❖ Heads up! This article is intended for agency managers. If you're a site manager, click here.  

When creating volunteer Needs, you may have some that require scheduled shift work. You can select either Custom Shifts or Recurring Shifts as the duration type for those Needs. Choosing the best duration type depends on when your volunteer shifts occur. Here we cover:

• When to use Custom Shifts
  • How to assign custom shifts to a Need
  • How to view and edit shifts
    • Automated notifications for shifts
• When to use Recurring Shifts
  • How to assign recurring shifts to a Need
• Shifts and volunteer check-in
• Shifts and volunteer waitlists
• The volunteer perspective 

When to use Custom Shifts

If you have volunteer Needs with shifts that occur at different times on different days, then Custom Shifts is the duration type for you! Here are some examples of when to use the Custom Shifts duration type: 

• You need volunteers to serve soup at your soup kitchen on Mondays from 10 am to 1 pm and again from 5 pm to 7 pm.  
• You need volunteers to run a food stand on Saturdays from 7 am to 10 am and 2 pm to 5 pm, on Sundays from 12 pm to 3 pm, and Wednesdays from 5 pm to 7 pm. 
• You need 5 volunteers to help set up the day before an event, 10 to help during the event, and 5 to help clean up after. 
  • These are shifts that may occur at the same time but require a different number of volunteers each time.

How to assign custom shifts to a Need

To get started

1. Go to My Agency > Needs and select Add New Need. 2. Select Custom Shifts from the Duration dropdown.3. Complete the three Shift fields that appear:

• Shift Date/Time: When you click on this field, a calendar appears. 
  • Select the day the shift occurs from the calendar. 
  • Slide the hour or minute bar to select the time or select Now to match the current date and time. 
  • When you're done, click Done to finish. 

• Shift Hours: How long is each shift? Indicate the number of hours here. Only use numbers and don't include words or other text—e.g., 2 or 2.5 are acceptable formats.  
• Shift Capacity: How many volunteers are needed for each shift? If you have four shifts and only need two volunteers for each, type 2—not 8. 
  • Type 0 for an unlimited number of volunteers. 
  • The total number of volunteer slots appears in the volunteer view for a need—e.g., if you create four shifts and set the capacity to 2 volunteers per shift, then the volunteers see 8 open slots for that opportunity or however many are left open. 

4. Click Add Shift.

ⓘ So you know: Once you have added a shift, two things happen: 

• The shift displays below the Add Shift button 
• The Shift Date/Time, Shift Hours, and Shift Capacity fields reset
  • Repeat the steps to add a shift for as many shifts as you need! 

5. Complete all other required and applicable fields for the need and click Create Need to finish.

ⓘ So you know: 

• After you click Create Need, you can't change the duration type for needs that have Custom or Recurring Shifts assigned to them. 
  • You can still view and edit those shifts as needed.
• Want to remove a shift? Click the (X) beside the shift(s) you want to delete. 
  • If you delete a shift, it can't be restored—you must recreate it manually. 

How to view and edit shifts

You can view and edit shifts right from your dashboard: 

1. Go to Needs and click Edit under the need you want to edit shifts for. 2. Select the Edit Shifts tab. 

3. Click the pencil icon to edit a shift or (X) to remove it. 

• Remember, if you delete a shift, you must manually create it again. 
• From here, you can delete shifts in bulk, edit shifts, schedule volunteers for shifts, and see expired shifts. 

4. If you click the pencil icon to edit a shift, an Edit Shift window appears. 

• If you want to open the shift to an unlimited number of volunteers, type 0 in the Capacity field. 

✏️ Quick tip: We recommend checking the box beside Notify respondents of this update? when making edits to shifts—especially if volunteers have already responded to them. 

5. Click Submit Shift to save your changes. 

• Be sure to refresh the page after you click Submit Shift so you can see your changes.

Automated notifications for shifts

If you remove a shift that already has responses, an email notification is sent to those volunteers to let them know that they've been unregistered from the shift.

• If a volunteer responded to multiple shifts, then they receive a single email listing all of the shifts they've been unregistered for. 
• You receive a separate email for each shift response by a volunteer. 

