How Volunteer Scheduling Is Organized
TimelyChurch organizes volunteer scheduling around the Event, the dated workspace where everything for that day lives. This article walks through the five concepts that make up the model and shows you exactly where each one lives in the admin panel.
The Five Concepts
TimelyChurch's volunteer scheduling is built on five things:
| Concept | What It Is | Where It Lives |
|---|---|---|
| Event | A single occurrence (e.g., "Sunday Worship, May 11"). The hub for everything that happens that day. | Planning > Events > pick an event |
| Series | A recurring pattern that generates events (e.g., "Sunday Worship, every Sunday at 10 AM"). | Planning > Events, then ⋮ More → Event Series (top-right) |
| Team | A group of people who serve together (e.g., the Worship Team, the Hospitality Team). | People > Groups (filter by Type: Team) |
| Position | A role within a team (e.g., Sound Tech, Greeter, Lead Vocalist). | Inside each team |
| Assignment | A specific person scheduled to fill a specific position on a specific event. | The Serving tab on each event |
You read it left-to-right: a Team has Positions, an Event is generated by a Series, and you fill the event's positions by creating Assignments on the event's Serving tab.
Where to Find Each Piece
A complete map of the admin panel locations:
- Events: Planning section in the sidebar > Events.
- Schedule Grid (cross-event grid of who is serving when): Planning > Schedule Grid in the sidebar, or the Schedule Grid button at the top of the Events page.
- Event Series: on the Events page, open the ⋮ More menu and click Event Series. From there you can create a new series, edit an existing one, or run Auto-Fill All Events across every upcoming occurrence at once.
- Templates (day templates, series templates, serving templates): on the Events page, ⋮ More → Templates.
- Teams: People section in the sidebar > Groups, then filter by Type: Team.
- Team Schedule Templates: open a team and click the Templates tab. This is where you set up auto-applying position lists for each event type.
- Scheduling Settings: on a team's Details tab. This is where you turn on Auto-pick replacement when someone declines, set reminders, and choose how far ahead people are told they're scheduled.
- Open positions: on any event, the Serving tab; across events, the open (·) cells on the Schedule Grid.
- Need Attention: top-level item in the admin sidebar. Its Scheduling tab gathers event requests, class schedules missing a teacher, teacher sub requests, and prep tasks across every event.
A Typical Workflow
A normal week now looks like this:
- Series generates the event. Sunday Worship is a series, so May 11's event already exists with the right time, room, and (if you have a team template) the right serving positions pre-loaded.
- Team templates pre-fill the positions. If you have a Team Schedule Template that auto-applies to Worship event types, May 11 already has slots for Sound, Greeters, Vocals, etc. You did not have to add them.
- Auto-fill picks the volunteers. From the event's Serving tab, click Auto-fill all (or do it for the whole series at once with Auto-Fill All Events on the series page).
- Volunteers hear about it and answer. Each volunteer is told they're scheduled when the date comes within their team's notice window (30 days by default), by Telegram or email, and taps accept or decline. If anyone declines, the team's Auto-pick replacement setting can invite the next person automatically.
- Leaders handle the leftovers. Anything still open shows on the Schedule Grid; fill it with Assign, a fill request, or from Telegram with
/openslots.
What to Read Next
- Team Schedule Templates: set up a template once and every new event of that type arrives pre-loaded. This is the single biggest time-saver in the volunteer system.
- Cascade Auto-Fill, Sub Invites, and Out-of-Office Badges: the three admin features that handle declines and absences for you.
- Creating an Event Series With a Template: skip the repeat-pattern guesswork and start from a known-good shape.
- Scheduling Volunteers for Events: the full reference for adding positions and assigning people.
Tip: If you only have time to set up one thing, set up a Team Schedule Template. It is the single change that turns "I have to add the same five positions to every Sunday event" into "I never have to add a position to a Sunday event again."