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Volunteer Connect

Volunteer Connect Smart Schedule

Attention: *EA feature in testing*: This page is under construction while our wonderful Early Adopters try things out!

After you create a schedule, you can use the Smart Schedule to fill in volunteer roles automatically. It places volunteers in roles based on their preferences, past behavior, and schedule patterns. Of course, you can edit the schedule before publishing to be sure it's exactly how you want it. The Smart Schedule can provide a great place to start!

How Smart Schedule Works

The Smart Schedule uses volunteer preferences, past behavior, and schedule patterns to place volunteers in roles.
  • Step 1 - Find all eligible volunteers.
    • Gather all the current volunteers on the team.
    • Filter out any volunteers who cannot be scheduled based on their unavailable dates (if set by volunteers).
    • This step removes anyone who has an unavailable date for the schedule day, is already scheduled on another team at the same time, or is out of compliance with a strictly enforced requirement.
  • Step 2 - Order eligible volunteers for roles.
    • Start with the top prioritized role (if set by the schedule coordinator).
    • Filter volunteers to only those who are eligible to serve in the role. If a volunteer can serve in multiple roles but one role is prioritized, they will be placed in the prioritized role first.
    • Order the volunteers by those who have never served first, then by last serve date for this team in ascending order. (The last serve date is only considered for this team, not all teams the volunteer is part of.)
  • Step 3 - Add volunteers to the draft schedule.
    • Fill the roles up to the minimum number needed (if set by the schedule coordinator). If there are not enough eligible volunteers, the schedule will be filled with as many as possible.
    • Repeat with the next roles until all the minimums are met.
  • Step 4 - Fill any remaining openings.
    • After all minimums are met, start back at the top of the schedule. Fill any remaining open spots with eligible volunteers until the schedule is as full as possible.
  • Step 5 - Create the final schedule.
    • The schedule is generated and presented to the schedule coordinator.

After the schedule is generated, you can make any changes you want. Remember to publish it once the schedule is ready!

Generate a Smart Schedule

  • You must be a volunteer coordinator or leader to do this.
  1. In Volunteer Connect, open the team you want to schedule.
  2. On the Schedules tab, open the appropriate schedule or create one. You can use Smart Schedule on any schedule, whether it's a draft or already published.
  3. On the date you want to schedule, click Smart Schedule at the top.


  4. If you have roles that need to be filled first because they are most important to the schedule, you can set role priority.
    1. Enable Set Role Priority.
    2. Click and drag the role up or down to indicate priority. The higher the role in the list, the greater the priority for the schedule.


  5. If needed, change the Minimum Needed value for each role. This value defaults to the number of volunteers needed set for the schedule. If you think you may not have enough volunteers available to schedule for all the roles, you can decrease the value for roles that may not need as many volunteers as other roles.
  6. Select which date(s) to apply the Smart Schedule to. It may take more time to generate multiple schedule dates at once.
  7. Click Generate Schedule.


  8. When the Smart Schedule is finished, click Next.
  9. Review the Assigned tab to see which volunteers were scheduled and which roles may still need to be filled. Review the Ineligible tab to see who was not able to be scheduled and why. When you're ready to create the schedule, click Save.

The schedule is saved. If needed, you can add volunteers to any open spots or edit any schedule volunteers.

Once the schedule is complete, don't forget to publish the schedule.

Last updated: January 12, 2026