This article delves into the administrative setup and management capabilities of the Group Scheduling feature. We’ll show you how that all gets set up, and what Group Scheduling looks like on the administrative side. Before starting to schedule volunteers, you’ll need to configure things like locations and schedules. Locations ensure volunteers know where they're needed, while Schedules pinpoint when their help is required. Then, the Group Scheduler is used to place volunteers into those positions at those times. Configuring Group Scheduling There are two critical pieces of the puzzle you need before starting to schedule volunteers. It’s simple to get these pieces because when it comes to asking for help, people are hardwired to know when and where they are needed. So, we are going to make sure our Named Locations and Schedules are configured. Be sure to check out the Check-In user guide for more detail about adding locations. For Group Scheduler, however, you will be adding more than rooms. Perhaps you’ll be adding sections, areas or positions. These might be used to schedule specific areas of your lobby for the greeters to be stationed. Or, if you’ll be using Rock to schedule your band and technical teams, add a location named ‘Audio’ or ‘Piano’ and change the location type to be a position. NoteAdding Location TypesLocation Types (Campus, Building, Room, etc.) are Defined Types. To add more, open the Defined Type Location Type associated with the Location category and click the ti ti-circle-plus button. Next up: schedules, also known as times. This is found in Admin Tools > Settings > General > Schedules. You should have a few parent groups for different types of schedules. For group scheduling, we want to make sure the times are accurate since, you guessed it, location and time are critical aspects of scheduling volunteers. NoteOne ScheduleIt is best practice to have one schedule for each time. If you have multiple sites with the same start times, you will only need one schedule for that time. Lastly, make sure scheduling is enabled on the Group Type. Navigate to Admin Tools > Settings > General > Group Types > Serving Team | Scheduling. There are additional settings you can configure for your organization. To enable, turn on the Enable Scheduling switch in the Scheduling section as pictured below. Enable Scheduling - Enabling scheduling unlocks all of the scheduling features for groups of this type.Schedule Confirmation Communication - Select the System Communication that you want to send to people to confirm their schedule. Rock ships with the Scheduling Confirmation Email System Communication for this purpose.Schedule Cancellation Workflow - You can optionally launch a workflow whenever a person indicates they can't make it at their scheduled time. You might use this to notify people that you're a person shorter than planned.Require Reason if Schedule Declined - This setting determines if a reason is required if a person says they can't attend at their scheduled time. The available reasons are stored as a Defined Type called Group Schedule Decline Reason.Schedule Reminder Communication - This is the System Communication to use for sending people a reminder about their scheduled serving time. Rock ships with the Scheduling Reminder Email System Communication for this purpose, but you can use a custom communication if desired.Schedule Confirmation Lead Time - This is simply the number of days before the scheduled serving time that you want to send the confirmation email.Schedule Reminder Lead Time - This is similar to the setting described above but applies to the reminder email.Schedule Confirmation Behavior - Here you can choose to Ask the person if they accept their schedule, or you can have all schedules automatically accepted by choosing Auto Accept instead. If this is set to Auto Accept, then the confirmation email will only contain a Decline button. Coordinator Notification Triggers - Here you can designate which types of schedule changes the group's Schedule Coordinator should be alerted to. See Send Confirmations and Reminders for more details. WarningChanging Schedule Confirmation BehaviorKeeping in mind it should happen rarely, use caution when changing the Schedule Confirmation Behavior setting. In some scenarios, changing this setting could result in a person who is not confirmed receiving a confirmation email with only a Decline button and no way to Accept the assignment. This typically happens when changing from Ask to Auto Accept before the person receives their confirmation email. In the Group Type configuration pictured above, note the Schedule Confirmation Communication and Schedule Reminder Communication settings. These communications can be sent via email or SMS messaging. To send these as SMS messages you'll need to be sure to have SMS messaging configured (see the Communication guide for details) and the person needs to have an SMS enabled phone number. You'll also need to make sure the System Communications for these are configured for SMS. With all that in place, the