❖ Heads up! This article is intended for Site Managers. If you're an Advanced Program Manager, please click here. If you're a Program Facilitator looking for information about reviewing your programs, click here.
You've created programs and awesome volunteer Opportunities that your volunteers can respond to, so now it's time to start scheduling them! Here, we cover:
Volunteer availability
Before we dive into how to schedule volunteers, let's talk about volunteer availability. Depending on how you've set up your site's User Registration settings, a volunteer can select what day and time of day they're available for scheduling. They can also opt to not be scheduled on specific days or they can disable Allow Scheduling. All of these settings can impact your ability to schedule them for an Opportunity.
User Registration settings
To ensure volunteers can select their available dates for scheduling or disable this feature:
1. Go to Tracks. 
2. Select a Track to edit User Registration settings. 
3. Click the Standard Questions tab. 
4. Find Availability under Standard Question. 
- To enable this feature when the volunteer registers on your site and for them to access from their profile area, check the box under Show.
- To require this feature, check the box under Require.
- When you check Require, it auto-selects the box under Show too.
- To disable this feature, uncheck all boxes.
- When this feature is disabled, volunteers won't be able to select their available days and times of day when registering on the site or from their profile.
5. Be sure to click Update Standard Questions to save your changes.
What does it look like to the volunteer?
Now, let's take a look at this from the volunteer perspective. Remember, they only see the option to check the days and times of day they're available if you have this feature enabled or required.
- Here's what it looks like on the Create an Account page when they click Sign Up on your site:
- Here's what it looks like if you have this enabled for their profile and they click Edit Profile:
- Here is the Allow Scheduling feature that volunteers can enable or disable from their profile area:
What if a volunteer doesn't select availability?
If a volunteer doesn't select availability, then they're considered potentially available and can be scheduled by you, another Site Manager, or an Advanced Program Manager.
Why can't I schedule a volunteer?
If you're running into trouble scheduling a volunteer for an Opportunity, you might want to check their availability and whether or not they've disabled Allow Scheduling from their profile. You won't be able to schedule volunteers if:
- The Opportunity is outside of their checked available days and times.
- They turned Off Allow Scheduling.
- The Opportunity has a duration type of Flexible or Multi-Date.
- You can only schedule volunteers with the scheduling tool for Opportunities with durations of Custom Shifts, Recurring Shifts, and Happens On.
How to schedule volunteers
You can schedule volunteers for Opportunities with the Scheduling tool. Remember, you can only schedule volunteers for Opportunities with duration types of Custom Shifts, Recurring Shifts, and Happens On.
1. Navigate to Volunteerism > Scheduling from the left-hand of your site manager panel. 
2. You can either click the Schedule Volunteers button or click View More on a calendar date with a scheduled Opportunity. 
3. A pop-up will appear with information about the Opportunity for that specific date. 
4. Select Options—from there, you can select Schedule users for this shift or View available volunteers to schedule who's available. 
5. You can search by Name or Email to schedule a volunteer; however, volunteers must first respond to an Opportunity for you to be able to find and schedule them for that Opportunity.
- Here are a few reasons why the volunteer must respond first:
- You have set up qualifications that must be submitted first.
- The volunteer has specific availability dates that might conflict with the Opportunity.
- The Opportunity has response questions that must be answered before the volunteer can respond.
How to schedule without the tool
While we recommend using the Scheduling tool, you can also schedule volunteers from the User area of your site.
To schedule volunteers outside of the scheduling tool:
1. Navigate to Volunteerism > Users. 
2. Click on the user in the table that you want to schedule for an Opportunity. 
3. On the Edit User page, click Schedule. 
4. Select the Schedule button to search for an Opportunity. 
5. Check the boxes for the shifts you want to schedule them for if the Opportunity has scheduled shifts—click Continue. 
6. Verify the volunteer's information on the next screen and click Add to List. 
- You can also review any possible alerts when scheduling by hovering over the icon under the Alerts column.
7. Review the scheduling information and click the Schedule button. 
- You can also send a confirmation message to the volunteers that they're scheduled by checking the box beside Send confirmation to these volunteers before you click the Schedule button.
How to invite available volunteers to respond
Another option is to alert available volunteers about an Opportunity by inviting them from the Scheduling area. This option sends the Schedule Recruitment notification to those volunteers.
1. Go to Volunteersim > Scheduling.
2. Select the Opportunity title in the calendar. 
3. Click View available volunteers. 
4. Scroll to Available Volunteers. 
5. Check the boxes beside the volunteers you wish to send the notification to. 
6. Click Invite Volunteers. 
7. A warning pops up asking you to confirm your selections. 
- Click Yes to confirm or No to cancel.
8. If you click Yes, then the notification is triggered and those users receive the Schedule Recruitment notification in their inbox.
- The notification includes information about the Opportunity and a link they can follow to that Opportunity's page.
- Here's what the volunteer receives:
