Ready to use Unison to organize your volunteers and events? This guide will walk you through setting up your first schedule and sending it to your volunteers!
How It Works
1. Create an Opportunity
An opportunity is the event or program your volunteers will support. Every schedule in Unison must be linked to one opportunity.
If you’re managing multiple, unrelated events (e.g., Bingo Night, Soup Kitchen, Fall Festival), create a separate opportunity for each one.
Opportunities can be either open (meaning anyone with a link to the schedule can sign up) or qualified (meaning only volunteers who have been placed in that opportunity can sign up).
2. Create a Schedule
Once your opportunity is set up, it’s time to build a schedule.
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Choose start and end dates.
One-time events: Include not only the main event date but also any setup or cleanup days.
Ongoing events: Create a new schedule every 1–3 months. This keeps things manageable for volunteers and easier for you to update.
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Shifts define when volunteers are needed.
Jobs define the tasks for those shifts.
Tip: If you run the same event regularly, you can save time by using repeating shifts or duplicating this schedule the next time you run the same event. (Note: when duplicating schedules, non-repeating shifts will be placed on the schedule the same number of days after the start of the original schedule. For example, if a non-repeating shift was placed on July 5 in your July 1 - July 31 schedule, that shift will be placed on August 5 if you duplicate the schedule for August 1 - August 31.)
Customize the volunteer view.
After all shifts and jobs are in place, click Continue to adjust what volunteers will see when they view and sign up for the schedule.
Tip: You can also import schedules from other sites—like SignUpGenius, SignUp.com, or any public sign-up page—directly into Unison.
3. Send the Schedule to Volunteers
When your schedule is ready:
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Add volunteers to your database and add them to the appropriate opportunities
- This step is especially important if you’re using a qualified opportunities, since only volunteers in the opportunity can sign up for schedules associated with that opportunity.
- Or invite volunteers to sign up online