Notify volunteers about their assignments

Assigning someone to a serving slot does not tell them yet. Assignments stay private while you build the schedule, and volunteers only find out once you send the notification. This article shows you how to send those invitations and watch who responds.

Before you begin

You need permission to manage the Schedule tab.
You need at least one person assigned to an upcoming date. See Assigning volunteers to dates.

Assignments are private until you notify

When you place someone in a slot, that assignment is a private draft. The volunteer cannot see it, and cannot accept it, until you notify them. This lets you arrange the whole schedule, move people around, and change your mind, without anyone getting a premature invite.

A slot becomes visible to the volunteer once the notification is sent. It also stays visible if they have already responded to it, so past answers never disappear.

Step-by-step

Go to the Schedule page. Open Schedule from the dashboard. Each upcoming event shows its assigned volunteers.
Find the Notify button. When an event has people assigned but not yet notified, a Notify button with a bell icon appears in that event's header. Hover over it to see a count, for example "3 people assigned but not yet notified."
Click Notify. The Notify assigned pop-up window opens on the Send tab.
Choose who to notify. People are split into two groups. You assigned lists the volunteers you scheduled, and everyone there is checked by default. Assigned by others lists people a different admin placed, and they start unchecked so you do not send for someone else's in-progress work. Use Select all or Clear at the top of each group to flip the whole group at once.
Send the notifications. The send button shows how many people are selected, for example Notify 3 people. Click it. A message confirms the requests are queued, such as "3 notifications queued."

What the volunteer receives

Churchday chooses a channel for each volunteer. When text notifications are enabled for your church and a volunteer is eligible to receive them, the volunteer gets a text and can reply YES to accept or NO to decline. Otherwise, Churchday tries email. A text that cannot be sent also falls back to email.

An email tells the volunteer where and when they are serving, and includes Accept and Decline buttons. Both open a response page that does not require a Churchday login. See Reply to a serving request by text for the text eligibility and reply details.

Reading the status icons

After you notify, each volunteer's slot shows a small icon so you can see where things stand at a glance:

Person icon (gray): assigned, not yet notified.
Clock icon: the notification is queued and sending shortly.
Bell icon (amber): notified, waiting for a response.
Check icon (green): confirmed. They accepted.
X icon (red, struck through): declined.
Warning triangle: the notification could not be sent. Tap Notify to retry.

For email delivery and response details, open the Notify button again and switch to the Activity tab. Each person's status also appears on the schedule.

Good to know

Notifications are queued and sent by a background process, so it can take a moment for them to leave. The Notify button switches to a status hub once everyone is notified, and hovering it reads "Everyone notified. View status."
On a test or local setup, nothing actually sends. Notifications sit as queued so you can try the flow without emailing real people.
For someone already notified who has not answered, open their assignment and choose Send reminder. The new-batch Notify action skips people whose request was already sent.