Best Practices in using the Volunteer Opportunity and Occurrence Status Field
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY: STATUS (picklist values)
AWAITING APPROVAL: The opportunity was created by a portal user, and is awaiting approval for the Opportunity Approval Manager.
PENDING: The opportunity has been created administratively but not yet published.
ACTIVE: The opportunity has been approved, with the intention of being published. (It's only visible on the public website if at least one occurrence on a future date is active as well).
ADMIN: The volunteer opportunity never has been available on the public site — however there are (or will be) connections made to its occurrence(s) administratively. (Admin status is used for back-end tracking of connections. No emails are sent to connections related to administrative opportunities.
INACTIVE: This status can be used for Volunteer Opportunities that were created, and never got past PENDING or AWAITING APPROVAL status. (Flagging it Inactive is easier and safer than deleting it). If the status is changed to inactive - it will un-publish the opportunity from the public site even if there are active occurrences.
There is no need to change the status of an opportunity from Active to Inactive even if its no longer being published. If there are no upcoming connections with an End Date > Today -- even an active opportunity will no longer be published. The POSTING STATUS field is the best field to look at to determine whether or not an Opportunity is currently visible on the public website.
OCCURRENCE: STATUS (picklist values)
AWAITING APPROVAL: The occurrence was created by a portal user, and is awaiting approval for the Opportunity Approval Manager.
PENDING: The occurrence has been created administratively but not yet published.
ACTIVE: The occurrence was approved, and ready to be appear on the public websdite. It will not appear for signup on the public site until the Volunteer Opportunity Status is also in Active Status, or if its date is in the past.
ADMIN: The occurrence is not available on the public site — however there are (or will be) connections to it that have been added administratively. (Used for back-end tracking of connections). Emails are not sent for occurrences in admin sgtatus.
CANCELED: The occurrence WAS published, had one or more connections, but was THEN pulled down from the public site. The decision has been made to Cancel the occurrence and the connections are automatically notified that it has been cancelled. When the status is changed to canceled - an email announcing the cancellation is sent to all existing connections.
INACTIVE: This status is used only for Occurrences that were created, and never got past PENDING or AWAITING APPROVAL status OR for occurrences that were created, published, never got connections, and then the decision was made to not republish them. Making an occurrence inactive is preferable to deleting the occurrence, especially if it has or has had connections to it.
How to control whether an occurrence (and the Volunteer Opportunity description) appears on the public site (Visibility)
For an occurrence to appear on the public site all of the following must be true:
Volunteer Opportunity Status = Active
Occurrence Status = Active
End Date and Time of Occurrence >= TODAY
SO: The best practice way to 'unpublisd' or remove an occurrence from appearing on the public site and search is to adjust the occurrence status (NOT the Volunteer Opportunity status).
If there are no occurrences in the future — then nothing will appear on the public site. (The posting status will reflect this)
If you HAVE future occurrences and don't want them to appear on the public site, change the occurrence status of future occurrences to either
• Canceled - if connections were already made and you have canceled that date and time specific occurrence (Note: You cannot cancel an occurrence for an individually scheduled opportunity)
• Pending - if no connections have been made but you think you may want to publish the occurrence at a later date.
• Inactive - if no connections have been made and you want to indicate that it will not ever be published.
The Posting Status field will tell you whether or not an opportunity or occurrence is visible on the public site, and if not, why.
You can create a view or report so you can see what's currently visible on the public site.
Lauren Dunford
Might want to add a bit in this about Recurrences. Recently, I made a recurrence inactive because I no longer wanted any of the occurrences associated with it on the website. Aside from the volunteer leader, none of the occurrences linked to the recurrence had any connections, so I thought this was the right decision. I soon discovered that the volunteer leader continued to get automatic reminder emails that the inactive occurrences were about to take place (even thought they weren't). This happened because setting the recurrence to inactive did not set the associated occurrences to cancelled (and update all connections) it changed them all to inactive (and no connections were updated.)
Not sure if that belongs here or not.
Larry Deckel
Making a recurrence inactive, makes all the occurrences inactive. And as it says here in the documentation, don't make occurrences or volunteer opportunities inactive if they have any connections.
Ergo, don't make a recurrence inactive if the occurrences have any connections. (And remember, if the opportunity coordinator is a volunteer leader, than every occurrence already has one connection). In that case, go in and Cancel each occurrence (and say YES to 'update all connections").