Letting your organisation know when you can't make it is how you stay off rosters you won't be available for. Volaby gives you two ways to do this — one for a quick change on a specific roster, and one for blocking out longer stretches when you're not around at all.
This guide covers both.
Two ways to mark yourself unavailable
My Rosters — for marking yourself unavailable on a single upcoming roster. Best for "I can't make Tuesday."
Unavailability & Leave — for blocking out a date range across every activity you're enrolled in. Best for holidays, travel, or any longer period when you're not around.
You can use either — the system keeps everything in sync.
Marking unavailability on a specific roster
For a quick change to a single upcoming roster, use the dropdown from My Rosters.
Navigate to Activities and select My Rosters
Find the roster for the date you want to skip
Click the dropdown next to the roster — it'll show your current status as Available, Unavailable, or Not indicated
Choose Unavailable
The change applies only to that activity on that date. Every other activity you're on is unaffected.
When the dropdown is locked
The dropdown isn't always available. You won't be able to change your status if:
The activity is a Managed roster and you've already been rostered on for that date — contact your organisation if you need to come off a published roster
The roster has been marked as Full by your organisation
The date is beyond the availability window your organisation has set (for dates further in the future than they currently accept availability for)
The roster has already been cancelled, or the date has already passed
On Open rosters you can still mark yourself unavailable even after you've been rostered on — you'll be taken off the roster automatically.
Marking yourself unavailable for a date further ahead
If the date you want to mark unavailable is beyond the rosters currently visible in My Rosters:
Click the calendar in the My Rosters view
Select the date
Click the dropdown and select Unavailable
Unavailability & Leave
Unavailability & Leave is for blocking out a stretch of time across every activity you're on — the right choice if you're going on holiday, travelling, or just won't be around for a while.
It lives inside the Availability Centre, which you can open from the button in the top right of your screen. Depending on your organisation's settings, that button is labelled either Availability Centre or Unavailability & Leave.
To add a leave period:
Open the button in the top right
Choose Unavailability & Leave (if you're in the full Availability Centre)
Pick a Start Date and End Date for the period you'll be away
Click Add Another Date Range to add another period
Click Submit
When you save, you'll be marked unavailable for rostering across every activity you're enrolled in for those dates. Any availability you'd already submitted for those dates is removed automatically.
You don't need to pick an activity or session — leave applies to everything at once.
Editing or removing a leave period
To change or remove a leave period you've already set:
Open the Availability Centre (or Unavailability & Leave) from the top right
You'll see your existing periods listed
Edit the Start or End dates directly, or click the bin icon next to a period to delete it
Click Submit to save your changes
If you remove all your leave periods, you'll see a warning letting you know everything will be cleared — confirm by submitting.
Seeing your upcoming leave
Leave periods you have coming up appear on your My Elements dashboard and on the My Rosters tab as yellow cards:
Leave Period Starts — shown on the first day of your leave, with the full date range
Leave Period Ends — shown on the last day
Click the edit icon on either card to jump back into the Unavailability & Leave dialog.
What your organisation sees
Whichever flow you use, the result for rostering is the same:
For Managed rosters, your unavailability is shown to managers when they're building the roster, so they don't include you.
For Open rosters, marking yourself unavailable takes you off the roster for those dates.
If Unavailability & Leave isn't there
Some organisations disable volunteer availability submission. If that's the case:
You may still see an Unavailability & Leave button in the top right. This lets you submit leave periods even though you can't set positive availability.
Or the button may not appear at all. Contact your organisation and they can manage unavailability for you.
Cross-links
Volunteers - Indicating Your Availability — setting availability for the dates you can make it
Managing Volunteer Unavailability and Leave — for managers handling this on a volunteer's behalf