Self-Directed activities are for work volunteers complete at their own pace, with no dates or rosters to manage — such as surveys, reports, online training, or external tasks. Rather than scheduling sessions, you break the activity into actions, and Volaby tracks completion for each volunteer individually.
Creating a self-directed activity
When you create an activity, choose Self-Directed on the 'Activity Type' step (alongside Regular, Once-Off, Flexible and Event). Self-directed activities have no frequency, roster or event mode — those options are hidden — so setup focuses on the actions volunteers need to complete.
Adding actions
Where other activities have sessions, self-directed activities have actions. Each action is a single task a volunteer completes in their own time.
Action name — name the task, for example 'Complete Survey'.
Report type — attach a report type to capture the volunteer's responses. If you don't attach one, the action is treated as an 'External Action' with no data collected.
External link — optionally provide a URL for volunteers to follow when completing the action, such as a survey or external form.
How volunteers complete actions
When a volunteer opens a self-directed activity they see its description, an 'Available until' date if you set one, and a checklist of actions with a progress counter. For each action they either fill in the attached report or, for a link-only action, open the link and mark it complete. Once every required action is done, the activity shows as complete and thanks them for taking part.
Completion and re-enrolment
Completion is tracked per volunteer. A volunteer's status shows as 'Continue' while actions remain and 'Completed' once they're finished. Completed self-directed activities move to the bottom of the volunteer's activity list, and volunteers can't re-join an activity they've already completed.
Cross-links
Creating an Activity — for the full activity creation flow and other activity types.
Creating Report Types — for building the report types you attach to actions.