Core Docs - Engagement - Set Up Group Scheduling

Rock Version: v19.0
Last Modified: 2026-10-09 2:40 PM

This article delves into the administrative setup and management capabilities of the Group Scheduling feature. We’ll show you how that all gets set up, and what Group Scheduling looks like on the administrative side.

Before starting to schedule volunteers, you’ll need to configure things like locations and schedules. Locations ensure volunteers know where they're needed, while Schedules pinpoint when their help is required. Then, the Group Scheduler is used to place volunteers into those positions at those times.

Configuring Group Scheduling

There are two critical pieces of the puzzle you need before starting to schedule volunteers. It’s simple to get these pieces because when it comes to asking for help, people are hardwired to know when and where they are needed. So, we are going to make sure our Named Locations and Schedules are configured.

Be sure to check out the Check-In user guide for more detail about adding locations. For Group Scheduler, however, you will be adding more than rooms. Perhaps you’ll be adding sections, areas or positions. These might be used to schedule specific areas of your lobby for the greeters to be stationed. Or, if you’ll be using Rock to schedule your band and technical teams, add a location named ‘Audio’ or ‘Piano’ and change the location type to be a position.

Adding Location Types
Location Types (Campus, Building, Room, etc.) are Defined Types. To add more, open the Defined Type Location Type associated with the Location category and click the ti ti-circle-plus button.  

Next up: schedules, also known as times. This is found in Admin Tools > Settings > General > Schedules. You should have a few parent groups for different types of schedules. For group scheduling, we want to make sure the times are accurate since, you guessed it, location and time are critical aspects of scheduling volunteers.

One Schedule
It is best practice to have one schedule for each time. If you have multiple sites with the same start times, you will only need one schedule for that time.

Lastly, make sure scheduling is enabled on the Group Type. Navigate to Admin Tools > Settings > General > Group Types > Serving Team | Scheduling. There are additional settings you can configure for your organization. To enable, turn on the Enable Scheduling switch in the Scheduling section as pictured below.

Changing Schedule Confirmation Behavior
Keeping in mind it should happen rarely, use caution when changing the Schedule Confirmation Behavior setting. In some scenarios, changing this setting could result in a person who is not confirmed receiving a confirmation email with only a Decline button and no way to Accept the assignment. This typically happens when changing from Ask to Auto Accept before the person receives their confirmation email.  

In the Group Type configuration pictured above, note the Schedule Confirmation Communication and Schedule Reminder Communication settings. These communications can be sent via email or SMS messaging.

To send these as SMS messages you'll need to be sure to have SMS messaging configured (see the Communication guide for details) and the person needs to have an SMS enabled phone number. You'll also need to make sure the System Communications for these are configured for SMS. With all that in place, the communication medium will be decided based on the person's group member communication preference or, if not specified there, the person's personal profile communication preference.

Set Up Each Group

We're almost to the fun part. The Group Scheduler requires some information from the group before it’s ready. In the Group Viewer, add Meeting Details for every location that needs assigned people. This might be a pretty long list for some groups like the list we see in the screenshot below.

At the end of the day, the goal for this page is to have separation and customization for each group. You can break your groups up any way that works best for your flow of work. We recommend that you do some planning before jumping in and creating groups so you can maximize the effectiveness of this feature for your staff.

Meeting Details

Click on the ti ti-circle-plus icon in the Meeting Details tab.

This opens a window to add a new location. The properties include Location, Type, and Schedule(s).

You can select multiple schedules (i.e., service times) just by clicking on them one by one. Make sure you use the same schedule for every group in the meeting details. This will avoid scheduling conflicts. More properties can be selected to add the minimum, desired and maximum people needed for that room and its times.

You have the option to choose different capacities for each time. The Group Location screen pictured above is where all those details are customized. Each schedule gets its own set of three numbers, and each one does a different job.

Minimum Capacity - Sets the floor for the slot. Rock uses the higher of Minimum and Desired when it tells volunteers how many people are still needed.

Desired Capacity - Tells the Auto Scheduler how many people to schedule. It fills the slot up to this number and stops.

Maximum Capacity - Caps the slot. Once it is reached, no one else can be scheduled or sign up for that time.

Auto Scheduler Needs a Desired Capacity
Leave Desired Capacity blank and the Auto Scheduler skips that location and schedule entirely. If Auto Scheduler seems to do nothing for a group, check this setting first.

When it's complete, you shouldn’t have to do anything in the meeting details again until your organization opens more rooms or adds times.

Members
It’s best practice for your volunteers to be members in the group to appear on the people list in the Group Scheduler, although there are other ways to search for people in the Group Scheduler. We’ll discuss that later.

Next, you'll need to set up the group's Scheduling options. Even though scheduling is enabled at the Group Type level, there are settings you can control for each group individually.

Setting up Permissions
You'll want to be sure that the right people have the proper permissions to access and manage groups. We have all the info you need on how group security works for both group leaders and staff in the Securing Groups article.