Tutorial: Volunteer "Set Your Availability" Walkthrough

Audience: A volunteer on a serving team (worship, sound, greeters, kids -- any team) Time needed: About 10 minutes You'll need: The portal login link from your church (usually yourchurch.com/portal/login or a magic-link email)

What You'll Learn

By the end of this walkthrough, you will know how to:

• Log in to the portal (no password to remember -- it's a one-tap email link)
• Block out a vacation so you don't get scheduled while you're gone
• Set a recurring pattern (like "I'm never available the first Sunday of the month")
• Tell the auto-scheduler your preferred days, times, and limits
• See your upcoming serving slots in My Schedule
• Decline an assignment gracefully -- and know what happens after you do

This is the single most helpful thing you can do for your team leader. Five minutes here saves them a panicked Saturday-night text.

Step 1: Log In to the Portal

Time: 1 minute

1. Open the email from your church titled something like "Welcome to TimelyChurch" and click the Sign In button. (No email yet? Go to your church's portal URL and enter your email address -- a magic-link login email arrives in seconds.)
2. The link drops you straight into your member portal -- no password needed.
3. You'll land on your portal dashboard. In the left sidebar you'll see your navigation, including a Team section once you're on a serving team.

Tip: Bookmark the portal URL on your phone's home screen. The next time you tap it, you'll already be signed in.

For more on how the login works, see Magic Link Login.

Step 2: Open Your Serving Availability

Time: 30 seconds

There are two availability surfaces in the portal, and it's worth knowing the difference:

• Availability (in the sidebar's Team section) is a quick grid of upcoming Sundays. Tap a date to flip it between Available and Unavailable, or use Set Availability Range to mark a stretch of dates at once.
• Serving Availability is the fuller page -- it's where you block out specific date ranges, set repeating patterns, and tell the auto-scheduler your preferences. This walkthrough uses the Serving Availability page.

To open Serving Availability:

1. In the sidebar, under the Team section, click My Schedule.
2. On the My Schedule page, click the Availability button in the top-right.

The Serving Availability page lists your serving teams at the top, followed by three areas you'll use:

• Scheduling Preferences — preferred days, times, and serving limits
• Upcoming Unavailable Dates — one-off blockouts (vacations, weddings, surgeries)
• Recurring Patterns — patterns that repeat (e.g., "every 1st Sunday")

You start with no entries. By default, you're considered available unless you mark otherwise.

Note: The Serving Availability page only appears once you're on at least one serving team. If you're not on a team yet, the page will tell you so.

Step 3: Add a Vacation Blockout (Aug 1 - Aug 14)

Time: 2 minutes

Let's say you're going on vacation August 1-14.

1. At the top of the Serving Availability page, click Add Unavailable Date.
2. A modal pops up. Fill in the fields:
   • Start Date: Aug 1, 2026
   • End Date: Aug 14, 2026
   • Reason (optional): Vacation
3. Click Add Date.
4. The date range now appears under Upcoming Unavailable Dates, with your reason shown beneath each day.

Behind the scenes, the smart scheduler will skip you for any positions in that window, and your team leader can see you're unavailable when they build the roster.

Tip: For a single day off, set the Start Date and End Date to the same date.

Tip: Reasons are optional, but adding one helps your leader plan. "Vacation," "work travel," or "out of town" is plenty -- no need to write a paragraph.

For the technical details of how blockouts interact with assignments, see Managing Availability.

Step 4: Add a Recurring Pattern (Every 1st Sunday)

Time: 2 minutes

Maybe your family always travels to see grandparents the first Sunday of every month. You can set that once and forget about it.

1. Scroll to the Recurring Patterns section.
2. Click + Add Pattern.
3. In the modal:
   • Pattern: open the dropdown and choose a preset. The choices are Every Sunday, Every Other Sunday, 1st Sunday of Month, 2nd Sunday of Month, 3rd Sunday of Month, 4th Sunday of Month, 5th Sunday of Month, Every Saturday, and Every Wednesday. For this example, pick 1st Sunday of Month.
   • Reason (optional): Visiting family
4. Click Add Pattern.
5. The pattern now appears in your Recurring Patterns list as 1st Sunday of Month.

You can stack multiple patterns. For example, "1st Sunday of Month" and "Every Wednesday." They all combine.

To remove a pattern, click the small X next to it and confirm.

For more, see Recurring Unavailability.

Step 5: Set Your Scheduling Preferences (Optional)

Time: 2 minutes

If your church uses auto-scheduling, you can guide how often -- and when -- it picks you.

1. On the Serving Availability page, click the Scheduling Preferences header to expand it.
2. Set any of the following (all optional):
   • Preferred Days to Serve and Days to Avoid — tap the day pills to toggle them.
   • Preferred Times — check Morning, Afternoon, and/or Evening.
   • Max Times Per Month — cap how often you're scheduled (or leave at "No limit").
   • Min Days Between — set a minimum gap between your serving dates.
   • Include me in auto-scheduling — turn this off to be skipped by the auto-scheduler entirely.
   • I can fill in last-minute when needed — opt in to short-notice requests.
3. Click Save Preferences.

Tip: These preferences are guidance for the scheduler, not hard blocks. Use Unavailable Dates and Recurring Patterns for dates you truly can't serve.

Step 6: View My Schedule

Time: 1 minute

Now let's see what you're already on the hook for.

1. In the sidebar Team section, click My Schedule.
2. Under Upcoming Assignments, you'll see each serving slot showing:
   • The event title and date/time
   • The position you're filling (e.g., Vocalist) and the team it belongs to
   • The status (Pending, Confirmed, or Declined)
3. Stat cards at the top tally your Upcoming, Pending Response, and Confirmed counts at a glance.

Tip: You can subscribe to your serving schedule in your phone's calendar app. Click Add to Calendar in the top-right of the My Schedule page for the iCal feed. See iCal Calendar Export.

Step 7: Decline an Assignment (and What Happens After)

Time: 2 minutes

Sometimes life happens after you've been invited. Here's how to bow out cleanly.

1. On My Schedule, find an assignment with status Pending (you've been scheduled but haven't responded yet).
2. Click the Decline button. (Pending assignments also offer Confirm and Propose Swap.)
3. A modal asks you to confirm. Optionally type a note in the Reason (optional) box -- "Let the coordinator know why..."
4. Click Decline to confirm.
5. The assignment is marked Declined.

What happens next, automatically:

• Your coordinator/team leader gets a notification that you declined.
• If your team has auto-fill on decline turned on, the system tries to assign the next eligible person from the same team -- no human action needed.
• If auto-fill is off (or can't find someone), an open sub request is created so your leader can find a replacement.

Either way, you don't need to scramble for a sub yourself unless your church culture asks you to. The system handles it.

Tip: Declining is not a big deal. The whole point of marking availability is to make it easy. Your leader would rather know on Tuesday that you can't make Sunday than find out on Saturday night.

For peer-to-peer trades (when you want to swap with a specific person), see Volunteer Swap and Trade.

What to Do Next

• Block out the rest of the year's known travel right now while you're already in the page. Trust me.
• Read Accepting Assignments so you're ready when the next invite arrives.
• Set up iCal Calendar Export to see your serving slots alongside your personal calendar.

That's it. You're now an organized volunteer, and your team leader is going to love you.