What volunteers see

Everything you build in the roster reaches your volunteers through one page and two emails. Knowing exactly what they get, and what they do not, saves a lot of confusion on the day.

The agenda

A published assignmentOne person placed into one position on one shift. An assignment covers either a ticket holder or an external person, never both. Published assignments appear on the person's agenda and trigger their shift reminders. appears on the volunteer’s agenda at My Agenda, alongside anything they favourited on the public schedule. Signed-in visitors reach it from the My Agenda button in the header of your event’s schedule page.

Each rostered item shows the shift, its times, the positionA role needed on a shift, such as First Aider or Door. A position carries how many people it needs, which ticket tags make someone eligible, and the list of people assigned to it. A shift with no positions cannot hold anybody. they are filling, and the shift’s planning status.

Note

The planning status is shown to the volunteer, so a shift still marked Draft appears that way on their agenda. Assigning people once your plan has settled keeps the agenda clear for them.

Roster shifts never appear on any public calendar. They are visible only to the person assigned.

Reminders

Volunteers get up to two reminder emails per shift:

• Shift starting soon, sent shortly before the shift. How far ahead is set by the reminder lead time in Settings.
• Shift reminder, sent at 8pm the evening before, but only for shifts starting before 9am. This is aimed at early starts, where a reminder on the morning itself would arrive too late to be useful.

Both are email only. There is no SMS and no mobile push.

Reminders go only to assignments that are published. Proposed assignments, cancelled ones, and external people never receive them.

Three things worth knowing before your event:

• Set the lead time before you build the roster. Each shift’s reminder is scheduled when the shift is created or its times change, so a later adjustment applies only to shifts added or retimed after it.
• Very last-minute shifts go out without a reminder. A shift starting within a couple of minutes of being created is past the point where a reminder would help.
• Rescheduling a shift re-sends. Moving a shift’s times sets up a fresh reminder at the new time.

Note

Roster reminders are separate from the reminders sent for calendar entries people favourited. A volunteer will not get two notifications for the same shift.

Rostering is admin-managed

The roster is built and maintained entirely by you and your coordinators. Volunteers see their shifts but do not manage them, so plan your recruitment around that:

• Gathering interest happens outside EventDrake, by sign-up form or conversation, and you enter the roster yourself.
• Changes come back to you. A volunteer who wants to swap or drop a shift asks a coordinator, who makes the change in the admin.
• Availability is inferred rather than declared. When you assign someone, the candidate list flags clashes with shifts they already hold and with sessions they favourited on the public schedule. If you need to know which days people are free, collect that alongside your sign-ups.