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Tracking volunteer credits

After the shifts happen: recording who showed up, seeing where each family stands, and counting work done outside a scheduled shift.

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Recording what actually happened

A signup reserves the family’s spot; it does not earn credit by itself. Credit is earned only after the shift is completed, so future commitments never appear as work already performed.

Choose whether completed shifts are confirmed by a coordinator or closed automatically after a grace period. Go to Admin › Volunteer Policy, open the Requirements & roles tab, and pick one of three under Tracking credits:

homeschoolgo.app/dashboard/admin/volunteer?view=attendance
The Attendance tab lists past shifts. Mark complete is the step that gives credit when your co-op confirms shifts by hand.

Off

Where every co-op starts. HomeschoolGo doesn’t add credit for shifts at all, and the Attendance tab has nothing to work through. Signups, reminders and the schedule all work as usual. Pick this if your co-op keeps track of completed shifts somewhere else, such as its own spreadsheet.

Credit volunteers automatically after each shift

Shifts close themselves out once they are over, with no action from you. A second dropdown sets how long to wait first, anywhere from as soon as the shift ends to a week after it, which is your window to record a no-show. This is the right choice for most co-ops: you record the exceptions and leave the rest alone.

Only credit shifts a coordinator marks complete

Every shift waits for somebody to confirm it. Use this when attendance genuinely has to be checked, and expect to work the queue. Families are told on their own Volunteer page which of their shifts are still waiting on you.

Either of the two on settings fills the Attendance tab. It lists shifts that have already happened, with the people from each one who are still waiting on a decision and two buttons next to every name. Mark complete confirms the shift and adds its credit. No-show records that the person didn’t come, so no credit is added. Once everyone on a shift has an outcome, the shift drops off the list, and a count at the top shows how many are left to review. In automatic mode you only need to step in for the exceptions, before the waiting period runs out.

Below that, a Credit history card lists every credit for the term: completed shifts and any adjustments you made by hand. Search it by family or reason to answer “where did this number come from?” If a decision needs correcting after the fact, use Adjust credits on the Requirements & roles tab.

Note: Turning tracking off later doesn’t erase credit families have already earned, but shifts stop adding new credit until you turn it back on.

Tracking family compliance

The Credit report tab on the Volunteer page (also under Admin › Reports as Volunteer credits) shows each family’s credits for the term against the requirement. Earned credits come from completed shifts and anything you added or took away by hand. Shifts a family has signed up for but not yet worked are listed separately, because they aren’t earned until the shift is done.

Each family gets one status: Met (earned the requirement), On track (not there yet, but their booked shifts would get them there), Short (still short even counting what they’ve booked, with how many more they need), or Exempt. The list opens with the families who need a nudge first. Filter by status or search by name to narrow it. The report is available on every plan.

When any family is short, a note above the list says how many still need to book shifts, with a Draft reminder button. It opens a new email under Communications, addressed to those families only (exempt families are left out), with a short starter subject and message you can edit. Nothing is sent until you review it and send it yourself.

To have these reminders go out on their own, pick a schedule under Settings › Programs › Volunteer credit reminders: monthly on the 1st, or twice a term (halfway through, and three weeks before it ends). It is off until you choose one. Each email shows the family’s credits earned and booked against what they owe, with a link to open shifts. Only families who are still short get one, using their own number (custom amounts and staff exemptions count), and only while the term has open shifts and awards credits for completed shifts. Nothing goes out in a term’s first two weeks, and a family gets at most one every two weeks. Members can switch these emails off in their notification settings, and every send shows up in the Email page’s System emails log.

Open shifts can also show up on your admin dashboard. Go to Settings › Programs, find the Volunteer shift alerts card under Volunteers, and tick Alert admins about volunteer shifts that still need people. It is off until you turn it on. Once on, the Needs your attention list at the top of the admin dashboard, and the count next to Admin Dashboard in the sidebar, include how many shifts in the next 7 days still have open spots. Only shifts in terms you have opened count, and families never see it.

Signups are a separate question from credits, and worth checking on their own. The Schedule tab lists each upcoming shift with a fill badge and the names of everyone signed up, which tells you who has committed to what before the shift happens rather than after.

A weekly schedule for teachers

Teachers often want to know which parents are helping in the coming week. Click Print weekly schedule at the top of the Schedule tab. It opens a page in a new tab with every volunteer shift for one week, Monday through Sunday, grouped by day. Each shift shows its time, role, location, who has signed up, and how many spots are still open. Use the previous and next week links to move between weeks, then click Print / Save as PDF to print it or save a PDF you can email to your teachers. Like the per-shift check-in sheet, it shows the signups as they stand when you open it.

Tip: Check the shift signup lists mid-term, not just at the end. Families who haven’t signed up for anything yet still have time to fix that if you flag it early.
Note: The Families directory shows a volunteer badge on families who are behind on credits, which is a quick read on the room without opening a report. Exempt families are left off it entirely.
Note: For one shift, the Print and CSV buttons in its Manage volunteers dialog are the quickest way out. There is no report that exports every signup at once, but the co-op backup ZIP under Admin › Settings › Data includes a full raw export of every family’s shift signups.

Off-schedule contributions

Not every volunteer contribution fits a scheduled shift. A family might drop off supplies, host a field trip, or pitch in some other way you want to recognize. The Adjust credits panel on the Requirements & roles tab handles those directly. Pick the family, enter how many credits, and write a short reason.

Write the reason for the family, not for your records. They read it word for word on their own credit history, so “Baked for the fall fundraiser” tells them why their total moved, while “misc” does not.

Entering a negative number takes credits back, which is how you undo a mistake. Nothing is ever deleted. A correction adds a second line rather than rewriting the first, so what the family sees stays an honest account of what happened.

Note: The panel only appears once credit tracking is on for the term. With tracking off, a family’s total is exactly the shifts they have claimed and there is nothing to adjust by hand.