Recurring Unavailability
Most volunteers can serve most weeks, but almost every team has someone with a standing conflict -- a small group leader who is never available on the 1st Sunday of the month, a parent who can't do Saturdays, a chorister who travels every other Sunday. Adding individual blackout dates one Sunday at a time is tedious and error-prone. TimelyChurch's recurring unavailability feature lets a volunteer (or an admin on their behalf) set a single repeating pattern, and the system materializes the actual blackout dates automatically.
How It Works
There are two pieces:
- A recurring unavailability pattern saved against a specific team member (e.g., "Sarah Smith, Worship Team — every other Sunday").
- A weekly automatic process that runs every Sunday and converts each active pattern into concrete blackout dates for the next three months. Those concrete dates feed into the same availability system the auto-scheduler already uses, so a volunteer's recurring conflict is honored everywhere.
Because the generator runs weekly with a 3-month look-ahead, your team's blackout calendar always stays roughly 90 days ahead of "today" -- even months in the future where new occurrences haven't been generated yet.
Supported Patterns
| Pattern | Matches |
|---|---|
| Every Sunday | Every Sunday |
| Every Other Sunday | Sunday on even-numbered weeks of the year |
| 1st Sunday of Month | The first Sunday each month |
| 2nd Sunday of Month | The second Sunday each month |
| 3rd Sunday of Month | The third Sunday each month |
| 4th Sunday of Month | The fourth Sunday each month |
| 5th Sunday of Month | The fifth Sunday (when one exists) |
| Every Saturday | Every Saturday |
| Every Wednesday | Every Wednesday |
Note: The current pattern set is Sunday-heavy because most repeating church services are Sunday-based. If you need a custom day pattern that isn't on this list, fall back to manually entering specific blackout dates from the Serving Availability page (see Managing Availability).
Adding a Recurring Unavailability Pattern
From the Member Portal (volunteer-side)
- Log in to the Member Portal.
- Go to Serving Availability.
- Find the Recurring Unavailability section.
- Pick a pattern from the dropdown (e.g., "1st Sunday of Month").
- Optionally add a Reason (e.g., "small group leadership", "shared custody weekends"). The reason is stored on every generated blackout date so admins know why you're unavailable.
- Save.
The pattern is immediately active. The next time the weekly process runs (or the next time an admin generates the dates manually), your blackout dates for the next three months will be created.
What Happens After You Save
- Your pattern is saved and linked to your team membership.
- For each Sunday/Saturday/Wednesday in the next 3 months that matches the pattern, the system creates a blackout date on your availability.
- Existing blackout dates are not duplicated -- dates that already exist are left untouched.
- The auto-scheduler, smart suggestions, and self sign-up all start treating you as unavailable on those dates immediately.
Removing a Pattern
If your standing conflict ends (you step down from small group leadership, custody arrangement changes, etc.):
- Go to Serving Availability in the member portal.
- In the Recurring Unavailability section, find your pattern.
- Click Remove.
When a pattern is removed, already-generated blackout dates stay in place -- they are not auto-deleted. This is intentional: if you remove the pattern but actually still want to be off this coming Sunday, you'd be frustrated to lose that blackout. To clear specific upcoming dates, remove them individually from the Serving Availability date list.
Admin View
Admins do not have a dedicated "recurring unavailability" admin screen, but they can:
- See the resulting blackout dates on each volunteer's profile and on the Serving Availability page.
- Confirm that the weekly process ran and how many dates were created.
How the Weekly Generator Decides What to Create
For each active pattern, the system:
- Takes a date range from "now" through "now + 3 months".
- Walks through every day in that range.
- For each day, asks the pattern "do you match this date?" (e.g., is it a Sunday? is it the 2nd Sunday of the month?).
- For matching dates, adds a blackout date to the volunteer's availability -- so dates that already exist are left alone, and only genuinely new dates are inserted.
- Stamps each generated record with the pattern's reason (or a default like "Recurring: 1st Sunday of Month") so admins can see at a glance why the date is blocked.
Edge Cases
| Situation | Behavior |
|---|---|
| You add a pattern, then add an event-specific blackout for the same date | Both records exist; the date is treated as unavailable. No conflict. |
| You add a pattern, then want to serve on a specific generated date | Manually remove that one date from the Serving Availability list. The pattern stays active for all the others. |
| You change pattern (e.g., from 1st Sunday to 2nd Sunday) | Currently you must remove the old pattern and add a new one. Already-generated dates from the old pattern stay until manually removed. |
| The generator runs while you have no team memberships | Patterns linked to inactive memberships generate no dates -- the generator silently does nothing for them. |
Related Automation
The recurring unavailability dates are refreshed by a weekly automatic process that runs on Sunday mornings. See Automation and Scheduled Jobs for the complete list of scheduled volunteer automations and how to monitor them.
Tip: A Sunday-morning cadence means the freshly generated dates are in place before the auto-scheduler runs anywhere in the following week. If you adjust a pattern mid-week, the change still takes full effect by the following Sunday at the latest.