👥 Availability Matrix

The Availability Matrix gives you a week-at-a-glance view of which volunteers are available each day — before you start assigning slots on the Weekly Rota.

Reading the matrix

• Green ✓ — volunteer has declared themselves available that day
• Red ✕ — volunteer has declared themselves unavailable
• Grey – — not yet declared for that day

Summary cards

Four stat cards at the top show: total volunteers, overall availability rate (%), the busiest day of the week, and how many volunteers have fully declared all 7 days.

Day totals footer

Below the matrix, a count pill shows how many volunteers are available each day — colour-coded green (≥60% of total), amber (≥30%), or red (fewer than 30%).

Daily breakdown cards

Below the matrix, seven daily cards list every volunteer who is available that day by name, plus counts of unavailable and not-declared.

How volunteers declare availability

Volunteers use the [pvl_my_availability] shortcode on the member portal to mark each day as available or unavailable. Admins can see the results here — they cannot edit declarations on behalf of volunteers.

Common questions

Can I edit a volunteer's availability from here?

No — availability is self-declared by volunteers from the member portal. This keeps the rota fair and gives volunteers ownership of their schedule.

What does "Nothing declared" mean on a volunteer's row?

That volunteer has not yet submitted any availability for the selected week. You may want to send them a reminder to log in and fill in their availability.

What is the small grey line under each name?

What that volunteer has actually turned out for over the past year, with how many times, most frequent first. It is there so that a gap on the grid is something you can act on: “nothing declared” tells you nobody has answered, whereas “Bar Steward (14)” tells you who to ring. Only the past year counts — somebody who did the bar three seasons ago is not who you want today — and at most two roles are shown, because a list of everything anybody has ever done is as unreadable as no list at all.

A volunteer has no line under their name.

They have not done a rota duty in the past year. New volunteers will be blank until they have done one.

Why does a day show nobody available when nobody has said they are unavailable?

Because availability is declared, not assumed. Somebody who has said nothing has not agreed to anything, and a rota built on silence puts people down for duties they never accepted — which is the fastest way to lose volunteers. The count is of people who have actually said yes.

The day card says which kind of empty it is: \”3 volunteers have not said yet\” is a reminder waiting to be sent, whereas \”Everybody has declared unavailable\” is a real problem with that day. Until 9.99.230 both read \”No volunteers available\”, which made a chasing job look like a crisis.

How do I navigate to a different week?

Use the ‹ Prev week / Next week › buttons in the hero header. Click This week to jump back to the current week.