Scheduling Volunteers for Events

This article covers how to add serving positions to events and assign volunteers to them. TimelyChurch provides multiple ways to schedule volunteers -- from manual one-by-one assignment to fully automated smart scheduling.

Mental model. Volunteer scheduling is organized around the Event itself. The cross-event grid is the Schedule Grid button on the Events page. For the five-concept model (Event, Series, Team, Position, Assignment), see How Volunteer Scheduling Is Organized. For the biggest single time-saver — pre-loading positions on every new event — see Team Schedule Templates.

Prerequisites

Before scheduling volunteers for an event, ensure you have:

• Created at least one Serving Team with defined positions and active members (see Creating Serving Teams and Roles)
• Turned on the Volunteers capability on the event (use Add capability on the event page) or Volunteers under Features on the event series

Adding Positions to an Event

A position on an event defines a role that needs to be filled for that specific event, along with how many people are needed.

Step-by-Step

1. Navigate to Events and open the event you want to staff.

2. Click the Serving tab.

3. Click Add position. The Add Volunteer Position window opens.

4. Choose a position mode:

   From Team:

   • Choose a Team from the dropdown.
   • Select a Position within that team (e.g., "Sound Tech" from the "Tech Team").

   Custom:

   • Type a Position Name (e.g., "Parking Attendant").
   • The system automatically adds it to a "Custom Roles" team, so it's ready to reuse on future events.

5. Set How many needed? -- how many volunteers are required for this position.

6. Optionally add Notes (optional) about special requirements.

7. Configure sign-up settings:

1. Click Add Position.

Tip: You can add multiple positions to a single event. For a Sunday morning service, you might add needs for Sound Tech (1 needed), Greeters (3 needed), Worship Leader (1 needed), and Nursery Workers (2 needed).

Updating and Removing Positions

Open the position's Edit position menu (⋯):

• To update how many people are needed, change People needed and click Save capacity.
• To let team members sign themselves up, turn on Open for sign-ups.
• To remove the position (and all its assignments) from this event, click Remove position and confirm.

Assigning Volunteers

Once positions are in place, you can assign volunteers using several methods.

Method 1: Manual Assignment

1. On the event's Serving tab, find the position you want to fill.
2. Click the Assign button next to the position. The Find Volunteers window opens.
3. Browse Team Members, or switch to All People to search by name, email, or phone.
4. Click Assign next to a volunteer. (Click Done when finished.)

The person starts as Pending until they answer -- or as Confirmed straight away when their team has Auto-confirm assignments (skip pending status) on.

The system performs these checks before allowing an assignment:

• Church membership -- The person must belong to your church.
• Availability -- The person must not be marked as unavailable (blackout date) on the event date.
• Duplicate prevention -- The person cannot be assigned to the same position twice.
• Conflict detection -- If the person is already serving at an overlapping time, you're asked Schedule anyway? and can choose Assign anyway.

If a check fails, you will see a message explaining why.

Method 2: Smart Suggestions

When you open the Find Volunteers window for a specific position, TimelyChurch sorts team members into groups:

1. Suggested (rotate in) -- Members who have not served recently (14+ days since last serving) and are available. These are sorted by priority score, with the best candidates shown first ("Never served" people are flagged).
2. Recent (served recently) -- Members who are available but have served recently. These are shown so you can still assign them if needed.
3. Conflicts -- Members who are already assigned to another position at this event or to an overlapping event elsewhere.
4. Unavailable -- Members who have marked themselves as unavailable on the event date.

People already on this position show as Already Assigned.

The suggestion algorithm considers:

• Days since the volunteer last served (more days = higher priority)
• Times served this month (fewer times = higher priority)
• Whether the volunteer has never served before (highest priority)
• Day-of-week and time-of-day preferences
• Personal serving frequency limits
• Team-wide scheduling rules (max per month, min days between)
• Whether the volunteer opted out of auto-scheduling

Method 3: Auto-Fill (One Position)

For a single unfilled position:

1. Click the Auto button (Auto-fill best candidate) next to the position.
2. Confirm "Auto-fill this position with the best available candidate?" by clicking Auto-Fill.

The auto-fill algorithm selects the volunteer with the highest scoring priority. If the team has Auto-confirm assignments enabled, the assignment is automatically confirmed. Otherwise, it starts as "pending." The same team setting applies when a leader assigns someone by hand on the Serving tab or the Schedule Grid.

Method 4: Auto-Fill (Entire Event)

To auto-fill all unfilled positions at once:

1. Click the Auto-fill all button at the top of the Serving tab.
2. Confirm "Auto-fill all unfilled positions with the best available candidates?" by clicking Auto-Fill All.

