Add Registration Closed Date to Ongoing, Custom & Recurring Shifts

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.


28 people like this idea

Hi Emily, I really appreciate this post, it will definitely help me tell the story of why we should implement this in a future round of enhancements. 


With your help, we will keep working to make the volunteer and agency manager experience better and more streamlined. 


Thanks for reaching out!

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.


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Thanks for clarifying, Emily. The more specific we get with requests like this, the better we can request the feature from our developers. I will be sure to add your voice and these specifications to the enhancement request. Please reach out if you have any additional ideas in the meantime!



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.

Hi all, 


Can you tell me a little more about how you envision this working? One of the main advantages of recurring shift needs is the time saving aspect of being able to create multiple shifts at once. Are you thinking of setting a registration closed date for each shift, or something else?


For example, say we have 10 shifts, one on every Tuesday for the next 10 weeks. Would you like to be able to say "registration 24 hours before the shift" for every shift in the series? 


For custom shifts, this may be as straightforward as setting a registration closed date for each shift, but I doubt anyone would want to set a registration closed date for each shift in a series of 100 recurring shifts. Let me know what you are thinking!



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I totally feel your pain Becki! This seems like a common sense feature for volunteer coordinators, and I think it would be the same for anyone who has ever hosted an event. You simply can't accommodate someone if they don't RSVP (or in this case, respond to a need) prior to the day of. 


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This is an absolute must-have for our organization. We need to close signups a day in advance so volunteers don't just show up for a shift. It is cumbersome for us to set up multiple Happens On needs on the same day.


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Hi Terri, thanks for voicing your support. I don't have any new news on this, but I will add your request to our enhancements board and be sure to bring this up in the next enhancement meeting!


We would also like this feature incorporated.  Any update the status?


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Thanks for the details on how you'd like this feature to work Tony! I'll make sure to update our records to add your voice. 


All the best, 

Ali 

It would be helpful to close shifts a few days ahead of the event so coordinators may finalize their plans. I use customized shifts so confirmation messages are able to include shift times. Thanks! 


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You're very welcome!

Great. Thanks so much!

Emily, thanks for the additional clarification! I dug through our enhancement archives and found that someone else has requested this in the past, so I've updated that request with your comments and will bring it back up for discussion in our next enhancement meeting. Thanks!


Nina


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Thanks for your response, Nina. A blanket "two days before shift" would probably be the easiest and most efficient solution. 


The issue with simply Cloning a Need is that someone would still have to edit each need's specific date. Our organization is a food pantry. We distribute food four days a week at the same time each day, thus making the Food Distribution Need a recurring shift. 


Please let me know if any further clarification would be helpful. Thank you for your consideration.


-Emily


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