❖ Heads up! This article is intended for Site Managers. If you're an Agency Manager click here.
Agency managers will be the ones to primarily schedule volunteers for Needs. However, if an agency manager should ask for assistance in scheduling volunteers, you can also schedule them as necessary!
- Volunteer availability
- How to schedule volunteers
- How to schedule without the tool
- How to invite available volunteers to respond
Volunteer availability
Before we dive into how to schedule volunteers, let's talk about volunteer availability. Depending on how you've set up your site's User Registration settings, a volunteer can select what day and time of day they're available for scheduling. They can also opt to not be scheduled on specific days or they can disable Allow Scheduling. All of these settings can impact your ability to schedule them for a Need.
User Registration settings
To ensure volunteers can select their available dates for scheduling or disable this feature:
1. Go to Settings > User Registration. 
2. Find Availability under Standard Question Options. 
- To enable this feature when the volunteer registers on your site, check the box under Show.
- To enable this feature when the volunteer visits their profile area, check the box under Profile.
- To require this feature, check the box under Require.
- When you check Require, it auto-selects the Show and Profile boxes too.
- To disable this feature, uncheck all boxes.
- When this feature is disabled, volunteers won't be able to select their available days and times of day when registering on the site or from their profile.
3. Be sure to click Update Standard Questions to save your changes.
What does it look like to the volunteer?
Now, let's take a look at this from the volunteer perspective. Remember, they only see the option to check the days and times of day they're available if you have this feature enabled or required.
- Here's what it looks like on the Create an Account page when they click Sign Up on your site:
- Here's what it looks like if you have this enabled for their profile and they click Edit Profile:
- Here is the Allow Scheduling feature that volunteers can enable or disable from their profile area:
What if a volunteer doesn't select availability?
If a volunteer doesn't select availability, then they're considered potentially available and can be scheduled by you, another Site Manager, or an Agency Manager.
Why can't I schedule a volunteer?
If you're running into trouble scheduling a volunteer for a Need, you might want to check their availability and whether or not they've disabled Allow Scheduling from their profile. You won't be able to schedule a volunteer if:
- The Need is outside of their checked available days and times.
- They turned Off Allow Scheduling.
- The Need has an Ongoing, Multi-Date, or Runs Until duration type.
- You can only schedule volunteers with the scheduling tool for Needs with durations of Custom Shifts, Recurring Shifts, and Happens On.
How to schedule volunteers
You can schedule volunteers from the Scheduling area. Remember, you can only schedule volunteers for Needs with duration types of Custom Shifts, Recurring Shifts, and Happens On.
Schedule Volunteers button
1. Go to Volunteerism > Scheduling. 
2. Click Schedule Volunteers. 
3. Select the Need with the Select Need dropdown. 
4. Check the boxes by the shifts you want to schedule volunteers for. 
✏️ Quick tips:
- You can filter the shifts by specific days of the week and show expired shifts if necessary.
- Want to select all shifts? Check the box at the top!
5. Click Continue to start adding volunteers to the list.
6. Search for the volunteers you want to schedule.
- You can search by Name, Email, or Category.
7. Check the box by the volunteer you want to schedule. 
- If there are any scheduling conflicts or missing qualifications, then a warning icon appears under the Alerts column.
- Hover over the icon to see what the alert is for.
8. Click Add to List.
9. From here, you can either review your list or add more volunteers.
- You can also send a message to the volunteers that you've added to the list.
- Be sure to check the box by Send confirmation to these volunteers before you finish scheduling.
10. When you're ready, click Schedule Volunteers to finish. 
View More button
1. Go to Volunteerism > Scheduling.
2. Click View More for the date with a Need you want to schedule volunteers for. 
3. Select Options > Schedule users for this shift. 
4. From here, the steps are the same as the ones for adding volunteers to a list when scheduling with the Schedule Volunteers button.
ⓘ So you know: If you click View available volunteers, you can schedule volunteers from there too. 
How to schedule without the tool
While we recommend using the Scheduling tool, you can also schedule volunteers from the User area of your site.
1.Go to Volunteerism > Users.
2. Click on a user in the table.
3. On the Edit User page, click Schedule. 
4. Select the Schedule button to search for a Need.
5. Check the boxes for the shifts you want to schedule them for if the Need has scheduled shifts—click Continue.
6. Verify the volunteer's information on the next screen and click Add to List.
- You can also review any possible alerts when scheduling by hovering over the icon under the Alerts column.
7. Review the scheduling information and click the Schedule button.
- You can also send a confirmation message to the volunteers that they're scheduled by checking the box beside Send confirmation to these volunteers before you click the Schedule button.
How to invite available volunteers to respond
Another option is to alert available volunteers about a volunteer Need by inviting them from the Scheduling area. This option sends the Schedule Recruitment notification to those volunteers.
1. Go to Volunteersim > Scheduling.
2. Select the Need title in the calendar. 
3. Click View available volunteers. 
4. Scroll to Available Volunteers. 
5. Check the boxes beside the volunteers you wish to send the notification to.
6. Click Invite Volunteers. 
7. A warning pops up asking you to confirm your selections.
- Click Yes to confirm or No to cancel.
8. If you click Yes, then the notification is triggered and those users receive the Schedule Recruitment notification in their inbox.
- The notification includes information about the Need and a link they can follow to that Need's page.
- Here's what the volunteer receives:
