Activities

An activity is a volunteer opportunity — event help, classroom support, office work. You create the activity once, then schedule it for a term with dates and volunteer spots. Once published, families can sign up in the parent portal.

Note: Volunteer management is included in every plan. See Plans & Pricing.

Create an activity

1. Go to Volunteers → Activities.
2. Click New Activity.
3. Enter a Name and Description. Both are visible to volunteers, so describe what they'll be doing.
4. Click Create.

The Activities list shows how many shifts each activity has and how many times it has been scheduled. You can reuse the same activity across many terms.

Note: You can also create an activity on the fly while scheduling one — no need to set it up here first.

Schedule an activity

Scheduling puts an activity on a term's calendar so volunteers can be assigned or sign up.

1. Go to Volunteers → Schedule.
2. Click New activity (or Schedule an activity if the list is empty).
3. Choose the Term the activity belongs to.
4. Choose the activity in the Project field, or click the + button to create a new one.
5. Enter the Start date and End date.
6. To split the activity into time slots volunteers sign up for, check Use shifts to assign volunteers — see Shifts.
7. If you're not using shifts, enter Volunteers needed / Spots available and Hours earned (the hours each volunteer gets credited for participating).
8. Click Add to schedule.

Note: Use the term dropdown at the top of the Schedule page (it shows All Terms by default) to focus the list on a single term.

Publish scheduled activities

Scheduled activities start out as drafts that only admins can see. Publish them to make them available for sign-up.

1. Go to Volunteers → Schedule.
2. Tick the checkbox next to each scheduled activity (or select all).
3. Open the bulk actions menu and click Publish selected.
4. Click Publish selected to confirm.

A green check icon next to the activity name means it's published; a gray slash icon means it's still a draft. You can also narrow the list with the Published filter, or use Unpublish selected to take activities off your website again.

Note: The term itself must also be published for its activities to appear publicly — see Managing Terms. Once everything is published, families see the activity in the parent portal under Volunteer → Sign up. If activities use shifts, each shift must be published too — see Shifts.

Copy activities to another term

Instead of rebuilding your volunteer calendar each term, copy it.

1. Go to Volunteers → Schedule and select the activities to copy.
2. Open the bulk actions menu and click Copy activities.
3. Choose the term in Copy to Schedule — the Start date and End date fill in from the term automatically, and you can adjust them.
4. Click Copy.

Copying runs in the background and may take a few minutes; refresh the page to see the copies. Copies start as drafts, so publish them when you're ready.