Volunteer Scheduling

A new feature exclusive to Sunergo Connect is the ability for leaders to create and manage schedules for Ministry Subgroups. The scheduling feature will be available to those leaders with the necessary permissions.

Watch this video to learn about Volunteer Scheduling:

Schedules have three stages:

1. Setup: The setup phase is when a schedule is first created and the leader is configuring the scheduling options.
2. In-Progress: After setting up a schedule, members that were invited to be a part of the scheduling will be asked for their availability, this will be the In-Progress stage.
3. Published: The schedule can then be published by the leader which will prevent any updates to volunteer availability. Once that happens, only the leader can make changes to the schedule.

Setup Phase #

1. First, navigate to the Ministry Subgroup where you want to create the schedule for and click on the Schedules Tab.

2. On the Schedules tab, select the Manage button that will appear if you have the necessary permissions.

3. The page will change to the Manage Schedules page will a leader can edit an existing schedule at any stage. Select the Add New button to create a new schedule.

4. Follow the first step of naming and adding a note to the schedule. The note will appear to members that are invited to the schedule as well.

5. The next step is choosing members to be invited to the schedule. Leaders have the option of either selecting the entire group (members and subgroup leaders) or selecting specific members. Every schedule needs to have at least one invited member.

6. Roles are how members are assigned to the schedule. Roles can either be selected from previous ones or created on this page. The input box will autocomplete the role name if there is an existing similar role. Otherwise, select the option after inputting the name to create a new role. The “#” option specifies the number of volunteers needed for the role. Setting the role to be required will put the role in higher priority for the Auto Scheduler and can be a note to the leader manually creating the schedule. Every schedule needs at least one role.

7. The last stage of setting up the schedule is adding dates. Dates can either be added from a recurring pattern or single specific dates. Dates will be saved only after clicking on the Save Dates button on the bottom of the page. Afterward, existing dates can only be deleted and cannot be edited. Every schedule needs at least one date.

8. The last page is a confirmation page of the details of the schedule. Click “Create Schedule” to finish setting up the schedule and for members to be notified to give their availability.

Manage Existing Schedule (In-Progress Phase) #

After a schedule has been created, leaders can continue to manage the schedule options.

Navigate back to the Manage Schedules page under the Schedules Tab. The list of Schedules will be listed starting from the most recent. The status of the schedule will be on the rightmost column. Click on the row to see the schedule details.

Schedule Detail Page #

The schedules detail page summarizes the schedule information at a glance.

• The “Pencil” button will open a popup window allowing leaders to edit the Schedule Name and Note.

• The “Add Date” button will direct the leader to add a new date to the schedule. The process is similar to creating a schedule where members and roles are also needed for the specific date.

• Clicking on the “Details” button for each date will reveal a window in the row that shows which members are assigned, unfulfilled required roles, and members that have not given their availability for the date.

• The “Resend Email” button functions in different ways for published and in-progress schedules. The former will send an email to all members assigned to the schedule as a reminder. While the latter will send a reminder email to members that have not responded with their availability.

• The “Delete Schedule” button will delete the schedule after confirming through a popup window.

• Clicking on the Date link row will direct the page to the date-specific details.

• The “AutoScheduler” button will appear only after the majority of volunteers have responded with their availability. Activating the AutoScheduler will assign volunteers that are available to roles while taking into account their preference and the priority of the role. Assignments can be changed by the leaders after autoscheduling. Please note all existing assignments done before the AutoScheduler can be changed.

• The “Publish Schedule” button will change the schedule status from In Progress to Published. When a schedule is published, members cannot change or add availability to the schedule. Leaders can still edit existing date options and assign/unassign members. Adding New Dates and using the AutoScheduler will be unavailable after a schedule has been published.

Date Details Page #

Selecting the date link redirects the user to the Date Details page. The date details page displays the options for the specific date in the schedule. Details can be adjusted without affecting other dates in the schedule on this page.

The time and date can be changed. There will be an option to change all other dates associated if the date was created with a recurring pattern.

Roles can be added in a form similar to the one found when creating a schedule. All roles added here will only apply to this date. Duplicate Roles cannot be added. If a role is deleted with volunteers assigned, then the volunteer’s assignment and role preference will reset.

Invited members, labeled as volunteers, are managed at the bottom of the Date Detail page. Members can be removed, given a role, and also given an assignment. Volunteers are assigned with the control buttons in the example below.

Add Volunteer will invite new members into the schedule. The Resend Email functions the same as the Resend Email on the schedule’s page but only sending a notification to members on this date.

Schedule Availability #

Volunteers/Invited Members can respond to new Schedules with their availability based on the given dates and times. The Schedules Tab in a Ministry Subgroup will aggregate all dates that the member is either invited to enter their availability or assigned to a role. Dates less than seven days away cannot be responded to avoid last-minute changes. Please contact NCOL if you would like this setting changed.

Clicking on a row will direct the user to the availability page for all the dates that the volunteer is invited to. A Published schedule will hide all dates that the volunteer is not assigned to. A schedule still in progress will show all dates awaiting the volunteer’s availability.

On the availability page, the volunteer can input whether they are free or unavailable for each date. Preference and Frequency settings are required on the bottom of the page before sending in the availability. These settings will restrict the assignments from the AutoScheduler and appear in the management schedule as notes for the leaders. However, leaders can still manually assign dates to a volunteer outside of their preference.

Daily Email Notifications #

Users of Sunergo Connect will be sent daily notification emails based on the activity in the system. To avoid spam, these emails aggregate all the relevant news for the day and sends it in one email to the user. The emails are automatically sent after your system has been set up for Sunergo Connect.

The notification email includes:

• group postings,
• published schedule assignments,
• invitations to new schedules,
• updates to any existing schedule dates they are assigned to, and
• reminders sent from the “Resend Email” features (ie. Schedule Remind and Date Remind).

Mass emails send from Ministry Groups or Subgroups will not be included in the Daily Email Notifications. These emails are sent directly in a separate process.

Users of the system can opt-out of any emailing service through a link at the bottom of the email. The email address will not be sent any new emails if the address has been previously opt-ed out either in the Church Tools system or Sunergo Connect.

Real-Time Email Notifications #

Real-time email notifications that can be enabled (disabled on default) are when a volunteer is asked for their response:

• When a new schedule is created and they are asked for their availabilities
• When a new date is added and they are asked for their availabilities
• When they are added to an existing date and asked for their availabilities