Sometimes, you may need to sign up volunteers for special tasks or roles and prevent general volunteers from signing up for those slots. You may also need to temporarily turn off signups for a specific Task. Here’s how to adjust Task settings to meet these requirements in your ivolunteer.com Event.

By default, anyone with the link to an active opportunity can sign up for a volunteer slot. However, some jobs require prior experience, special training, and/or proof of age. From search and rescue operations to beer festival sales to sports referrees, you want to make sure the volunteer fits the task.

The New Event Wizard steps you through the basics of setting up your ivolunteer.com Event or signup opportunity. Then you can fine-tune your settings further, including adjustments to the settings of specific Tasks under Event Details & Actions > Signup Design.

Restrict Signups to Special Groups or Your Entire Database

Group restrictions happen on the Task level in ivolunteer.com. A Task is a flexible grouping of signup slots. Many of our customers use Tasks to separate out certain jobs that require expertise and/or prior vetting and training.

For example, suppose you need to sign up volunteers for a school soccer tournament. You’re happy for any parent to help with concession tents, but you also need some assistant referrees. You have a pool of experienced line officials already in your database, and you want to limit sign ups for the referree slots to only those people.

You have added a group in your database for these vetted volunteers. Now you want to make sure that only those participants can sign up as line officials for the tournament. Here are the steps to take:

  1. In your initial setup in the New Event Wizard, create a separate “Line Officials” Task.
  2. Then in your saved Event, go to Event Details & Actions > Signup Design. Click More Task Options (next to the gear symbol) to expand the tab.
  3. Click the Group Restrictions button. In the Group Restrictions settings, select your Line Officials database group. Optionally, edit the Restricted Message to appear to volunteers who are not in the group.
  4. Save your changes. Now only your Line Officials group can sign up for the slots in that Task.
screenshot of group restrictions options for volunteer sign up

Temporarily Disallow Signups for a Task Area

You always have the option to hide a Task by selecting Hide Task from More Task Options > Show or Hide on Signup Sheet. But what if you want to show details and dates without yet allowing public signups?* For example, you may want to pre-add a select group of volunteers on the Manage tab before allowing sign ups via the signup sheet. At the same time, though, you want volunteers to know when they can sign up for the slots in that Task.

* Note that you can delay signup for the entire Event by setting the Signup Start Date under Event Details & Actions > Info > Dates section.

Follow the steps below to disallow signup on a Task and pop up a message as soon as a participant clicks the Volunteer or Schedule button.

  1. Follow steps above for opening the Group Restrictions dialog box.
  2. From the Restriction dropdown, select Disallow and leave the Group set to Everyone.
  3. Edit the Restricted Message as needed.
  4. Click OK and then That’s OK in the warning box that pops up.
  5. Save your changes.

Have questions? Feel free to contact us!