The system fills positions in order and ensures no volunteer is double-booked across positions.

Method 5: Auto-Fill a Whole Series

If your event is part of a recurring series (Sunday morning, Wednesday night, etc.), you can auto-fill every upcoming occurrence in the series in one click, instead of opening each event individually:

1. On the Events page, open More → Event Series and open the series.
2. Click Auto-Fill All Events on the series page and confirm.
3. The system loops through every upcoming, active event in the series, runs the auto-fill scoring against each one, and assigns the best available volunteers to all open positions.
4. You will see a summary of how many positions were filled across how many events (e.g., "Auto-filled 24 of 30 positions across 6 events").

The series-level auto-fill respects the same rules as a single-event auto-fill: it skips volunteers who are unavailable on a specific date, honors team-wide max-per-month and min-days-between-serving rules, avoids double-booking across overlapping events, and honors any volunteer who has opted out of auto-scheduling. Because it runs across multiple weeks at once, it naturally distributes assignments fairly over the full window.

Note: Every auto-fill (Methods 3-5, and Auto-fill on the Schedule Grid) skips teams whose Rotation Strategy is Manual Only or whose Enable auto-scheduling is off, and never picks archived or inactive people. See Creating Serving Teams and Roles.

Tip: Combine Auto-Fill All Events with Serving Positions on the event series (see Creating Serving Teams and Roles) so that new occurrences already arrive with their position needs defined. Then a single click can staff a whole quarter.

Method 6: Assign Entire Team

If you want to bring a whole team's positions into an event at once:

1. Click Assign team.
2. In the Assign Serving Team window, select the team under Select Team and (optionally) a Template.
3. Click Assign Team.

The team's positions are added to the event. No one is assigned or notified yet -- fill the positions by hand or with Auto-fill (Methods 3-5). If the team has no positions yet, a position named Volunteer is added to the team and put on the event.

Method 7: Copy From Previous Event

For recurring services where the same volunteers often serve:

1. Open More actions and click Copy from event. The Copy from Previous Event window opens.
2. The system shows similar past events (same event type) that had volunteer assignments, each with its date and time.
3. Select a source event.
4. Choose whether to:
   • Copy volunteer assignments (not just positions) -- leave unticked to copy only the positions; tick to copy the people too
   • Send notifications to assigned volunteers
5. Click Copy to This Event. Volunteers marked as unavailable on the new date are skipped automatically.

Assignment Statuses

Each volunteer assignment has one of these statuses:

Confirming for a Volunteer

If a volunteer told you in person that they'll serve, click the Confirm (✓) button next to their pending assignment on the Serving tab. For a pending person you can also click Ask again to re-send the request; for a confirmed person, Remind sends a reminder.

Bulk Confirm

To confirm all pending assignments at once:

1. Open More actions at the top of the Serving tab and click Confirm all pending.
2. All pending assignments for the event are changed to "confirmed."

When nobody answers. Each team can set Remind unconfirmed people (days before event) (default: 4 and 2 days before) and a Response deadline — with Move on when someone does not respond turned on, an unanswered invitation expires and the next person in rotation is invited automatically. See Cascade Auto-Fill, Sub Invites, and Out-of-Office Badges.

When Volunteers Are Told

Assigning someone doesn't always message them immediately. Each team's Scheduling Settings include When people are told they are scheduled → Tell them this many days before they serve (default 30 days):

• For a date within that window, the volunteer is told right away (by Telegram if linked, otherwise email).
• For a date further out, the "you have been scheduled" message is held and sent in the morning on the day the date comes within range. You can schedule a whole term or year at once and nobody is bothered until their turn is close.
• Set it to 0 to tell people the moment you schedule them.

Until they're told, the assignment still shows as Pending on the Serving tab and the Schedule Grid (or Confirmed, on a team that confirms automatically -- that volunteer then hears about it with the serving reminder). See Volunteer Notifications.

Removing an Assignment

To remove a volunteer from a position:

1. Find the assignment on the event's Serving tab.
2. Click the Remove (✕) button next to their name.

The volunteer's name will be removed from the position, and the slot will be marked as open again.

Position Fill Status

Each position shows its fill progress:

• Filled -- All required slots have confirmed or pending volunteers
• X/Y filled -- Shows how many of the required slots are filled (e.g., "2/4 filled")
• Fill percentage -- Visual progress indicator

A position is considered "fully staffed" when the number of confirmed or pending assignments meets or exceeds the needed count.

Tip: Use Copy from event for recurring weekly services. It saves significant time and ensures consistency in your volunteer assignments week to week.