Publishing your shift schedule allows you to add shifts to an ongoing calendar and decide which dates are available for volunteer signups. While you can manually assign volunteers to unpublished shifts, publishing the schedule is essential if you want volunteers to self-schedule. This way, you can choose which dates to make visible to them.
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Shifts that appear in your calendar as white with a colored outline have not yet been published. When a shift is displayed in solid color, it indicates it is published.
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Once you've added shifts to your schedule and are ready to open it up for volunteer signups, click the Publish button in the top right corner. This will open a popup where you can select the start and end times for the timeframe you wish to publish.
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It's important to note that each schedule has only one publishing window to keep things straightforward. You can't publish this week, and you can publish a random week in the future; you'll need to set a single timeframe from today or a date in the future to the end date you want visible.

It's also a good idea to consider how often you'd like to release new shifts to your volunteers. Some organizations choose a specific date each month to announce available shifts so volunteers know what to expect but feel free to find a rhythm that works best for you.
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If you want to check which schedule dates are published, you can view them in the schedule list or by clicking the arrow next to the Published button in the top right corner of your schedule. This will expand the view to show you the dates that are currently available for volunteer sign-ups.
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As a reminder, once your publishing window ends, Timecounts changes the button to yellow to prompt you to Change Dates. Ideally, you would update this before it expires by adjusting the dates for future publishing.

You can change the published dates on your schedule at any time. Simply click the Published button, and it will expand to reveal a Change Dates button. Clicking this will open the original popup for publishing a schedule. Update the dates as needed and click Publish. Remember that the start date must be today or a future date, as we don't allow publishing schedules in the past. Changing the dates does not affect volunteers who have already signed up. You’ll just need to decide if you want to send an automated email to volunteers to let them know new shifts are available.
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You can unpublish the schedule to hide shifts or stop signups. Click the arrow next to the Published button in the top right corner, and a dropdown will appear with the option to Unpublish Schedule.
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Unpublishing does not affect volunteers associated with the shifts; it simply hides them from view until you’re ready to publish again.

When you publish or change a schedule's dates, you can notify volunteers via email about the new shifts available. If you prefer not to send this notification, keep the default setting. Do not notify us before publishing the schedule. You can always let volunteers know without utilizing this automated email.
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For smaller organizations, it may be helpful to email everyone listed in your Directory (note that this does not include individuals in Onboarding or Inactive views). However, we advise larger organizations against sending mass emails to all volunteers, as this could negatively impact the volunteer experience, especially if there are no new opportunities for them to sign up for.
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If you’re on the Pro Plan and use Applications to make shifts available only to qualified volunteers, this creates a targeted list of individuals to keep updated when new shifts are available.