MOW Scheduler Tutorials :: Getting Started with Volunteer Groups

Volunteer Groups Overview

Volunteer Groups enable the Volunteer Coordinator to delegate responsibility for an ongoing assignment to an Organization, and provides the Organization with new tools to manage this delegated responsibility through the Volunteer Portal.

See also: the "Using Volunteer Groups" tutorial

Step by Step

Part 1: Ensure that Volunteer Portal is enabled for your MOW scheduler Install.

The Volunteer Group features are most useful if you have the optional Volunteer Portal enabled for your MOW Scheduler install, since that's where the Group Leaders can access and manage their group's assignments.

To verify that you have the volunteer portal enabled:

  1. Go to Setup (the cog menu) > Site Preferences. Under Other features, see if Volunteer Portal is Enabled.
  2. If it's turned on, proceed to Part 2. If not, contact MOW Scheduler support to discuss having the Volunteer Portal feature turned on for your install. You may want to review the Volunteer Portal tutorial.

Part 2: Set up an Organization as a Volunteer Group.

Volunteer Groups are Organizations in the MOW Scheduler system that have some special attributes.

  1. Select or add an organization under Contacts > View all Organizations .
  2. Go to the Organization Detail page for this organization.
  3. Make sure there's a Main contact specified under the organization's Contacts tab.
  4. Click the Edit link (next to the Organization name at top left of page).
  5. Check the Volunteer Group checkbox and the Display on Schedules checkbox and click the Save button.
  6. Back on the Contacts tab, you will see that a new Group Placeholder contact was created, inherting the Organization main contact’s email and phone number. Update contact info if needed.
  7. Designate one or more Contacts as Group Leaders who will have the ability to assign jobs within the organization, and click Update.

Part 3: Assign a Job to your new Volunteer Group

The common Volunteer Group scenario is for you (the Volunteer Coordinator) to make an ongoing assignment to the Group, delegating the responsibility for assigning a specific individual volunteer each week to the Group Leader(s).

  1. Go to Jobs > Ongoing Assignments.
  2. Find a shift that you'd like to assign to your Volunteer Group. Click the plus icon for the shift.
  3. Start typing the name of the Organization of in the Worker field. You'll find a contact with the organization name that begins with the group "placeholder" icon. Select it.
  4. Proceed with the rest of the assignment process as usual.
  5. Confirmations and notifications will be sent to the placeholder Contact.
  6. The ongoing assignment will be shown on the schedules with the Group Placeholder icon.
  7. The Group Leader(s) have the ability to reassign individual shifts to members of the group.

Part 4: Reassign Shifts to Group Members

The Group Leader(s) have the ability, through their Volunteer Portal accounts, to reassign individual shifts to members of the group. Once this Group Assignment is made, the individual group member will be shown on all schedules as a one-time (green) assignment with the Group Assignment icon. If you hover over the icon, you will be shown which group the assignment belongs to.

Although the Group Leaders are usually responsible for reassigning the Placeholder shifts to individual group members, the Volunteer Coordinators have this ability also, as for regular non-group assignments. If a Coordinator reassigns a Group Assignment shift to another group member, it will still have the Group Assignment icon, but if it is reassigned to someone outside the group, that shift will no longer be a Group Assignment, and will not be shown on the group members' Group Calendar.

If the Coordinator needs to cancel a Group Assignment for a specific shift (again, this is normally the Group Leaders' responsibility), they can reassign it back to the Group Placeholder and request the Group Leaders to find a replacement.