When to use Recurring Shifts

Do you have needs with repeating shifts? The Recurring Shifts duration type is the one to use for those. This duration type is for shifts that happen at the same time on the specific days you select. These can be repeated daily, weekly, or monthly. For example: 

• An agency needs volunteers to serve food every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5 pm to 7 pm.
• A thrift store needs volunteers to sort donated clothes on the first Saturday of every month.
• A nonprofit needs volunteers to tutor students after school every Wednesday.

ⓘ So you know: You can add shifts a maximum of 13 months in advance; however, we recommend only scheduling shifts out 3-6 months in advance. If you schedule them out 3-6 months in advance, it improves the volunteer experience and helps limit any future scheduling conflicts.

How to assign recurring shifts to a Need

To assign recurring  shifts to a need:

1. Go to Needs and select Add New Need. 

2. Select Recurring Shifts from the Duration dropdown. 3. From the Occurs dropdown, select the repeating time interval: Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. 

• For Daily, you must select how many days this shift repeats, the date range for the shifts, their start time, and how many hours each shift lasts.  
  • Select 1 in the Repeat Every field if the shift repeats every day. 
  • Select 2 if the shift repeats every other day, etc. 
  • Remember, only type numbers in the Hours field—e.g., 4, 4.5, etc.

• For Weekly, you must select how many weeks this shift repeats, what days it repeats on each week, the date range for the shifts, their start time, and how many hours each shift lasts. 
  • Select 1 in the Repeat Every field if the shift repeats every week. 
  • Select 2 if the shift repeats every other week, etc. 

• For Monthly, you must select how many months the shift repeats, if you want it to repeat by the date or the day of the week, the date range for the shifts, their start time, and how many hours each shift lasts. 
  • Select 1 in the Repeat Every field if the shift repeats once a month. 
  • Select 2 if the shift repeats every other month. 
  • You can choose Date for Repeats By or Day of the Week. 
    • Does your shift repeat on the 15th of every month? Select Date. 
    • Does your shift repeat the first Monday of every month? Select Day of the Week.

4. For Shift Capacity, consider how many volunteers are needed for each shift. If you have four shifts and only need two volunteers for each, type 2—not 8. 

• Type 0 for an unlimited number of volunteers. 
• The total number of volunteer slots appears in the volunteer view for a need—e.g., if you create four shifts and set the capacity to 2 volunteers per shift, then the volunteers see 8 open slots for that opportunity or however many are left open.

5. Complete all other required and applicable fields for the need and click Create Need when finished. 

ⓘ So you know: 

• After you click Create Need, you can't change the duration type for needs that have Custom or Recurring Shifts assigned to them. 
  • You can still view and edit recurring shifts by following the same steps for custom shifts. 
• The system uses your Start Date for scheduling when you create a Need with a monthly recurring shift and select Day of the Week for the Repeat By Field. 
  • e.g., If you select a date in the Date Range field that starts on the first Saturday of the month, then that shift repeats every first Saturday of the month thereafter. 

Shifts and volunteer check-in

If your agency uses the Volunteer Check-in feature, or if your volunteers use Self Check-in, your volunteers' hours are automatically calculated based on the following:

• If a volunteer checks in but doesn't check out, the system automatically attributes the number of hours indicated in the Hours field when the need was created. 
• When a volunteer checks out, the system attributes the number of hours between check-in and check-out.

ⓘ So you know: 

• If volunteers check in using your agency check-in tool, their hours are automatically approved.
• If they use Self Check-in, the hours follow the approval rules of your site.

Shifts and volunteer waitlists

If your site has enabled the waitlist feature, you can see which volunteers have been waitlisted for which shifts.

• Click here for more information about viewing and managing volunteer waitlists as an agency manager. 
• Check out this video about managing your waitlists too: 

The volunteer perspective 

Shift Needs appear in the Needs grid for volunteers. 

• For shift Needs, a volunteer sees Multiple Shifts Available above the need title.

• Once they click to view details, they see a list of all available shifts. If team sign-ups are allowed, the option to respond as a team is also available.

• If they click Respond Individually to respond individually, they'll be taken to the Need Response page, where they can provide any additional information and complete their response.
• If they click Respond as Team, they'll be taken to an area where they can name their team and add members.
• If they click Respond to Multiple, they'll be taken to another list of shifts, where they can mark the boxes of the shifts they wish to fill.

ⓘ So you know: 

• The Respond to Multiple option isn't available for team signups. 
• All past shifts appear in faded text. 
• Volunteers can select the Show All dropdown to filter available shifts.