Ministry filled by one volunteer or two: how to avoid the red?

[Christoph Berendes]

We have a ministry that is sometimes fulfilled by an individual (e.g. Joe) and sometimes by a pair fo people who always work together on this ministry (e.g. Bert and Ernie). Note that Bert and Ernie are likely to be on other ministry teams and work those separately.

I can show this ministry with two slots per service, e.g.

11/3 9am  

ministryX: Joe

ministryX: UNFILLED

11/10  9am

ministryX: Bert

ministryX: Ernie

and that's workable.

However, the 11/3 service will show in red, since there is an unfilled slot, and the MinX team will get an available slots message for 11/3, when that's not needed.

I could also do Bert&Ernie as a single "person", but that means that Bert will have two userids in MSP, one as an individual and the other as part of the Bert&Ernie pair. That would be too confusing for a lot of parishioners.

Is there another way to handle thsi?

[Lynn Pechiney]

The answer to that is something I would be interested in as well. We have a couple of ministries that are usually fulfilled by one person, but sometimes a married couple would like to serve together rather than separately on different weekends. I have been adding a second person to the weeks where they are scheduled, but that makes it difficult for swaps, not to mention the effort needed on the part of ministry leaders. 

Thanks for asking this one!

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[Ginger Bitikofer]

When I’ve had this situation in the Altar Guild (a husband and wife who work together to complete the job), I’ve just listed one of them (the wife, who is a better email contact). The worship service only requires one person in that position, but they enjoy doing it together. Fortunately, they don’t serve in any other roles, so it doesn’t mess up their scheduling.

 

Ginger Bitikofer

Associate for Membership & Congregational Life

Trinity Cathedral

2230 Euclid Ave

Cleveland OH 44115

(216) 774-0407

(216) 771-3657 (fax)

gbiti...@trinitycleveland.org

www.trinitycleveland.org

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[Office Administrator]

When I have couples who want to serve together, I make them a team.  When I set up the worship service, I only request one fellowship host, but if MSP schedules one of the team members, it automatically adds the second one.  It does complicate things when a couple needs a sub, but it doesn’t happen that often.

 

Roxanne

Office of St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church

off...@ststlc.net

608-222-1241

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[Megan Adam]

I created a fake person using my own email. The name is None Needed, and I manually input them when I have this situation.

Blessings,

Megan Adam

Office Manager

St. John the Baptist Catholic Parish

680 Mill Street

Excelsior, MN 55331

952.474.8868

On Nov 4, 2019, at 1:20 PM, Ginger Bitikofer <gbiti...@trinitycleveland.org> wrote:



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[Ginger Bitikofer]

Megan:

 

I forgot—I create dummy names from time to time, too, as placeholders. I usually call them something like:

Assigned Lector, Assigned Usher, Assigned Chalice, etc.

 

I do this so that no one can pick up the assignment.

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[Lynn Pechiney]

So, if the service time has only one position in a particular ministry but a team is scheduled, it will add a second position? 

That is how I’d like it to act, rather than giving the two people one ID. That way if one of the members in the team is in another ministry, they won’t have two ID’s. 

I’m getting ready to run another schedule and would love it if this works!

Peace,

Lynn

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[Barbara Curran]

Have you tried making teams to fill the Ministry, with the team sometimes being only one person?

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 4, 2019, at 11:35 AM, Christoph Berendes <christop...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Dorothy DeLuca]

You can define a user called Optional, or Not Needed, or something like that, and put that user in the slot.  

On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 11:35 AM Christoph Berendes <christop...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Barbara Curran]

If you use teams, you can creat various teams for a particular ministry. The teams do not have to have the same number of members. One team, no matter how many people are on it, will fill one position in the schedule

Barb

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 5, 2019, at 10:29 AM, Dorothy DeLuca <ddde...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Raina Hanson]

One other option to consider is making the schedule require one person and then using the "Never split up family members in this ministry/subdivision" option, which will schedle all mebers of the family together. However, my preferred method is requiring one volunteer and then making pairs into teams so they are always scheduled together, like Barb mentioned! 

