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For organizers · Roles & shifts

Schedule volunteer shifts from availability

Auto-Schedule is free. Set up your shifts, add your team’s available hours and let Proximatic build the roster. Review who’s assigned, check any open places, then publish.

Create a free Standard event

The saved event schedule

Proximatic scheduler in 2 Weeks view after Auto-Schedule saved the pantry assignments and the page was reloaded
Auto-Schedule saved 126 assignments across 42 shifts.

Two weeks. Three shifts a day. One roster.

This food pantry has 20 approved volunteers, 42 shifts and 126 places to fill. Ten people are available on weekdays, five on weekends and five every day. Each shift can include at most one new volunteer. Here’s how that becomes a saved schedule.

Get the event ready

  • Open the event as an organization admin or owner. Use a Draft event with scheduling enabled and at least one shift.
  • Save availability covering the whole shift and approve the team members. Pending applications and banned memberships do not qualify.
  • Check each shift’s Team requirement in Volunteer roster → Shift Planning and its attached Shift Logic. After editing a rule template, update the shift’s attached version too.

Rebuilding or filling one vacancy? Auto-Schedule replaces the roster. For one open place, use Find cover to keep the other assignments.

Build the schedule in three steps

  1. Add the shifts and the number of people needed

    Create a Standard event, enable scheduling and keep it in Draft. Add each job, its start and end times, and the number of places. The pantry event below spans October 5–18, with breakfast, lunch and dinner each day. Each shift needs three people. One assignment is already saved; 125 places are open.

    Open the scheduler and check the dates and shifts. For an event series, run Auto-Schedule for each event separately.

    Add the shifts and the number of people needed

    Proximatic scheduler in 2 Weeks view showing the draft pantry event, open meal shifts and one saved assignment
    Saved draft with one assignment; run Auto-Schedule from the top toolbar.

  2. Run Auto-Schedule with your team's availability

    Save each person's weekly or dated availability and approve their team membership. In Volunteer roster → Shift Planning, set any Team requirement and attach the Shift Logic that applies. Return to the scheduler and select Auto-Schedule.

    A successful run saves the new roster immediately, replacing the event’s existing assignments, including manual assignments. Each person must be available for the whole shift, meet its team and rule requirements, and have no overlapping assignment.

    Run Auto-Schedule with your team's availability

    Proximatic scheduler in 2 Weeks view after Auto-Schedule saved the pantry assignments and the page was reloaded
    Auto-Schedule saved 126 assignments across 42 shifts.

  3. Review the saved roster before you publish

    Check the Saved status, then use 2 Weeks to scan the shift counts across all dates. Open Volunteer roster → Roster for the assigned people and Workload for their scheduled hours. Make any adjustments, wait for Saved, then publish when the roster is ready.

    In this pantry run, 126 assignments cover all 126 places. Other runs can leave places open when nobody meets a shift's requirements. Use Find cover for those gaps; it leaves the other assignments in place.

    Review the saved roster before you publish

    Proximatic scheduler showing the saved pantry calendar with the Personnel panel open and assigned volunteer names
    Personnel shows the approved pool. Open Workload to review scheduled hours.

Changed your mind? Use Undo.

Expand the saved change count to see who moved. Undo restores the last eligible saved roster change while the event is in Draft. It is available for up to seven days, provided later changes have not made the earlier roster invalid.

Saved changes and Undo

Proximatic saved roster change showing Casey added, Blair removed, and an Undo button
Review the changed assignments beside the Undo button.

Manual multi-day scheduling

Review everyone's hours before adding another shift

Open Workload in the scheduler to review each person's scheduled commitment. Selected event includes that event's assignments, even when it spans several days. If your dates belong to the same event series, choose Whole series to include the other dates too.

Coverage is one check; the work assigned to each person is another. The River Park Festival below has Alex scheduled for eight hours and Blair for four. Review those totals before adding more work.

Whole series at River Park Festival shows Alex with eight scheduled hours and Blair with four, with a cyan Refresh roster button.
Whole series at River Park Festival shows Alex with eight scheduled hours and Blair with four, with a cyan Refresh roster button.

Expand a name for their shifts and response states. Choose Open shift to adjust an assignment, then Refresh roster to check the totals. An assignment may still be awaiting the volunteer’s reply.

Follow the multi-day Workload walkthrough for the five assignments, each person's total and the exact shift on another date.

Already collected availability in a form?

Save the hours people supplied as availability in Proximatic before scheduling. A form response is not an assignment. Our availability guide explains that handoff.

For a 10am–noon shift, someone available from 9am–noon can qualify; someone available only from 11am cannot cover the whole shift. Check the saved hours when an expected person is missing from the result.

Troubleshooting

Auto-Schedule is disabled or unavailable
Open the event’s schedule as an organization admin or owner. Add shifts first; the button is disabled when there are no shifts or a save is in progress. If the event does not use scheduling, enable custom shifts in event management.
The event cannot be rescheduled
Check that it is in Draft. Recorded attendance and table reservations prevent replacement even in Draft. Keep those records intact and use the appropriate event management flow for further changes.
There are no eligible people, or shifts remain unfilled
Open a future Standard shift with a limited number of open places and choose Find cover. Why others don’t fit shows the first current blocker found for each person and where to review it. It opens automatically when nobody qualifies. Review saved availability, approved team membership or confirmed replies as directed, then return and Refresh candidates. A correction may reveal another blocker; only people who pass every check can be selected. Commitment conflicts stay private, and these current checks do not explain a past Auto-Schedule choice. See the coverage checklist for a worked example.
Auto-Schedule cannot create a complete schedule
Review availability and active rules together. Correct contradictory requirements or add eligible team members before retrying. Check for overlapping assignments in other events if the returned message reports a conflict.
The run times out or reports an error
Read the error and check the latest saved roster. A rejected result leaves the saved assignments intact. If the response was lost after saving, the app recovers the saved result; avoid starting another generation while that request is pending. Keep local edits open if your device cannot retain them, then use Retry or review the latest roster when offered.

Review why people don’t fit

Proximatic Find cover shows Alex and Casey under Full shift not covered, with arrows to review five blockers.
Use the left and right arrows to review each blocker, then refresh candidates after a correction.

Connect the schedule to the event

Need to build the shifts too? AI event setup starts from event notes and opens a staffed draft after any required payment. Or create the shifts yourself in a free Standard event.

Build your next roster

Create a free Standard event and add your shifts. If you already have a draft, open it below and choose its scheduler.

Open events

Comparing workflows? See the feature overview.