Scheduling an Event

Events represent the services and activities your organization holds — things like a Sunday morning service, a Wednesday Bible study, or a special outreach event. Each event can have ministry staffing requirements that define how many volunteers are needed.

Prerequisites

• You must be an Owner or Administrator of the organization.
• You should have already created ministries for the service areas you want to staff.

Creating an Event

1. Open the Events page from the left sidebar.
2. Click the Add Event button in the top-right corner.
3. Fill in the Event Details:
   • Name (required) — a descriptive name, e.g. "Sunday 9AM Service."
   • Description (optional) — additional details about the event.
   • Location (optional) — where the event takes place, e.g. "Main Sanctuary."
   • Start Date & Time (required) — when the event begins.
   • End Date & Time (optional) — when the event ends. Defaults to 1 hour after start if omitted.

Setting Up Recurrence

If this event repeats on a regular schedule, enable the Recurring toggle. You will see additional fields:

• Frequency — how often the event repeats: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly.
• Interval — the number of frequency periods between occurrences (e.g., "2" with Weekly means every 2 weeks).
• Days of Week (Weekly only) — select which days the event occurs on.
• Monthly Repeat (Monthly only) — choose the same date, a specific day of the month, or a weekday position such as the 3rd Friday.
• Ends — choose when the recurrence stops.
  • Never — repeats indefinitely.
  • After N repeating occurrences — stops the repeating rule after that many generated dates. Manually added dates can still appear unless they are excluded.
  • On date — stops on a specific date.

Leave the Recurring toggle off for a one-time event.

Linking Related Events

Use an Event Group when related events should count as one scheduling obligation. This is helpful when several services happen in the same shared window and you do not want the auto-scheduler to assign the same volunteer to more than one of them.

From the event form, choose an existing Event Group, select No event group, or create a new Event Group. New groups need:

• Name — a clear label, such as "Weekend Services."
• Description (optional) — a short note that explains which related events belong in the group.
• Anchor day — the weekday that represents the shared occurrence. For weekend services, Sunday is usually the right anchor day.

You can also manage Event Groups from the Event Groups button on the Events page. From there, owners and administrators can create groups, edit names, descriptions, and anchor days, choose which events belong to each group, and delete groups. The event picker includes search to help with long event lists. Deleting an Event Group only ungroups its events; it does not delete the events.

The auto-scheduler avoids assigning the same volunteer to more than one event in the same Event Group occurrence. Manual assignment is still allowed for administrators, but Ministry Steward shows a warning and asks for confirmation before saving the override.

Defining Ministry Requirements

This is where you specify how many volunteers from each ministry are needed for the event.

1. Click Add Requirement to add a row.
2. For each requirement:
   • Ministry — select which ministry is needed.
   • Needed — how many volunteers from that ministry are required (minimum 1).
   • Position targets (Premium plans) — if the ministry has positions, set how many of the needed slots should use each position. Use Fill positions to quickly add one slot to each position up to the needed count.
   • Optional — enable this if the requirement is nice-to-have but does not affect staffing status when unfilled.
   • Reduce need when present — when multiple ministries are listed, you can check other ministries here. If a volunteer from a checked ministry is present, the required count for this ministry is reduced by one. For example, if a Deacon is present, you might need one fewer Usher.
3. Repeat for each ministry you need at this event.

Open slot alerts use these same settings. Optional requirements do not trigger alerts, reduced needs are counted before volunteers are notified, and a ministry remains open when a required position is still empty even if its overall headcount has been reached.

How Open Slot Alerts Work

Ministry Steward checks openings throughout the day and sends one open slot digest each morning in the church's timezone. The digest checks every event time through the end of the third calendar day ahead. The event must be active, in the future, and open for volunteer sign-up. Canceled events, closed sign-ups, optional or removed requirements, and needs already covered by published assignments are not included. An opening found after the morning digest waits for the next morning and is included only if the event has not started.

An opening sends one alert and then stays quiet while it remains open. Changing the number of missing volunteers does not send another alert. If the opening is filled or closed and later opens again, it can send a new alert.

Each person receives one combined morning message for all newly alertable openings. If a volunteer is qualified for several ministries, openings from those ministries are listed together instead of arriving as separate messages. Each event entry shows the local date, time, ministry, and exact number of open slots.

Volunteers are included only when they are active and qualified for the ministry. Ministry Steward leaves out volunteers who:

• Marked the date or event as unavailable.
• Selected Unavailable as their preference for that event.
• Are already assigned to a conflicting event in the same Event Group occurrence.

An unrelated assignment on the same day does not prevent an alert. A volunteer already serving at the exact event can still receive the opportunity; the message shows an Already serving warning so they can review their schedule first.

Volunteer email and SMS delivery follow the organization's notification defaults and the volunteer's own settings. A volunteer can turn off a channel, but cannot turn on a channel that the organization disabled. A valid email address or phone number is required for that channel.

Owners and administrators can also configure a separate Open slot leadership summaries setting under Settings > Notifications. Leadership summaries are email-only. Owners and administrators receive all openings, while ministry heads receive only openings for ministries they lead. A person who is both an eligible volunteer and a leader receives one email with separate volunteer and leadership sections.

Click Create Event to save, or Cancel to go back.

After Creating an Event

The event will appear on the Events page. Use Next Up to quickly open the next scheduled instance. Use the tabs to switch between recurring, one-time, and deactivated events. Search and the Filters menu help you find grouped or ungrouped events.

From the event list you can:

• Open Next Date — open the next scheduled calendar date for an active event.
• Edit — click the event name or Edit to update any details.
• Standing Assignments — for recurring events, you can assign volunteers as standing assignments. These volunteers are automatically included in every occurrence of the event without needing to be scheduled each time.
• Deactivate — remove the event from scheduling while preserving historical data.
• Restore — make a deactivated event active again from the Deactivated tab.

Next Steps

• Add volunteers and qualify them for the ministries this event requires.
• Use the Scheduler to automatically schedule volunteers for upcoming event occurrences.