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Schedule Groups

You can schedule group volunteers along with individual volunteers in Volgistics. Since groups represent multiple volunteers serving together, you may handle these volunteer records a little differently when scheduling. This help topic provides some useful tips for adding groups to the schedule and managing scheduled shifts for group records.

Add a Group to the Schedule

It may be helpful to add a group to the schedule multiple times to indicate how many shifts that group will cover and to easily see how many members of that group will be serving on a particular day. You can add a group to the schedule multiple times at once when scheduling from the Schedule tab of the group's record, so this may be the easiest method for adding groups to the schedule. Below are some steps you can follow to schedule group records this way:

  1. Choose Volunteers from the menu.
  2. Use the options on this page to find and open the group record you'd like to schedule.
  3. Select the Schedule tab in that record.
  4. In the Add to schedule box, choose the assignment you want to schedule the group for and click the Go button.

  5. The next step will vary depending on how the Rules tab is configured for the selected Assignment. If this tab is configured to allow scheduling in Openings only, you can only add the group to openings in that Assignment's schedule. If the tab is configured to allow scheduling for Any times..., you cannot add the group to openings in that Assignment's schedule. Instead, you can only add them to the schedule outside of openings. The steps for these two scenarios are a little different, so these have been broken down separately below:

  6. If the Assignment's Rules tab is set up to allow scheduling for Any times..., you'll immediately see the Add group volunteers box. Use the From and to time dropdowns to select the times this group should be scheduled.

    Image of scheduling group outside of an opening

  7. If the Assignment's Rules tab is set up to allow scheduling for Openings only, you'll instead see a calendar, and each date with available openings will be highlighted in green. Click on the highlighted date you'd like to schedule the group on.

    Image of opening calendar

    You'll then see the Add group volunteers box, which will show all the openings available on the selected date and how many slots are available for each of those openings. Select the opening you'd like to schedule the group for.

    Image of opening selection

  8. Once you have selected the opening/time the group should be scheduled, use the Volunteers dropdown to indicate how many members of the group you'd like to add to the schedule. If you are scheduling the group in an opening, you can only schedule a number of group members up to the maximum available slots for the selected opening. For example, if the opening you selected has 10 slots available, you can only select between 1 and 10 from the Volunteers dropdown.

  9. Using the Frequency options, choose whether the group should be scheduled for One time or on a Regular basis.

    If you choose One time use the corresponding dropdowns to select the date the group should be scheduled.

    If you choose Regular, select the frequency this group will serve in this shift:

  10. Use the grid of options to select how often the group should be scheduled for this recurring shift. For example, if the group will serve on the first Wednesday of each month, check the box at the intersection of the 1st row and the Wed column.

    If you are scheduling the group in an opening, options in the grid will be disabled if the opening is not configured to recur with the corresponding frequency. For instance, if the opening is configured to occur every weekday, the options in the Sun and Sat columns will be disabled because the opening does not occur on those days.

  11. Use the Starting dropdown to select the date the recurring schedule will start for this group.

  12. Choose whether this recurring shift will repeat indefinitely or only through a particular date. If it will repeat indefinitely, select Ongoing. If it will only repeat through a certain date, select Ending and select the ending date.
  13. If you are scheduling the group for One time you'll have the option to add a schedule entry note to the scheduled shift using the Note field. If you are scheduling the group on a Regular basis, you cannot add a note. You can only add schedule entry notes to one date at a time, so you cannot add these kinds of notes when scheduling a group for a recurring shift. After the group has been scheduled for a recurring shift, you can edit individual shifts in the recurring schedule to add schedule entry notes.
  14. Click the Save button

Here's an example of what this might look like when scheduling a group of 10 volunteers to fill an opening on the first Wednesday of every month:

Image of group scheduled in an opening on an ongoing basis

Note

You can also schedule groups from the Schedule page in your account or the Schedule tab of your Site, Place, Assignment, or Coordinator records. However, when scheduling groups from those locations, you can only schedule the group for one shift at a time. You cannot add the group to the schedule multiple times all at once. You can learn more about scheduling from these other locations in Scheduling Volunteers.

View a Group's Schedule

You can view the schedule for a group in a variety of places. The easiest way to see just a particular group's schedule is to open the Schedule tab in that group's record. But you'll also be able to see that group's schedule from the Schedule page in your account or the Schedule tab of Site, Place, Assignment, and Coordinator records (so long as the group is on a schedule that is associated with the Site, Place, Assignment, or Coordinator you're viewing).

Since Group records are designed to represent multiple volunteers that you do not wish to track individually, you will not see the names of individual group members when you view the group's schedule. Instead you'll see the group's name listed for each schedule entry for which a member of the group will serve.

When you view the schedule for a group on the Schedule tab in their volunteer record, you'll see one entry for each group member scheduled. In the example shown here, 10 members of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program are scheduled to serve in the Mailing Assignment from 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. on November 3, 2021:

Image of a group's schedule from their Schedule tab

Remove a group from a schedule

You can remove group members from a schedule by clicking the Remove link next to their scheduled shift.

Currently, there is not a way to remove all of the members of a group scheduled for a particular Assignment in a single click. If a group can no longer serve in a particular shift, you'll need to remove each member from that shift individually.