How Dates Work

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Hi everyone, this is Michelle with ivolunteer.com’s Support team. Let’s talk about how dates work in ivolunteer.com.

Setting up your dates for your organization and events is very important. We’re going to go over what each date means and how the dates work together.

Let’s start with event dates. The Event Start and Event End dates determine how long an Event will run. These are chosen when an Event is created or copied, and they can be edited on the Info tab of the Event. These dates help volunteers see how long the event will run as well as when slots will be available to sign up for. A one-day event may not need any help except on the day of the event. Or it may have several days, weeks, or months leading up to it on which help is needed to set up for the event.

The Signup Start and Signup End dates control when volunteers will be allowed to sign up for a position. Generally the Signup Start date comes before the Event Start date, and the Signup End date comes before the Event End date. However, these dates can be adjusted to match the needs of the organization or event.

Another important section on the Info tab of an Event is the Self Cancellation Ends dropdown menu. Here you can choose not to allow volunteers to cancel their volunteer slot on their own, or you can set a time limit on when volunteers are allowed to cancel their own slot.

Next, let’s go to the Signup Design tab to take a look at the Task Date and Task Date Option fields.

Tasks are the first thing you create on the Signup Design tab. Tasks help break up an Event into well defined units that fit your signup needs. Each Task can have its own set of rules for how dates are applied to the signup slots within the Task.

The Task Date Option defines the date or dates that will be used for each of the slots within a Task. There are 5 different Task Date Options: “Task is on one day”, “Task spans Event Dates”, “Dates are in Column Headers”, “Dates are in Row Headers”, and “Dates are in each Slot Position”.

For “Task is on one day”, every slot within the Task will start and end on the Task Date defined in the field here.

“Task spans Event dates (no specific date)” is a good choice for a task that does not need to have specific dates. This is useful for getting an idea of how many people are interested in a position, collecting donations, informal polling, and other similar situations.

“Dates are in Column Headers” or “Dates are in Row Headers” function very similar to one another. The date defined in either the Column or Row Header will apply to all slots for that column or row. If no date is defined, the Event Start and Event End dates will be used for all slots under the header.

Finally, with “Dates are in each Slot Position”, a different date can be defined for each slot position in the task. If no date is defined for a slot position, the slot’s date defaults to the Event Start and Event End dates.

Reminders, Thank Yous, and other emails are scheduled relative to a slot’s date. Additionally, slots whose dates occur in the past will not accept volunteers. This is why it’s very important to set up your dates correctly.

Thank you for watching and for using ivolunteer.com, the best way to sign up your volunteers online!

If you have additional questions, please contact us or check our online Administration Help Guide in the Support section of our website.