Letting your organisation know when you're available is how you end up on the rosters that suit you. Volaby gives you a few ways to do this depending on what's most convenient — and the right one depends on whether you're planning ahead, responding to a specific roster, or signing up for an event.
This guide covers all three.
Three ways to indicate availability
The Availability Centre — for setting your availability across multiple dates in one go. Best for planning ahead.
My Rosters — for changing your availability on a specific upcoming roster. Best for quick day-to-day updates.
When you join an Event — for picking which dates and sessions you want at an event activity. Happens automatically the first time you join.
You can use any combination of these — the system keeps everything in sync.
The Availability Centre
The Availability Centre is the central place to set your availability across activities and dates. It's good for planning ahead — for example, telling your organisation you're available every Tuesday morning for the next month.
To open it, click Availability Centre in the top right of your screen, or open it from the availability prompt on your My Elements dashboard.
In the Availability Centre:
Select the activity you want to set availability for, then click Next
Select the session within that activity (e.g. "Morning Shift"), then click Next
Choose the dates you're available on the calendar
Click Submit
A few things you can do in the calendar:
Pick specific dates by clicking on them
Set a recurring pattern (e.g. every Tuesday) and apply it across a date range
Choose a length of time to commit to (e.g. one month) so you can review and re-set later
Remove a date by clicking the small (x) next to it
If a date is greyed out, your availability is already set for it — you'll need to remove it through the per-roster flow if you want to change it.
Changing availability on a specific roster
For a quick change to a single upcoming roster — for example, you suddenly can't make Tuesday — use the per-roster flow from My Rosters.
Navigate to Activities and select My Rosters
Find the roster you want to update
Click the dropdown next to the roster — it'll show your current status as Available, Unavailable or Not indicated
Choose the new status
What you can change depends on your current status:
Available — you can update your session-by-session availability for that date, or mark yourself unavailable
Not indicated — you can mark yourself available or unavailable
Unavailable — you can switch back to available
If you've already been rostered on by your organisation for that date, you won't be able to change your availability — the dropdown will be locked. Contact your organisation if you need to update a published roster.
Marking yourself unavailable for a date further ahead
If you want to mark yourself unavailable for a date that's further out than the rosters currently visible:
Click the calendar in the My Rosters view
Select the date
Click the dropdown and select Unavailable
When you join an Event activity
If you join an Event activity (a multi-date or multi-session event), Volaby automatically asks you to pick which dates and sessions you want to attend as part of joining. You'll see a dialog with each event date as a column and each available session listed within it.
Tick individual sessions to add them
Click a date column header to select all sessions for that day
Review your selections at the bottom of the dialog
Click Confirm & Roster (for open rosters) or Confirm Availability (for managed rosters)
You can also skip the selection by clicking Skip for now — but you won't be rostered on the event until you come back and choose your sessions.
For Events with a single session on a single date, you're added automatically when you join — no selection needed.
For more on Event activities, see Activities - Event Mode and Activities - Joining an Activity.
What your organisation sees
When you indicate availability:
For Managed rosters, your availability is shown to managers when they're building the roster. They use it to decide who to roster on each session.
For Open rosters, marking yourself available may roster you directly onto the session.
Either way, you'll be notified when you've been rostered on a shift.
Cross-links
Activities - Joining an Activity — joining activities, including event session selection
Activities - Event Mode — how Event Mode changes the joining experience
How to Roster — for managers, how rosters are built from your availability