Setting up volunteer availability

Timecounts has two availability fields designed for different ways of organizing volunteers.

Availability - General is best for ongoing scheduling. Use it to understand a volunteer's typical availability, such as weekday mornings, Tuesday evenings, or weekends.

Availability - Dates is best for events and festivals. Use it when you have specific dates coming up and want to know which ones volunteers are available for.

You can use one or both depending on how your organization works with volunteers. Both are fixed profile fields because they're integrated with availability features in Timecounts, but they're optional. If you don't need to track availability, you can simply leave them unused.

Before volunteers can share their availability, you'll need to set up the options that make sense for your organization. Rather than asking volunteers to enter their own availability from scratch, you create the days, dates and timeframes you want to know about. Volunteers can then quickly select the options that work for them.

Once set up, you can add an availability field to forms for volunteers to complete. Admins can also add or update availability directly from a volunteer's profile in the Directory.

Go to Settings > Profile Fields and find Availability - General. Hover over the field and click the edit pencil that appears next to the name.

You'll see the days of the week from Monday to Sunday. Add the timeframes when volunteers most commonly volunteer or when you typically schedule throughout the week. You can add more than one timeframe to each day, and if you don't need volunteers on a particular day, simply leave it blank.

The goal isn't to match your shift times exactly, but to give volunteers a quick and simple way to tell you when they're generally available or prefer to volunteer. Timecounts doesn't label timeframes as morning, afternoon or evening, so you can set the times that make the most sense for how your organization works.

Go to Settings > Profile Fields and find Availability - Dates. Hover over the field and click the edit pencil that appears next to the name.

Add the specific dates you want to ask volunteers about, such as the dates of an upcoming event or festival. You can leave a date on its own or add a timeframe if you need to know when volunteers are available during that day. You can also add more than one timeframe to the same date.

The goal is to give volunteers a quick way to tell you which of the dates and times you're planning for work for them.

Unlike general availability, times are optional here. If you only need to know whether someone is available on a particular date, simply add the date and leave the time blank.

For both availability fields, you can choose whether volunteers can Select Multiple options that work for them or Select One option only.

Each field also includes a customizable open response at the bottom, where volunteers can share additional details about their availability. This gives them a place to share preferences, exceptions, or anything else that isn't covered by the availability options you've provided.

You can make changes to your availability options at any time. What happens to existing volunteer responses depends on whether you edit or delete an option.

Editing an option

If you edit a day, date or timeframe, any volunteers who selected that option will remain attached to it. Their profile will simply update to show the new information.

For example, if you change a timeframe from 9:00am–12:00pm to 10:00am–1:00pm, volunteers who selected it will now show as available from 10:00am–1:00pm.

Deleting an option

If you delete a day, date or timeframe, it will also be removed from the profiles of any volunteers who selected it. Because deleting an option removes those volunteer responses, Timecounts will show you a warning before you confirm the deletion.

Once you've set up an availability field, you can add it to any form where it makes sense to ask volunteers when they're available. Volunteers simply select the options that work for them and can provide additional details if needed. Their answers are saved to their profile, so you can refer back to them later.

If you're using Availability - Dates on a form, remember to keep the dates up to date. As events or dates pass, update the field with the upcoming dates you want volunteers to choose from.

Admins can add or update availability directly from a volunteer's profile. Go to Directory, open the volunteer's profile and click Edit. Find the availability field you want to update, make your selections and click Save.

This is useful when entering availability on a volunteer's behalf or updating information they've shared with you directly.

This feature is available on the Pro Plan.

Go to Directory, click the Filter icon and select Availability - General or Availability - Dates.

Use these filters to quickly find volunteers based on the availability they've shared. For example, you can find volunteers who are generally available on Monday mornings or those who are available on a specific event date.

If you're looking for volunteers across multiple days or dates, add additional availability filters and use AND/OR to control how you want to match the results. If it's a search you'll use regularly, you can save the search so you don't have to set up the filters again.

Note: Availability responses are available on all plans. You can always view a volunteer's answers in Form Responses or open an individual volunteer's profile to see their availability.

Availability is especially useful when you're trying to find the right person to fill a shift. You might use it to fill an open spot, find a replacement after a cancellation, cover a last-minute gap, or build out an upcoming schedule.

Availability tells you when someone could volunteer or prefers to volunteer. It doesn't automatically schedule or assign them. For now, you can use the availability filters in the Directory to find people who may be a good fit and then contact or schedule them as needed.

We're also working on bringing availability directly into scheduling, making it faster to see who's available when you're filling shifts and assigning volunteers.