System automatically prevents double booking?

Posted over 4 years ago by Cody Jang

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Cody Jang

Hi team,

Many of our opportunities take place at the same time but in different locations. It's physically impossible for someone to be in both places at the same time.

It seems the system will allow a volunteer to double book, making both reservations and not recognizing that they already have a reservation at the same time and deny the request. Is this functionality possible?

See below for an image in which I start at 8:00a at both Abraham Lincoln and AP Giannini on the same day!

Thanks for looking into this!

Best,

Cody

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8 Comments

Brittany Crow posted almost 2 years ago Admin

Hey again Liz!

We dug a bit further and are working on a reply to your ticket with some possible solutions to the issue. Your request to make it easier for independent responses to be moved into a team response without duplicating the responses or triggering the cancellation email is something we've been asked about before. Its sounds like this could really help your workflow and I am going to add your voice to the vote for that enhancement. Thank you again for your suggestions!

Best,

Bee

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Brittany Crow posted almost 2 years ago Admin

Thank you again for reaching out, Liz! We've received your ticket and will continue the discussion offline.

Best Wishes

Bee

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Brittany Crow posted almost 2 years ago Admin

Hello, Liz!

Thank you for reaching out to us about this! I may need a bit more clarification to best assist you.

When responding to a need or opportunity, users can’t double book a shift for the same day/time in one need or opportunity. They can, however, respond to two separate shifts within the same day and time for different needs or opportunities listed on your site.

For example, Bob can respond to the opportunity Fill the Backpacks on August 9th at 8 am and they can also respond to Reading to Puppies on August 9th at 8 am. However, they can’t go back to Fill the Backpacks and select that same shift for August 9th. They can change their response, select more shifts to respond to, or unregister from it altogether.

If the initial situation is occurring (user signed up twice for the same need shift), I would recommend reaching out to support in a ticket for assistance to look into it! Otherwise, let me know if I am misunderstanding what you’ve requested here.

Best Regards,

Bee

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Liz Berry posted almost 2 years ago

I have noticed on a few occasions volunteers are signed up 2x for the same shift. This means they are also taking an extra spot on a shift and giving us an inaccurate headcount for the shift total. Is there a way to prevent double booking, especially on the same shift?

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Shonie K. posted about 4 years ago Admin

Hi Serena,

Thank you for adding your comment about this. I've added your thoughts to our current enhancement notes for this suggestion.

Although we do have a warning pop up for Site Managers to prevent double booking in the Scheduling area, this isn't something we have in place on the user side of things.

In the meantime, users do receive the "Need Response Thank You" as well as the "Upcoming Need Reminder" emails about needs/opportunities they have responded to, both of which we hope help reduce this issue from happening. I would recommend adding some extra information to these (found in your Manager Panel > Communication > Notifications area), asking users to be sure they haven't accidentally double booked themselves and the check their schedules. Although this won't stop them from double booking, it is always good to add an extra reminder for folks. Users are also able to get a calendar view of their schedule, too, which is handy for reviewing what they've responded to.

Can you tell me more about how this effects your workflow and how you use your personal calendar system outside of Galaxy? This insight will be good to also add to our team's notes to review.

Thanks again for adding your feedback!

Best,

Shonie

CX Specialist

She / Her

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Serena Thomas posted about 4 years ago

It feels like preventing a volunteer from double-booking themselves should be a basic functionality of Galaxy. Without it, I am back to keeping my own calendar system of volunteer reservations. This negates about 50% of the reason we use Galaxy!

Serena Thomas

Homeward Alliance.

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Cody Jang posted over 4 years ago

This is perfect, thanks Shonie!

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Shonie K. posted over 4 years ago Admin

Hi Cody,

Thanks so much for posting your insight on our product suggestions forum! I've made a note on our enhancements board to go over with the team as follows:

"Add preventative or safe guard measures to keep users from double booking and signing up for an opportunity or shift if they have already responded to one that is happening at the same time."

I hope that encapsulates your request! Thanks again!

Shonie

CX Specialist

She / Her

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