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Plans Overview

The Plans Overview gives you a bird's-eye view of all your volunteer assignments across multiple service dates at once. Instead of opening each plan individually, you can see who is serving in every position across upcoming weeks in a single grid — and quickly spot any gaps that still need to be filled.

Before You Begin

  • Create at least one Ministry and Plan Type in the Serving area
  • Create service plans with dates and volunteer assignments
  • Ensure your volunteers have been added to your people directory

Accessing the Overview​

  1. In B1 Admin, open the Jump menu (the search bar at the top-left), expand Serving, and click Plans.
  2. Select a ministry tab at the top of the page.
  3. Click Overview next to the plan type in the Plan Types list, or open the plan type and click Overview at the top of the page.

The overview covers the plan type you opened it from. Click the plan type's name at the top of the overview to go back to its plan list.

Reading the Overview Grid​

The overview displays a grid where:

  • Rows represent each position (e.g., "Music: Guitar", "Tech: Projection") grouped by category
  • Columns represent upcoming service dates (e.g., "Apr 14", "Apr 21")
  • Cells show the name of the volunteer assigned to that position on that date

Cells highlighted in red are unfilled — no volunteer has been assigned yet. This makes it easy to see staffing gaps at a glance without opening each plan individually.

tip

Volunteer names are shown in a shortened format (first name and last initial, e.g., "John D.") to keep the grid compact when you have many positions.

Assigning Volunteers Directly from the Overview​

You do not need to open individual plans to fill empty slots. Click any cell in the grid to open an assignment panel for that position and date. From there you can:

  • Select a person from your team to assign to the position
  • Click Remove next to anyone already assigned to pull them off that slot
  • Save the change without leaving the overview

This makes it possible to staff an entire schedule in one pass — work across weeks and positions without navigating in and out of individual plans.

Auto-Scheduling from the Overview​

Click Auto-schedule to have B1 fill every open, unfilled slot in the current grid at once. For each plan in view, it pulls candidates from the group linked to each position and fills empty slots automatically, reporting how many of the visible plans it was able to fill. Plans are filled one at a time so the same volunteer isn't double-booked across two dates in the same pass.

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Auto-schedule only fills slots that are already empty — it never replaces an existing assignment.

Emailing Everyone Scheduled​

Click Email Volunteers to send a notification to every volunteer assigned anywhere in the currently filtered date range and ministry, in one action, rather than emailing plan-by-plan. B1 reports how many emails were sent and how many failed.

Texting Everyone Scheduled​

If your church has a texting provider connected and you can both edit plans and send texts, a Text Volunteers button appears at the top of the overview.

  1. Click Text Volunteers.
  2. The dialog shows how many volunteers will receive the text (for example, "12 of 14 volunteers will receive this text"), plus how many have opted out of texts and how many have no phone number on file.
  3. Type your Message. You can click a placeholder to insert each volunteer's name or your church name.
  4. Click Send. B1 reports how many texts were sent.

Each volunteer assigned in the date range gets one text at the mobile number on their profile, even if they serve on several dates. People who share a phone number (such as a family phone) get only one text. Volunteers who replied STOP to an earlier text are skipped.

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Texts are sent through your church's own texting provider, so its pricing applies. If your church is out of texting credits, sending stops and the dialog tells you. A single send reaches at most 200 volunteers; narrow the date range if you have more.

Highlighting a Volunteer's Schedule​

Use the Highlight dropdown to pick a person from your team — every cell where they're assigned is called out in the grid, so you can see everywhere they're already serving before adding them to another slot. Choose Everyone to turn the highlight off.

Filtering the Overview​

You can adjust what the overview shows using the controls above the grid. The grid updates as soon as you change them.

  • All positions / Unfilled only — Choose Unfilled only to hide rows where every date is already filled, so you can focus only on positions that still need a volunteer.
  • Start Date / End Date — By default the overview shows 12 weeks into the future. Enter custom dates to expand or narrow the range.

Exporting to CSV​

Click Export CSV to download the current grid as a spreadsheet. The export includes all positions and volunteer assignments for the filtered date range, making it easy to share with ministry leaders or print for planning meetings.

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The CSV export reflects whatever filters are currently applied — only the dates and plan type shown in the grid are included in the download.