Shifts, Scheduling and Hours | Volunteers | Crafted Call
Shifts, Scheduling and Hours
Gallery OwnersUpdated Sep 22, 2026
Once your opportunities exist, the work is filling them and running the day. This article covers the schedule calendar, assigning people, how volunteers confirm or decline from an email, what happens when someone drops out, checking people in, and approving hours. Creating opportunities in the first place is covered in Setting Up a Volunteer Program.
The schedule calendar
Admin → Volunteers → Schedule shows a month at a time and shades each day by how well it is staffed. The legend names three states:
Needs volunteers for a day with unfilled slots
Fully staffed for a day where every slot is taken
No opportunities for a day with nothing scheduled
The shading is the point: you can see the holes in next month without opening anything. Screen readers get the same information in each day's name, so the colour is never the only signal.
Click a day to see Opportunities on that date underneath, with Add Opportunity next to the heading. Adding from the calendar prefills the date and a sensible time in your organization's timezone, which is the fastest way to plug a gap you just spotted.
What needs attention
The volunteer dashboard leads with a Needs attention card, so you do not have to go looking. It gathers:
Unfilled spots in the next 14 days, each showing how many of how many are still open
Open hours with nobody on the books, linking straight to a prefilled new opportunity
Unconfirmed within 72h, the people who have not answered yet with the shift close
Counts of hours to review, applications pending, open coverage requests, and unsigned waivers
When there is nothing to do, the card is not there at all.
Assigning and unassigning
Open an opportunity and use Assign Volunteer under Volunteer Roles & Roster. Pick the person and the role. A role that is full says so rather than letting you overfill it.
If the person is already booked for an overlapping shift somewhere else, the assignment is refused and tells you: the volunteer is already booked for an overlapping shift at this time. Back-to-back shifts are fine; only genuine overlaps are blocked.
To take someone off, use Unassign on their row. They are notified, the slot reopens, and if you keep a waitlist the next person may be promoted into it. You can add a reason for your own records.
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Confirming and declining from an email
Volunteers get an email when they are assigned, again as a reminder before the shift, and when they sign themselves up. Unless you have turned the buttons off, each email carries Yes, I'll be there and Can't make it, and one never appears without the other.
Yes, I'll be there confirms the shift and shows them a short confirmation page. Once they have confirmed, later reminders stop asking. Instead of the buttons they see a thank you for confirming, with a quiet Manage this shift link in case something changes. Nobody gets asked to confirm the same shift twice.
Can't make it behaves differently depending on how close the shift is. Outside the cancellation window, which is 48 hours before the start, the assignment is cancelled and the organizer is notified. Inside that window the assignment is deliberately not cancelled: the organizer is notified that the volunteer cannot make it, and the volunteer is offered the coverage request below. That way a last-minute drop reaches a person rather than silently emptying the roster.
As an administrator you are not bound by the 48 hours. You can unassign anyone at any point.
To turn the buttons off for your organization, use Email response buttons in Admin → Volunteers → Settings. Volunteers can still confirm in the app.
Coverage requests
A volunteer who cannot make it can choose Ask someone to cover this shift. That opens a coverage request to other eligible volunteers and emails them that a shift is available. The original volunteer stays scheduled until somebody claims it, so the slot is never quietly empty. Requests expire after a day, or at the shift start, whichever comes first.
Open requests appear at Admin → Volunteers → Swap Requests so you can see what is still uncovered and step in if nobody claims it.
Reminders
Crafted Call sends a reminder email before each shift, worded for how close it is: today, tomorrow, or the day of the week. Reminders carry the confirm and decline buttons for anyone who has not answered, and a thank you for anyone who has.
The day itself
Open the opportunity's check-in view from Admin → Volunteers → Opportunities. It is built for a phone at the door. The top line reads how many of how many are checked in, and each person has a Check in button that turns into a Checked in badge. When a group arrives together, Check all in takes everyone at once.
Volunteers can also check themselves in. Their own check-in opens two hours before the shift starts and closes four hours after it ends.
Hours
Volunteers can log the hours they actually worked, which matters when someone stays late or leaves early. Submitted hours wait for you at Admin → Volunteers → Approve Hours, listing Volunteer, Opportunity, Submitted and Hours with an approve or reject decision on each. Approved hours are what count toward totals and reports. When there is nothing waiting, the page says so.
After an opportunity is complete, Send thank-you emails everyone who worked it, with an optional personal note.
Asking Frida
Frida can work your volunteer schedule with you. Ask her which shifts are unfilled next week, what a particular opportunity's roster looks like, who is available, or to create a shift, assign somebody, log hours, or send a thank-you. Anything that changes a record is shown to you as a confirmation card first. See Meet Frida.
What volunteers see
Your volunteers get their own view of all of this, and it spans every organization they help, not just yours.
Their next shift. On their Crafted Call dashboard, a card shows their next volunteer shift with either Awaiting your confirmation or Confirmed. Confirm answers it on the spot, and Check in appears when the shift is close enough. If you require a waiver and they have not signed, they are sent to sign it first.
My Volunteering. The full view lists Upcoming shifts, Opportunities for you and Your volunteer portals, with a strip of totals across the top for approved hours, shifts completed, and how many organizations they volunteer with. Someone who helps three galleries sees one list, not three.
History. Completed shifts with the date, organization, opportunity, role and hours, filterable by organization and year, with the totals underneath. This is what a volunteer needs when someone asks them for their service hours.
Weekly availability. Under their volunteering settings, a volunteer adds the days and times they are usually free, plus a note for anything that needs explaining. Availability never signs anyone up for anything. It works in both directions instead: it sorts the opportunities suggested to them, and it marks the volunteers who fit when you are picking somebody for a role. One person can apply the same availability to every organization they volunteer with at once.
Troubleshooting
A volunteer says the confirm button did nothing.
If they have already confirmed, the page says so rather than confirming twice. If the shift has passed, the buttons no longer act.
Someone declined but is still on the roster.
They declined inside the 48-hour cancellation window, so the assignment is kept and you were notified instead. Unassign them yourself, or wait for a coverage claim.
I cannot assign someone.
They are already booked for an overlapping shift, or the role is full. The message says which.
Check in is not available yet.
Self check-in opens two hours before the start. You can check anyone in from the day-of view at any time.
Hours are not showing in a volunteer's total.
Only approved hours count. Check the Approve Hours queue.
