Color Coding
Color-coding is designed to help you spot conflicts, openings, and assignments.
Blue: When you click on a volunteer’s name on the schedule, the volunteer is highlighted in blue. The other days on which this volunteer scheduled are also listed in blue on the calendar.
Green: When you click on a name on the right side of the schedule in any mode setting, the volunteer’s name is highlighted in green. Days on which they are scheduled are also highlighted in green on the calendar, and if you click on a green date, the volunteer’s name that day is in green making it easier for you to find them.
When using the “Fill Positions” mode to fill an empty slot, MSP will show a list of volunteers who could be scheduled in the highlighted position. Names listed in:
Red indicates a serious conflict, meaning the volunteer should not/cannot be scheduled there. Examples of this would be: volunteer has a can’t serve time, does not list the mass as a preference, or has already been scheduled that day.
Orange denotes a minor conflict, meaning the volunteer could be scheduled but there are some factors making them not an ideal candidate in the program’s eyes. Examples of this would be: volunteer has family members who can’t be scheduled, or was scheduled close to this date.
Volunteer List Modes
Fill Positions
By default, filters are set in the “Fill Position” mode column to only show volunteers who are qualified to fill the position and have the service as one of their preferences. You may override this setting and choose to show all volunteers in the list by clicking on the text “Show only volunteers who..” and selecting the filters that should be turned off.
If there is a reason a volunteer should not be scheduled in the position, their name will be highlighted in red in the list and the reason will be shown in red at the bottom of the list. If no red appears in the display when a volunteer is selected, then you can be sure right away that it is okay to schedule the volunteer at this service time (i.e., that there are no availability or preference conflicts and that the volunteer is not already scheduled close to this date). If a volunteer has a ± this means their serving frequency is set to something other than “normal.”
Once you’ve found a volunteer to fill the position, you can either double click on their name or drag and drop the volunteer into the unfilled position. When you manually assign a volunteer to fill a position, a “Repeats” bubble will pop-up. Click on the bubble to open the “Repeat this assignment” box, where you can specify whether the assignment should be repeated and what pattern it should follow. By checking the box next to “Repeats” you will be able to specify a fixed, rotating pattern for that volunteer, which will be automatically added to the Preassignments pane for you.
- Show only volunteers who…
When this option is checked, only volunteers whose preferences meet certain criteria will be shown. To determine what restricts this list, click on the word “who…” and a list of filter options will appear.
- Sort by load
This will add how often each volunteer has been placed on this schedule in both the selected ministry and total.
- “i” icon (volunteer info)
When a single volunteer is selected in the list of volunteers, click this button to bring up the Edit Volunteer window for the selected volunteer. When multiple volunteers are selected, click to bring up the Edit Multiple Volunteers window.
Place Volunteer
Alternately, you can choose to add a specific volunteer to the schedule where they best fit using the Place Volunteer mode to suggest positions to place a selected volunteer in the schedule. Select a volunteer’s name from the list and click “Make suggestions”. To view additional suggestions, click the “More>>” button.
Show shifts given to
Finally, this mode will show all shifts given to the selected volunteer by appearing in green in the schedule to the left. This can be useful when looking to see how a volunteer’s scheduled services are distributed across weekends (especially when looking to see how many weekends in a row a particular volunteer is scheduled) or when looking for a particular volunteer’s assignments for other reasons.
- “i” icon (volunteer info)
When a single volunteer is selected in the list of volunteers, click this button to bring up the Edit Volunteer window for the selected volunteer. When multiple volunteers are selected, click to bring up the Edit Multiple Volunteers window.
- Filter list | with…
This can be used to further limit the volunteers displayed in the “Include only these volunteers” display window. These options are covered in more detail in the Appendix B – Guide to Filtering
