Rotas (Service Scheduling)

Rotas are how you schedule volunteers into service roles for a specific event or ministry activity occurrence — “who’s on Sound this Sunday,” “who’s greeting at the 9am service.”

The building blocks

1. Service Roles — define the roles your church schedules people into (Sound, Projection, Greeter, Kids Check-in Volunteer, etc.). Set these up once.
2. Rotas (Role Requirements) — say a role is needed for a specific Event or Ministry Activity, and how many people are needed. Reachable directly from the Calendar’s event panel, pre-filled with that event or activity.
3. Rota Assignment — who’s actually filling that requirement. A rota linked to a requirement automatically inherits its date, time and location — you don’t re-enter the schedule, just pick the volunteer(s).

Who can be picked. Type a name in Volunteers to search. New churches let any member serve. If your church turned that off in Church Settings (Any member can volunteer), only people marked as volunteers on their Members record appear; if nobody is marked yet, the form tells you what to do. Availability never limits the list — it only suggests who fits best.

Seeing what needs coverage

The Calendar’s rota focus control has a needs volunteers view — anything where fewer people are assigned than required shows up there, color-coded, with a “Role — assigned / required” breakdown in the event details. The Dashboard also surfaces upcoming understaffed rotas.

Volunteer double-booking is also detected automatically — if the same person is assigned to two overlapping duties, it’s flagged as a scheduling clash on the calendar, regardless of which location filter you have selected.

Planning the week

Rotas shows one week at a time — use ‹ This week › to move. Every service and activity that happens that week is a card with its date and time, and weekly activities show up on their actual date (for example Fri 9 Oct · 20:00), so you always know which day you’re filling.

• Fill (or Edit) is how you assign volunteers to a role: it opens a small window right on the board: search people by name, tap to add them, tap × to take someone off, and Save. You stay on the board.
• For weekly activities, a person is added only for that date unless you tick Repeat every week. People who serve every week show a 🔁 next to their name.
• Copy last week repeats last week’s team on weekly activities, for the roles where people were scheduled just for that date. It only adds — nobody is removed.
• + Role adds a role a service needs (and how many people). If the role doesn’t exist yet, choose New role… and type its name. Services that don’t have any roles yet are listed at the bottom under Also this week, without roles.
• If people have shared their availability, the window suggests who is free at that time — one tap adds them.
• If someone you add already serves at the same time that week (another role, or another service that overlaps), the window warns you with a ⚠️ and says where. It’s only a warning: you can still save.

Volunteers see their own dates in My serving and can confirm from there.

Asking volunteers to confirm

On the Rotas board, each upcoming service has a Confirmations button showing how many people have answered (for example Confirmations · 3/5). Open it to see everyone serving on that date and where they stand: ✅ confirmed, ❌ can’t make it, ⏳ waiting for an answer, or not asked yet.

1. Click Ask to confirm. Everyone who has an email address gets an email with a button to confirm or say they can’t make it. No login is needed — the link is personal to them.
2. For anyone without email, or who usually doesn’t read it, click WhatsApp next to their name. WhatsApp opens on your phone or computer with the message already written, including their personal link — you just tap send. Copy link lets you send it any other way.
3. Answers appear on the board straight away, next to each name.
4. If someone hasn’t answered when the service is less than a day away, they get one reminder email automatically.
5. If someone says they can’t make it, the person who asked gets an email (with the volunteer’s note, if they left one) so they can find a replacement.

For weekly activities, confirmations are for the next date the activity happens.

WhatsApp and phone numbers: set your Phone country code in Church Settings so numbers saved without it (like 11 5555-1234) open the right chat. In Argentina, mobile numbers need the 9 after the country code for WhatsApp — the safest is to save them in full, like +54 9 11 5555-1234.

Roadmap

Substitution history, an automatic WhatsApp message without anyone tapping send, and moving or cancelling a single occurrence of a recurring rota independently of the rest of the series.