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Schedule Page Settings for VicNet

The Schedule page of the VicNet portal is where volunteers can view their schedule and optionally sign-up or remove themselves from opportunities. Your Coordinators can also view volunteers who are scheduled to serve in the jobs or Assignments they oversee, as well as add or remove volunteers from the schedule if you allow.

Note

This help topic explains how to customize the Schedule page for the VicNet portal. There are separate settings for the Schedule page in VicTouch.

Also, this help topic explains how to update, add, or remove items from the Schedule page. If you want to enable or make changes for volunteer self-scheduling, see Self-Scheduling Settings for VicNet and VicTouch.

Follow these steps to get to where you can make changes for the features available on the Schedule page:

  1. Choose Setup from the menu.
  2. Expand VicNet.
  3. Click the Schedule Page link.

Volunteer Access

Use this tab at VicNet

To permit volunteers to access the Schedule page in the VicNet portal, mark this box. If this box is unchecked, volunteers will not see this page at all when they log into VicNet.

Page name

This field can be used to update the name of the navigation button shown on the portal's menu. For example, if you want volunteers and Coordinators to see Sign-Up as the navigation button instead of Schedule, enter Sign-Up in this field. The names of the navigation buttons can also be changed on the Buttons page under Setup.

Click the Restore default link to return the navigation button to its default, which is Schedule.

When volunteers view the schedule, do you want them to see who else is scheduled?

No makes it so that volunteers cannot see anything other than the dates and times they are scheduled themselves. When you choose this option volunteers cannot see when other volunteers are scheduled.

Yes, but only in Assignments they can sign-up for will allow volunteers to see when others are scheduled each day, but only in Assignments that the volunteer is allowed to schedule themselves for as configured by the Rules tab settings on the Assignment. This is the recommended setting.

Yes, in all Assignments allows volunteers to see who else is scheduled in all of the Assignments you have in your database.

More About Seeing Other Scheduled Volunteers

If you allow volunteers to see the other scheduled volunteers, here's some additional information about how the feature works. You can also learn more about how volunteers interact with the Schedule page in the Schedule Page section of Volunteer Guide for VicNet.

  • Volunteers will only see other scheduled volunteers on the Day and Week views of the schedule. This information will not be visible in the Month or Your Schedule views.
  • If you allow volunteers to self-schedule, you must use the calendar format if you want volunteers to see other scheduled volunteers. There is not a way for volunteers to view other volunteers who are scheduled if the list format is used.
  • If a volunteer does not want others to see when they're scheduled, there's a privacy option that can be enabled so the volunteer's name is hidden but the shift still shows as filled. You can update this for volunteers, or allow the volunteers to update it themselves.

Coordinator Access

Use this tab at VicNet

To permit Coordinators to access the Schedule page in the VicNet portal, check this box. If this box is unchecked, Coordinators will not see the Schedule page at all when they log into VicNet.

View schedules only

Choose this option to allow Coordinators to view the schedules for their Assignments on the Schedule page, but to prevent them from changing the schedules. A Coordinator will only be able to view schedules for the Assignments listed on the Assignment tab in their Coordinator record.

View and change schedules

Select this option to permit Coordinators to both view and change their schedules displayed on the Schedule page. Coordinators can only view and change schedules for the Assignments listed on the Assignment tab of their Coordinator record and only for those whose Rules tab settings are configured to let Coordinators schedule qualified volunteers.

Also, Coordinators can only add volunteers to the schedule for Assignments where a System Operator has created shifts or opening slots. When an Assignment's Rules tab allows volunteers to add themselves for any times, Coordinators can edit entries for volunteers who are already scheduled, but the Coordinator will only be able to schedule volunteers initially if there are available openings.

You may have a situation where you want Coordinators to manage the schedule, but you do not want volunteers to add or remove themselves from the schedule. You can find information on how to set this up in Allow Coordinators to Schedule, but Not Volunteers.

Assignment names

Show Assignment names without Site and Place names includes only Assignment names on the Schedule page.

Show Assignment names with Site and Place names displays Assignment names along with the Site and Place the Assignment falls under.

Tip!

The names of the Assignments shown on the schedule are links that will take the volunteer or Coordinator to a description or profile of the Assignment. See Get Started With the Opportunity Directory for help with adding or updating the Assignment profiles.

Coordinator Name Display

These options let you choose how Coordinators will see the names of scheduled volunteers. You can choose from the following options:

First initial. Last name displays Tom Smith as "T. Smith."

First name Last name displays Tom Smith as "Tom Smith."

Last name, First name display Tom Smith as "Smith, Tom."

Instructions

Use these options to customize the instructions that appear on the Schedule page for volunteers and Coordinators. Because the Schedule page looks and functions a little differently for these two kinds of users, you'll be able to set up different instructions for each. The instruction fields can be further customized using rich text formatting.

Display these instructions on the Schedule page for volunteers:

Enter the text you would like volunteers to see when they access the Schedule page at VicNet.

Display these instructions on the Schedule page for coordinators:

Enter the text you would like Coordinators to see when they access the Schedule page at VicNet.

Default Schedule View

You can select to have the Schedule page default to a certain view (Month, Day, or Your Schedule) when a volunteer or Coordinator navigates to the page for the first time. Because the Your Schedule view is only available to volunteers, if you select this as your default view, Coordinators will see the Month view by default instead.

When you set your default you should consider factors such as how many Assignments or jobs your account has and how many openings or shifts occur each day. For example, a small animal shelter with just a few Assignments and shifts each day may prefer to have the Day view show by default, while an organization that does most of the volunteer scheduling themselves may prefer to have volunteers see the Your Schedule view by default so they can see their upcoming shifts right away without any other distractions.

Fast Loading

By default, the VicNet Schedule page loads a full month of schedule information at a time. Typically, the system returns this information very quickly. However, for accounts with a much larger number of Assignments, it may take a bit longer for all of this information to load for a whole month. To help speed things up, you can check Use Fast Loading to have schedule details only loaded for each day as they are needed.

This feature only affects how the schedule loads for volunteers when using the Calendar View self-scheduling option. This setting has no impact on how the schedule loads for Coordinators or for self-scheduling using the List View.

With the Fast Loading option is enabled, the Month view of the schedule still shows the volunteer's scheduled shifts and the days that have openings available. When the volunteer selects a day or goes to the Week view, VicNet loads the schedule details for the selected date (or dates). Schedule details loaded this way are retained until the volunteer leaves the Schedule page or refreshes it. This way that information doesn't need to reload if the volunteer goes back to a date they've already viewed.

Because schedule details are only loaded as needed instead of for a whole month, there are some limitations with the Month view of the schedule that you should keep in mind before enabling this option:

  1. Volunteers will not see the number of available openings in the Month view. Each day will still show whether any openings are available, but they will not show how many openings are available.
  2. The Filter will not be available on the Month view. But it can still be used on the other views of the schedule.

Save Your Changes

Remember to click the Save button to keep your changes before navigating away from the page. Or, click the Cancel button to navigate away from the Schedule setup page without saving any changes.