communication medium will be decided based on the person's group member communication preference or, if not specified there, the person's personal profile communication preference. Set Up Each Group We're almost to the fun part. The Group Scheduler requires some information from the group before it’s ready. In the Group Viewer, add Meeting Details for every location that needs assigned people. This might be a pretty long list for some groups like the list we see in the screenshot below. At the end of the day, the goal for this page is to have separation and customization for each group. You can break your groups up any way that works best for your flow of work. We recommend that you do some planning before jumping in and creating groups so you can maximize the effectiveness of this feature for your staff. Meeting Details Click on the ti ti-circle-plus icon in the Meeting Details tab. This opens a window to add a new location. The properties include Location, Type, and Schedule(s). Location - Choose from the drop down (these are the rooms from the Named Locations page).Type - These are Defined Types found in Admin Tools > Settings > General > Defined Types (the Location Type defined type in the Group category).Schedules - This drop down shows all the times from the Schedules page in General Settings. You can select multiple schedules (i.e., service times) just by clicking on them one by one. Make sure you use the same schedule for every group in the meeting details. This will avoid scheduling conflicts. More properties can be selected to add the minimum, desired and maximum people needed for that room and its times. You have the option to choose different capacities for each time. The Group Location screen pictured above is where all those details are customized. Each schedule gets its own set of three numbers, and each one does a different job. Minimum Capacity - Sets the floor for the slot. Rock uses the higher of Minimum and Desired when it tells volunteers how many people are still needed. Desired Capacity - Tells the Auto Scheduler how many people to schedule. It fills the slot up to this number and stops. Maximum Capacity - Caps the slot. Once it is reached, no one else can be scheduled or sign up for that time. WarningAuto Scheduler Needs a Desired CapacityLeave Desired Capacity blank and the Auto Scheduler skips that location and schedule entirely. If Auto Scheduler seems to do nothing for a group, check this setting first. When it's complete, you shouldn’t have to do anything in the meeting details again until your organization opens more rooms or adds times. NoteMembersIt’s best practice for your volunteers to be members in the group to appear on the people list in the Group Scheduler, although there are other ways to search for people in the Group Scheduler. We’ll discuss that later. Next, you'll need to set up the group's Scheduling options. Even though scheduling is enabled at the Group Type level, there are settings you can control for each group individually. Group Schedule - The main schedule for the group as a whole. This does not replace location-specific schedules.Group Location Schedules - The current list of schedules for this group. To add more click ti ti-square-plus.Disable Group Member Scheduling - Group scheduling is enabled at the Group Type level, but you can disable group scheduling for individual groups using this setting.Hide from Schedule Toolbox - Enabling this takes the group out of the public-facing Schedule Toolbox.Require Member Requirements for Scheduling - If this is enabled, then the person must meet the group's membership requirements in order to be scheduled. For instance, you might want to prevent someone from being scheduled in certain groups if their background check is expired.Confirmation Behavior - Here you can choose to have everyone who gets scheduled automatically Accept their assignment, as opposed to the person Accepting the assignment themselves manually.Schedule Coordinator - If someone is scheduled and they make a change to their schedule (Accept, Decline, Add), the Schedule Coordinator will be notified.Enable Schedule Coordinator Notifications -This is where you determine, for the group, which events should trigger a notification to the Schedule Coordinator. Values here will override the corresponding values at the Group Type level. See Send Confirmations and Reminders for more details.Who Can Check-In - The setting here applies when the person attempts to check in to the group. The options include:Schedule Not Required: The person does not need to be scheduled in order to check in for this groupPre-select Group if Scheduled: If the person is scheduled then this group will be pre-selected when the person goes to check inSchedule Required: A person can't check in to this group unless they are scheduled TipSetting up PermissionsYou'll want to be sure that the right people have the proper permissions to access and manage groups. We have all the info you need on how group security works for both group leaders and staff in the Securing Groups article.