Raina Hanson
Director of Technical Support

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[Lisa Fouts]

Following this as well and I have a follow-up question. I like the idea of making families into teams for our offertory and greeter position (currently, we just list one member of the family, but then other members end up scheduled in other ministries, so I have to do some manual adjustments to avoid this). What I don’t want though, is all 6 members of a family being listed under offertory on the sign in kiosk. Will members still be listed individually if they are part of a team? Thanks for the help!

 

Lisa Fouts

 

Church of the Holy Spirit

Goddard, KS

Office Associate

(316)794-3496

lfo...@holyspiritwichita.com

 

From: using-ministry...@googlegroups.com [mailto:using-ministry...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Raina Hanson
Sent: Wednesday, November 6, 2019 8:42 AM
To: using-ministry...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Using MSP] Ministry filled by one volunteer or two: how to avoid the red?

 

One other option to consider is making the schedule require one person and then using the "Never split up family members in this ministry/subdivision" option, which will schedle all mebers of the family together. However, my preferred method is requiring one volunteer and then making pairs into teams so they are always scheduled together, like Barb mentioned! 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/using-ministry-scheduler-pro/CALODvyRXM3rqR63TCeqXE7U3LQxyvMaa9TMwXTb3FAFx9wv_FQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Christoph Berendes]

I appreciate all the answers. Teams look promising.

[Raina Hanson]

Hi Lisa, 

Yes, using teams to fill those spots will ensure the proper people (and number of people) are assigned. Just make sure the "Never split up family members in this ministry/subdivision" is NOT checked for that ministry! 

Raina Hanson
Director of Technical Support

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/using-ministry-scheduler-pro/00bc01d594b2%240f71bf60%242e553e20%24%40holyspiritwichita.com.

[Christoph Berendes]

The team approach mostly works. 

One puzzle/bug: Generally, when I assign one member of a team, I get a popup asking if I'd like to add the other members of this team as well. Great.

However, sometimes, I get this instead:

How do I work around "no room in this service"?

Other observations:

If the assignee's team mates are otherwise ineligible for this service (dispreferred service time, for instance), MSP doesn't mentioned that the assignee has team mates and doesn't assign them. This is less than ideal, but we can work around it.

Chris

[Raina Hanson]

Hey Christoph, 

I believe if you click YES on that pop up that the next question will be if you would like to assign the whole team anyway, which would then expand to fit the number of available team members, but if not, send in your data files (Help - Send Data Files to Tech Support) so we can take a closer look. 

Raina Hanson
Director of Technical Support

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[Lynn Pechiney]

Chris,

Do you manually schedule, auto schedule, or a combination? What I’m trying to figure out is whether a team would be passed over by the auto schedule feature of the system if there aren’t enough positions for all of the members. If that’s the case, then I may just have to manually place teams prior to running the scheduler to fill the rest of the schedule. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Peace,

Lynn 

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[Christoph Berendes]

All manual

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[Christoph Berendes]

I  believe if you click YES on that pop up that the next question will be if you would like to assign the whole team anyway, which would then expand to fit the number of available team members,

Your belief matched my reality, i.e. that worked.  Thanks, Raina.

Question remains: what does  "no room in the service" mean and why does it pop up for some team assignments and not for others?

Chris

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Christoph Berendes

Publisher, Facilitation Analytics

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[Raina Hanson]

Hey Chris, 

No room means there are no unfilled positions in that ministry at that service. So, in order to fill team members, the program would have to add additional spots to place the remaining team members. 

Raina Hanson
Director of Technical Support

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/using-ministry-scheduler-pro/CACt2GWnM36X_H9Xp-UBUyn4nh-Lnp66Y9xPukeu3FsC8vxy8pA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Christoph Berendes]

No room means there are no unfilled positions in that ministry at that service. 

The "no room" message seems to come up inconsistently. I use the team solution (and thanks again for the tip) because I want to put two people into one slot at times, and at other times, fill that slot with just one person. 

So, sometimes when I manually add one member of a two person team to the slot, I get asked "do you want to add the whole team?" or similar, click Yes, and all is good. At other times, I also get the "no room" message.  In both cases, there is just a single slot to be filled.

The workaround seems to be fine when I get the "no room" message, but I remain curious about why it comes up, seemingly at random.

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[Raina Hanson]

If you want, you can send in your data files (Help - Send Data Files to Tech Support) with an example of each and we can take a closer look. 

Best, 

Raina Hanson
Director of Technical Support

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