Recruit and manage volunteers

Events can recruit volunteers directly on the public event page. You define roles and shifts, volunteers apply (with or without an account), and you review, check in, and track hours from the admin dashboard. For what the volunteer sees, read volunteer at an event.

Before you start

In the event builder, open the Volunteering section and switch on Accept volunteers. This shows a volunteer sign-up section on the public event page once the event is published and at least one role exists. Three more settings live here:

• Auto-approve sign-ups — approve new volunteers instantly instead of reviewing each application.
• Intro text for the volunteer page — meeting points, dress code, perks; volunteers see it at the top of the sign-up sheet.
• Require waiver — volunteers must accept the event's waiver when signing up. This only takes effect when the event has a waiver assigned; until then the builder shows a hint and the setting does nothing.

Set up roles and shifts

Open your event in the admin dashboard and go to Volunteers → Roles & shifts tab. Click Add role, then either:

• From template — pick from your organisation's reusable role templates (managed under Volunteer Roles in the admin sidebar). Each selected template becomes a role on this event.
• Custom — define a one-off role: title, optional description, Slots needed (leave blank for unlimited), and a signup-approval choice for this role — Event default (inherits the event-level setting), Always approve, or Always review.

Within a role, click Add shift to add time slots: optional label (e.g. "Morning setup"), start and end times, capacity (inherits from the role if blank), and private admin notes. The Quick add shifts composer creates several at once from presets (Setup, Doors, Main shift, Cleanup) — up to 25 per save.

A role with no shifts takes sign-ups for the whole role instead.

How approval and capacity work

Capacity governs acceptance, not application:

• Pending applications never count against capacity — only approved and checked-in volunteers do.
• Full shifts stay open on the public page, labelled "Full — you'll be waitlisted". Applications to a full shift land as pending: a natural waitlist.
• With auto-approve on, sign-ups are confirmed instantly while there's room; once the shift or role is full, further sign-ups degrade to pending instead of overfilling.
• Role and shift cards count the same way: "4 of 4 filled · 1 pending" means four accepted volunteers against a capacity of four, with one application waiting for review.

Volunteers are emailed when you approve or reject them.

Review sign-ups

The Signups tab lists every application with filters for status, role, and shift. Per row you can Approve, Reject (with an optional note to the volunteer), Check in, or Withdraw on the volunteer's behalf.

To work in bulk, tick pending rows and use Approve selected / Reject selected. If some rows fail — for example a shift filled up mid-batch — the rest still succeed, and failed rows are marked inline so you can fix the cause and retry.

Rows where the volunteer accepted the event waiver show a Waiver ✓ chip; hover it for the acceptance date.

When an approved volunteer withdraws from a shift that still has pending applicants, org admins get a "spot opened" notification linking back to the Signups tab. Promoting someone from the waitlist stays your decision — nobody is auto-approved into the freed spot.

Track hours and export

Each approved or checked-in row shows an Hours column, defaulting to the shift's scheduled duration. Click Edit to record actual hours worked (leave empty to revert to the scheduled value).

Export hours CSV downloads the event's volunteer report, including waiver acceptance date, scheduled hours, and actual hours per volunteer.

For the cross-event view, open Volunteers in the admin sidebar: total hours, events, sign-ups, and last shift per volunteer across your whole organisation, with a date filter (This year / All time presets), name or email search, and its own Export CSV.

By default the cross-event totals include every sign-up regardless of status, so they reconcile with the per-event hours exports. Tick Accepted only to count just approved and checked-in volunteers — the view to use for recognition programmes or grant reporting, where withdrawn or rejected sign-ups shouldn't inflate the numbers.

What can go wrong

• Volunteer section missing from the event page — the event must be published with Accept volunteers on and at least one role. Past events hide the section too.
• Require waiver does nothing — no waiver is assigned to the event yet. Assign one in the event's waiver settings first.
• Can't delete a role or shift — roles and shifts with existing sign-ups can't be deleted while those sign-ups exist.
• A volunteer says they got no texts — SMS only goes out when the volunteer entered a phone number and ticked the SMS opt-in; volunteers who replied STOP to any Ithas Fire text are opted out globally. Email reminders (24 hours and 1 hour before the shift) go out regardless.