Assigning workers to available shifts is the core function of the MOW Scheduler system. There are several different places in the system you can access an assignment form. They all have a lot in common, but the "perspective" is different: sometimes you have a worker (volunteer) in mind and want to find them a shift to work. On the other hand, sometimes you have an open shift to fill and need to find a worker to fill it. In general, an assignment requires:

• a "shift" - a specific job and position on a specific date (for a one-time assignment) or day of the week (for an ongoing assignment)
• an assignment type and details - one-time? ongoing? how often? start date?
• a "worker" - a volunteer or staff member to assign to the shift

Assignment Types

Assignments can be "one-time" or "ongoing". One-time assignments are always for one specific date, and are shown on schedules in green. Ongoing assignments all recur periodically, but there are several variations:

Weekly

A weekly ongoing assignment is a regular who shows up every week (unless canceled for a specific day or for a range of dates via the "time off" feature). These are shown in blue on the schedules

Monthly

A monthly assignment recurs once or more a month, always on the same day of the week. It's easiest to describe by examples:

• the 2nd Tuesday of every month
• the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Fridays of every month

Note: don't forget about the 5th week, but remember that less than 1/2 of all months have a 5th friday. Monthly ongoing assignments are displayed in purple on the schedules.

Custom

A "custom" assignment is one that comes up every N weeks, for example every other week, or every 3 weeks. Often these are use to "rotate" an assignment between several volunteers. Custom assignments are shown in orange in the schedules.

Making an Ongoing Assignment

We're going to illustrate the process using the Weekly schedule as an example, but the process is similar from other views also.

1. On the weekly schedule find the shift you want to fill. Click on the + icon.
2. Choose the position you want to fill, for example "Driver (D)" or "Server (S)"
3. Search for a worker. The drop down will list all workers. You can narrow down this list when you start to typing a description or by choosing the checkbox options to the right.
   • If you know contact's name, start typing their name and it will automatically start filtering the list
   • If you are looking for a worker under a organization, start typing the organization name and it will automatically start filtering the list
   • If you are looking for workers with the tag "floater", start typing the word "floater" and it will automatically start filtering the list
   • If you are looking for "Only those workers who had one-time assignments for this job in the past 90 days", click on the checkbox and it will automatically filter the list
   • If you are looking for workers that are associated to the job group related to the current shift, click on the checkbox and it will automatically filter the list
4. Choose a worker
5. If you want to send the worker an email confirmation about the one-time assignment, click on the checkbox.
6. Click either the One-time Assignment or Recurring Assignment button
7. Recurring (aka ongoing) assignments only: you'll be presented a 2nd form to select the ongoing assignment type, start date, etc.

Other places you can add an assignment

• Daily Schedule - Click on the + icon for that job shift and search for the volunteer to assign.
• Job Shift detail - Click on the Add workers and search for the volunteer to assign.
• Contact profile - Click on the icon next to One-time assignments and search for the shift you want to assign.
• Job profile - Click on the + icon for that job shift and search for the volunteer to assign.
• Ongoing Assignments page - View and manage all your ongoing assignments.
• Offers Inbox - approve assignments for "signups" submitted from the public "Help Wanted" page.