There is no Registration Closed Date option for ongoing, custom or recurring shifts. My agency has a recurring shift, but I need to know at least a week in advance if someone has signed up so that I can find another volunteer if the need is unfilled. I cannot effectively communicate with new volunteers if they sign up on the day of a shift. Communicating with volunteers prior to when they are supposed to volunteer is essential in managing volunteers effectively and ensuring they have the best volunteer experience possible, while also making the best use of my time and my organization's resources.

As it is now, in order to create a need with a Registration Closed Date I will have to create multiple Happens On Needs for the same task that happens at the same time on the same day each week. 

If you think this feature would be helpful for your agency, please 'like' this post so that it gets upvoted for the development team to actually consider.

Thank you.

Personally, a blanket registration close date such as "5 days before shift" would be ideal. So when I set up a recurring shift I just select how many days before the shift date it would need to be unavailable for people to register for.

And to your point about setting a registration close date for custom shifts, you are exactly right, I would not want to go in and edit 100 shifts that are essentially recurring. 

Thank you.

I had a perfect example this week of why the registration close date for ongoing, custom and recurring shifts is needed.

A new volunteer registered for a need with a shift occurring on 5/15/19 at 11:30am. the volunteer registered at 5:38pm on 5/14/19, after I had left the office for the day. I was out of the office the morning of her shift start and could not respond with instructions on where to park, to wear closed toe shoes, etc. Without that prior communication it could mean a negative experience for the volunteer, and leave staff in a pinch to orient the volunteer in a timely manner if they are not expecting someone. Unfortunately as an agency manager I do not have the ability to craft an automatic reply message in Get Connected to send out when someone registers for a need so it is left up to me to send the details once I receive a notification that someone has signed up. Because I am not watching my email every minute, this means that there is a delay in when I can get critical information to a new volunteer.

For those of you who would also like this change but are looking for a temporary "solution", I have started pasting the following statement in my Needs Descriptions:

"**YOU MUST REGISTER AT LEAST 3 BUSINESS DAYS IN ADVANCE OF YOUR DESIRED VOLUNTEER SHIFT**"

If you are a Volunteer Manager then you probably realize that this statement will not be read, or if it is read, it will not be applied. I am simply using it as a disclaimer for when people do register for a need last minute and then don't understand why they did not receive confirmation and details from me about their volunteer shift.

Hello,

I would also agree, that having some kind of registration close date for shifts would be very beneficial for our volunteer needs. This way if a shift was not full someone could not register the night or morning before a shift. For what we do, we need to be able to confirm volunteers before a shift as well as assign them a "job" or position" if we have people showing up that we are not prepared for. It puts us in a bad position and does not allow for an easy volunteer experience due to the security protocols we have at the stadium.  

This is something that my organization also needs.   I am sad to see that this has been consistently requested for so long.  I am hoping by adding my support this will finally get prioritized.

I would say that it would be best if a date could be specified to allow for each agency to determine what works best for them. 

Unless we'd have to manually add a date for each recurring shift, because that would be a lot of work so in that instance I would say being able to choose X days prior would be best. I'm available to chat over the phone if that would be easier to talk out how this process might best work.

Thank you,

Emily

Hi - Thanks for asking...we would rather have option to specify a date that the registration is closed for each shift.  A bigger issue is the ability of volunteers to check-in and out multiple times for the same "Recurring" and "Custom" shifts.  Makes sense that they can do it for "On-going" shifts but not for other types...it causes all sorts of issues for our organization.  Anything you can do about limited the ability to check in and out multiple times for these shifts?

Thanks, Terri

I am surprised to see that this has been something that has been discussed for 2+ years yet there is still a need for it. We also cannot take walk-ins on the day of and need to cut off the registration time by a certain time. That way, we have an accurate roster of who will be attending on the day of the shift. I understand you can create "Happens On" shifts to set a cutoff time but as the only person managing the volunteer program for two locations (with other responsibilities), there is no way I have the extra time to create a new shift for every day when we have volunteer shifts available two times a day, Monday - Friday at two locations.

Adding "must register by 5:00 pm the day before" to the description is also not the best solution as I have learned in my experience that most people unfortunately do not read the information provided. Really hoping a viable solution will be developed soon!

Thanks,

Angela