Checklists

Below are some checklists of things to do, double check or just keep in mind before, during and after your event.

Not everything may apply to the way your run your event, but are provided here as a helpful starting point.

Before Opening Registration

  • Check your Event Start, Event End dates and Registration Open and Registration Close timestamps.

  • Make sure your event Status is set to “Open”.

  • Double check your Site settings.

    • Make sure Allow Updates? is “Yes”

    • If you like to wait until your event schedule has been released before collecting available hours from your volunteers, make sure Available Hours is “Disabled”.

    • You’ll probably want Scheduled Hours and Display Rewards to be “Disabled”.

    • Check the Content tab and verify any custom content that has been added for the portal Homepage or Sign-up form have been updated for the current event.

    • Check the E-Mail tab and verify the correct templates are selected.

  • Verify and test your Email Templates.

    • Check your content for correct dates, locations and other information.

    • Make sure your email SMTP server settings are correct, send yourself a test email to verify.

    • Check the E-Mail -> Sent Email page that emails are being sent.

Before Your Event

  • Check for New volunteer registrations and approve volunteers promptly.

  • You can keep an eye on your registration status (and how it compares to prior events) with the Event Registration report.

  • The Event Totals report will show totals for things like Requested Shirt Sizes and orientation meeting registration that can help with planning.

  • When you’re ready to collect available hours from your volunteers. To get more accurate availablilty, it’s not recommended to collect availability too early, since people’s plans change. Usually 2-3 weeks prior to the event is safe for most while still providing you enough time to do the actual scheduling.

    • Make sure any Departments have been added to your event. They will be displayed on the volunteer portal so preferences can be set.

    • Set Available Hours to “Edit” in your Site settings.

  • You can use the Email -> Email Lists page to collect email addresses to use for sending notifications to your volunteers to prepare to the event (using your own bulk email service).

  • Collect and enter your volunteer needs for your Departments. This can be done while you’re still collecting volunteering availability.

  • Volunteer scheduling

    • When you’re ready to start scheduling your volunteers (usually a few days prior to the event), it’s usually a good idea to turn off Allow Updates? on the Site, as well as setting Availability to “View Only”.

    • If you do allow volunteers to change their Availability after you have done scheduling, you can use the Schedule Warnings report to check if you’ve scheduled time that has now been marked as unavailable.

    • You can schedule by going to a Department and placing volunteers, or by going through each Volunteer and matching to their preferences. Both scenarios work, the choice is up to you.

    • Keep an eye on the Rank displayed with schedule suggestions, higher ranks will be better matches

  • If you plan on printing volunteer schedules, print some tests before your event to check formatting and custom text.

  • Make sure your staffing managers (those who will be using the system’s management interface) all have accounts and can log into the system.

  • Make sure your Rewards and Achievements have been entered into the system.

  • Contact sales if you need to schedule any training for the system.

During Your Event

  • Use the Dashboard to keep an eye on how things are running and where you need more heads.

  • If you set Scheduled Hours to view-only, volunteers can view their schedules by logging into their portal.

  • Make sure you are marking volunteers as Checked In when they arrive. This helps track “no shows”. You can filter the volunteer list by Checked In = “No” to find them.

  • Record and comments, notes or feedback in the volunteer’s schedule or notes areas. These are useful for post-con reports!

After Your Event

  • Make sure everyone’s Checked In and Checked Out status is correct.

  • Download your Event Rewards report to track rewards and if you need to send out any rewards post-event (like reimbursements).

  • Download the Volunteer Report to get a overall report for each volunteer, along with any notes that were tracked.

  • Download a copy of your volunteer photos for archival.

  • Give each Department their custom Volunteer Report of the volunteers who worked for them. This can be very helpful for recruitment/promotion efforts!

  • Use the Email Lists to get the email addresses of everyone who worked your event so you can send “Thank You” emails (using your own bulk email service).