Plan a Recurring Series

Goal: Stand up a repeating opportunity — a weekly build day, monthly orientation, biweekly Store donation pickup — without manually re-creating it each time.

When to use a series

• Regular cadence work (every Saturday on the current build site)
• Recurring orientation or training sessions
• Standing volunteer hours at the ReStore

For opportunities that cluster but don't repeat on a strict cadence, you'll get more flexibility from creating each one individually.

How a series is structured

A series is a parent opportunity with a recurrence rule (frequency, interval, end condition) and generated occurrences — one opportunity record per date. Each occurrence is editable on its own, and registrations live on the occurrence, not the series.

This means:

• Volunteers register for a specific date, not "the series"
• You can edit one occurrence (e.g., change the location for next Saturday only) without affecting the rest
• You can edit the whole series — its schedule, length, and cadence — from the series view

Each generated occurrence starts as a full copy of the series — including its slot types and shifts, so every date offers the same roles and times as the one you set up. If you add or rename slots or shifts later, use Edit All on the series to push the change to every date; editing a single occurrence changes only that date.

Volunteers already registered keep their slot and shift through an Edit All, and they still count toward its limit. A slot or shift that people are signed up for can't be removed or renamed. The message lists the dates that still have volunteers on it. Move them first, or start the edit from a later date and choose This and future so that dates already staffed are left alone. See Manage Registrations.

:::note An occurrence with no slots or shifts set up If a date's Add Volunteer window says the opportunity uses slot types or shifts but none are set up, you can still add the volunteer — they're registered for the date without one. To restore the picker, edit the series (Edit All) and re-save its slots or shifts. :::

Two rules keep the schedule sensible:

• A recurring occurrence is a single day. When you edit one occurrence, its start and end stay on the same calendar day. (A one-off opportunity can still span multiple days — that limit only applies to occurrences in a series.)
• The cadence belongs to the whole series. Frequency, days of the week, and how long the series runs are set for the series, not for one occurrence. On a single occurrence you'll see the schedule shown read-only with a Manage the whole series link.

Configure the recurrence

When creating the opportunity, switch the schedule type to recurring and set:

• Frequency (daily, weekly, monthly)
• Interval (every 1 week, every 2 weeks, etc.)
• End condition (after N occurrences, until a specific date, or no end date)

Generate the instances. They'll appear in the opportunities list as a connected series.

:::note A series can span at most one year To prevent accidental decade-long schedules (a single mistyped end-date year can otherwise generate thousands of occurrences), a series can run at most one year from its start date to its end date. The end-date picker won't let you choose a date beyond that window. This is plenty for a standing program — when the year is up, just extend the series to keep it going. :::

Editing one occurrence vs. the whole series

There are two editing surfaces, and they do different things:

Edit this occurrence — open a single opportunity and use Manage Opportunity. You can change its name, location, capacity, slots/shifts, and its date and time (kept within one day). You can't change the cadence here; the schedule shows read-only with a link to manage the series.

Edit all (the series) — from a recurring opportunity, open the Recurring Series panel. There you can:

• Edit All — bulk-update shared fields (name, description, location, capacity, visibility, and optionally the time of day) across every occurrence, choosing the scope (this-and-future or all). The visibility settings here include Show who's signed up, so you can publish or hide the registrant list for the whole standing program in one edit rather than per date. New occurrences added later inherit whatever the series is set to — see Show who's signed up.
• Extend — add more occurrences to a series that's running short (see below).
• Change Cadence — change the frequency, days, interval, or length (see below).

When you use Edit All, choose the scope deliberately. Past occurrences usually shouldn't change because their hours and registrations are already settled.

Move between dates in a series

The Recurring Series panel lists the series' dates five at a time. It opens on the page that has the date you're viewing, which is outlined. Use the arrows under the list to see earlier or later dates. Click any other date to open it, where you can manage its registrations or edit that date alone.

Sign volunteers up for an occurrence

You don't have to open each date's opportunity to add a volunteer. From the Recurring Series panel, every upcoming occurrence has an add-volunteer button (the person-plus icon) next to it:

1. Open the recurring opportunity and find the Recurring Series panel.
2. On the upcoming occurrence you want, click the add-volunteer icon.
3. Search for an existing person or create a new one, then confirm their slot or shift (if the occurrence uses them), hour purpose, and any notes.
4. Save. The volunteer is registered and approved for that specific date, and the occurrence's registered count updates in the list.

Because registrations live on the occurrence, signing someone up here affects only that date — not the rest of the series. This is the fastest way to hand-add walk-ins or phone-in sign-ups for a future date in a standing program.

Extend a series that's running out

If a series was created for too short a window and is about to end (or already ended), you don't need to recreate it — extend it:

1. Open the recurring opportunity and find the Recurring Series panel.
2. Click Extend.
3. Depending on how the series ends, either pick a new end date or add a number of occurrences.
4. Save. New occurrences are added from after the last one forward. Existing occurrences and their registrations are untouched.

You can extend a date-based series by up to one year at a time. For a longer-running program, just extend again once those occurrences are on the calendar.

Change the cadence

To change how often the series repeats (for example, from weekly Wednesdays to Mondays and Fridays, or to a different end date):

1. Open the Recurring Series panel and click Change Cadence.
2. Set the new pattern — frequency, interval, days of the week, and end condition.
3. Save.

Upcoming occurrences with no one signed up are regenerated to match the new pattern. Any upcoming occurrence that already has registered volunteers or logged hours is kept so no one loses their spot, and past occurrences are never changed. The confirmation tells you how many occurrences were added, removed, and kept.

Cancelling occurrences

If one occurrence is cancelled (weather, holiday), cancel just that occurrence. The rest of the series continues.

When you cancel an occurrence that belongs to a series, you choose a scope:

Scope	What it removes
This instance only	Just the occurrence you're looking at.
This & all future instances	This occurrence and every later one in the series.
Entire series	Every occurrence, past and future.

The confirmation shows exactly how many occurrences each scope would delete before you commit, so check the number next to Entire series — on a year-long series that can be well over a hundred occurrences.

warning

Cancelling is permanent. There is no undo.

Occurrences with volunteers can't be cancelled

An occurrence that has registered volunteers or logged hours is never deleted — those records would be lost with it. Omnivo keeps it and tells you so:

• If your cancellation removed some occurrences and kept others, the confirmation names both counts.
• If every occurrence you selected has volunteers or hours, nothing is cancelled and you'll see a message saying so.

To take one of these off the schedule, archive it instead. Archiving hides the opportunity from the schedule and list views while keeping its registrations and hours intact, and it can be undone. If you genuinely need to delete it, remove the registrations first — but only when those sign-ups are themselves a mistake.

Attendance and reporting

Reports treat each instance as its own opportunity. If you need to compare a series across time (e.g., "how is Saturday attendance trending?") use the engagement reports filtered by opportunity series.