Let Volunteers Schedule Themselves | 209

Initially Posted by Planning Center on April 18th 2023

You can schedule your teams in different ways, but sometimes you may need your team members to schedule themselves.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way! Enable the new Signup Sheets in Services, and allow your team members to add themselves to the schedule based on their availability. Now the signup process for volunteers can be even better.

An Informational and Convenient Scheduling View

We’ve taken the old Signup Sheet page, redesigned it, and reshaped it into a pop-up on the My Schedule page and an individual Plan. So your volunteers never have to leave the page they’re on or struggle to find their way back once they’ve signed up.

The new Signup Sheets view now provides more event information so volunteers know exactly what opportunity they’re signing up for. It also allows you to see time commitments, conflicting times, and other volunteers’ schedules for that service.

A pop-up modal with available volunteer opportunities and times.

Serving Times for Volunteers

With every volunteer position, a Times button shows the time associated with that specific position. If any of those times conflict with another time someone is volunteering, the Signup Sheet will display a “View 1 conflict” button instead.

When anyone opens the Times sub-view, a yellow banner displays the conflict. Sometimes the volunteer can still serve in both roles simultaneously, and clicking “Select this position” will allow them to sign up. This sub-view also shows the start and end time so volunteers know the time commitment needed for that role.

A pop-up modal with volunteer serving times and schedule conflicts.

Team-Wide View for Volunteers

To see who else is serving at a given time, your team members can use the Teams sub-view and see a filtered My Teams view, including people scheduled to any related teams.

Volunteers can see which positions are available for signup and which volunteers are pending or confirmed in different areas.

A volunteer signup sheet with volunteers organize by position and team.

Volunteer Signup Sheets for Households

But wait! We’re not stopping there. Because so many families like to volunteer together, Signup Sheets also includes Households—allowing people to sign up family members for available spots.

A household signup pop-up with the volunteer position selected and a button to signup.

We’re also planning to add Household Signup Sheets to Church Center in the future so people have a consistent experience no matter how they sign up to volunteer.