This feature is available on the Pro Plan.

Beyond their obvious role as a recruitment tool, the main benefit of Applications is that they allow you to restrict positions in a schedule so that only qualified volunteers can sign up or even view shifts. You can achieve this by manually qualifying volunteers or incorporating it into a process where volunteers apply and are qualified after a screening. Then, you can open the schedule and link the application to the positions you'd like to restrict.

Once you've created your Active Applications, open the Schedule you want to link and click on Manage Positions from the Shifts view. Unlike forms, which need to be published to be associated with activities, the state of the application (Opened or Closed) doesn't matter for linking. Volunteers can still be qualified even if an application is closed but can't be Archived.

In the Manage Positions popup, create a new position or select the edit pencil next to an existing position you want to restrict. In the Edit Position view, scroll to the last field, which defaults to "No Application." Click the arrow to open a dropdown of all available Applications, then select the one you’d like to link and press Save.

You can link the same Application—and therefore the same pool of qualified volunteers—to multiple positions within the Schedule. This flexible approach allows you to avoid qualifying volunteers for separate applications when your goal is to restrict a particular type of shift (ie. medical shifts that require specific certifications).

If the same position appears in other schedules, you’ll need to follow the same process in each schedule, as settings don’t automatically carry over to other instances of the position.

If you leave the Position set to "No Application," volunteers won’t need to be qualified to sign up for shifts in that position. You can still manage shift access for all volunteers by using the Onboarding controls in your Hub, which can require them to be in the Directory first.