Company record, e.g. “ACME, Inc”, and add the point person at ACME as a Contact. Then define a “role” Contact under the company, e.g. with first name “ACME - driver” and use this contact for the ongoing assignment. On the schedule it will show that ACME has committed to fill the shift even though you might not know yet which person they'll send.

Add them as different positions for the same job, for example "front desk 8-12" and "front desk 12-4" under the job "Reception", from the Jobs/Jobs Settings menu.

Use the “time off” feature under the Job Schedule section on the right side of the Contact detail page. This allows you to handle vacation or other extended absence without removing the ongoing assignment and putting it back later, or canceling the assignments for each week one at a time.

Jobs are displayed if their Visibility is set to Public (this is set at the job profile), and the Job has at least one "open" shift in the displayed week.

A job shift is "open" if there's at least one position that has fewer volunteer assignments than the "minimum required workers" specified in Job Settings.

If you're a volunteer coordinator, you can look at it this way: a job with visibility set to "Public" will be shown on the public Help Wanted page if it has at least one pink slot on your weekly schedule.

The "Custom" scheduling option you see in the the Ongoing Assignment form is designed exactly for that. Insert the volunteer, choose "every 2 weeks", pick a start date, and save. It's that simple. The same Custom scheduling feature can also be used when several individuals or groups rotate on an every 3, 4 or 5-weeks schedule.

Yes, the "Main Volunteer Coordinator" listed under "System Admin > Our Company" usually gets notified about a sign-up (or cancel). You can also specify separate/additional people to be notified about signups and cancellations happening in different job groups. Go to System Admin > Who Gets Admin Notifications to view and modify who receives notifications of signups various job groups.

Users can be subscribed to receive notifications of all signups, or only signups in specific job groups. These subscriptions can be viewed and modified under System Admin > Who Gets Admin Notifications?

If there are no subscribers, the notification of new signups goes to the main Volunteer Coordinator email address listed in the System Admin > Our Company

Recent signups or "offers" can be viewed in the Offers Inbox on the main menu bar. You may want to read the Offers Inbox tutorial.

Canceling an assignment removes the volunteer from his/her previously assigned slot. When you cancel a volunteer's assignment, you're given a choice to record or not record the cancellation. Recording cancellations is useful, because it allows you to later identify unreliable volunteers or problem routes. But you might not want to record a specific cancel because it was done for administrative reasons such as shuffling around assignments, and you don't want it to show up on any calendars or reports. Your options to record are; No Show (this usually recorded when a volunteer did not show up for their job), Late Cancel (this is recorded when a volunteer canceled after the early/late cancellation cutoff time), and Early Cancel (this is recorded when the volunteer canceled before the cutoff time).

Take a look at our Volunteer Groups features. You can make an ongoing assignment to a Group, and every week the Group Leaders can assign the shift to a specific group member without your involvement.

You can use the Volunteer Groups feature when you'd like to delegate responsibility for certain job shifts to another organization (such as a church group). The most common scenario is that you assign a job to the Group as ongoing assignment, and they take over the weekly task of finding someone to fill the shift (from among the roster of volunteers who are "members" of their group). A Volunteer Group has some additional features and benefits that allow the group members to collaborate (for example find their own substitutes when going on vacation). see the Volunteer Groups tutorial for more info.

An assignment is a "Group Assignment" if a) it was once assigned to a Volunteer Group (via the Group Placeholder contact) and b) it was reassigned only within the Group (i.e. from one group member or the group placeholder to another)

It depends on who did the cancellation and how. If the Group Leader cancels using the default cancellation option, or the volunteer cancels themselves (using the cancel link in the shift confirmation or through the volunteer portal), the Group retains responsibility for the shift, so the shift is automatically reassigned back to the Group Placeholder and a notification is sent to the Placeholder's email address.

If a Volunteer Coordinator does the cancellation, either directly or by entering a "time off" for the contact, the shift is canceled the same as a regular (non-group) assignment would be, and is not automatically reassigned to the group. The Coordinator has the option of specifying the Group Placeholder as a replacement assignment if they wish the group to retain responsibility for filling the shift.

Yes! Here's a useful scenario: Volunteer Coordinator: "Hey Mary, can you get one of your group members to fill in on Route 3 on Friday? I know some of your people know the route because you usually do it on Wednesday..." Mary (Group Leader at St Vincent's Church): "Sure, I'll find someone. Go ahead and assign it to us, I'll take care of it." VC: "Thanks!"

We provide One Time Events for this purpose. See the Events section for details.

Each event has a publicly accessible page that lists event details and allows your volunteers to sign up. The Event Signup URL is listed on the Event Detail page... Just copy that URL and mention it in an email to your volunteers or link to it from your public website.

Yes! Open events can be displayed on the public help wanted screen and in the Volunteer Portal. Your volunteers can review event details and sign up as with routine jobs.

Yes! Each event has fields for associated mileage and hours. These will be counted for the contact's total when the event is closed.

Yes! A group leader in the group can replace the assignment with a group member later.

Yes. One Time Events have their own special Job Group. You can set the display order of Job Groups from the Job Group Manager under System Admin > Config and Setup. Note: unlike other job groups, the One Time Events group is always displayed on the Weekly schedule even when there are no events for the time period shown.

• Cancel - removes the event from schedules and disables signups. Note that assigned volunteers are not automatically notified of the event cancellation. You can re-open the event with original assignments intact. Mileage/hours credits for volunteer assignments are not counted for canceled events.
• Close - sign off on completed event so that volunteers get credit for hours/miles specified.
• Delete - remove existing assignments and the details of the event itself. Note that volunteers with assignments are not automatically notified, and there is no way to recover a deleted event.

Canceling a shift means that volunteers won't be needed. Any previous assignments in the shift will be canceled. Note that the assignees are not automatically notified, since in most cases you'll want to communicate directly to explain the cause of the cancellation. Shifts are usually canceled before their scheduled date and time.

Closing a shift means that the currently listed volunteers should be given "credit" for their assignments. Shifts are usually closed after their scheduled date and time.