Assigning a requirement to a volunteer

Requirements are the things a volunteer has to complete before they can work with you — a signed waiver, a background check, an orientation session, a training module, a document you need on file, or an application you review.

You build requirements once in the Requirements Library (Volunteer Management → Requirements). But a requirement sitting in the library isn't asked of anyone. It has to be attached to reach a volunteer, and there are two ways to do that.

The two ways a requirement reaches a volunteer

Through a sign-up page — everyone who signs up for that page (or for one specific job on it) is asked for the requirement. This is the right choice when the requirement is a condition of the work itself: all drivers need a clean driving record, all youth mentors need a background check.
Directly on one contact — you assign the requirement to a single volunteer, independent of any sign-up page. This is the right choice for onboarding a new volunteer before they've signed up for anything, for a one-off (someone whose certification lapsed), or for anyone you're vetting outside your public pages.

This article covers the second path. For the first, see Adding requirements to a sign-up page.

Assign a requirement to one volunteer

Open the volunteer's contact record.
Go to the Volunteer tab, then the Requirements & Signatures sub-tab.
Click Add Record.
Choose the requirement from the dropdown.
Leave Status on Pending.
Click Save Record.

That's the assignment. The requirement now appears in the volunteer's list, and it shows up in your Requirement Approvals queue under Assigned but not yet completed so it isn't forgotten.

Pending vs. Completed — pick the right one

The Status field is the part people get wrong, and it changes what the record means:

Pending means you are asking the volunteer for this. If the requirement has a document attached, they'll be prompted to sign it in their volunteer portal. Use this when the work still has to happen.
Completed means this is already done and you're recording it. Use this when someone hands you a certificate from last month, or attended an orientation you ran in person. Set the Completed date to the date it actually happened — if the requirement expires after a set number of days, the expiry is calculated from that date.

You can also set a record to Waived when a volunteer is genuinely exempt, and Rejected when what they submitted wasn't acceptable.

Email the volunteer what they still need to sign

Assigning a requirement does not email anyone. The record is created quietly. To tell the volunteer, use the Request Signatures button at the top of the same Requirements & Signatures tab.

This opens a message you can edit before sending. It lists everything that volunteer currently has outstanding and gives them a link to their portal, where they can read and sign each document. The number on the button is how many documents are waiting — if it shows nothing, there's nothing outstanding to send.

Use anywhere in the message to insert the volunteer's first name.

Marking a requirement complete

How a requirement gets completed depends on whether it has a document attached.

Requirements with a document (waivers, releases, anything the volunteer reads and signs) are completed by the volunteer. They open the link from Request Signatures, read the document, and sign it in their portal. If the requirement is set to need admin approval, the signature then lands in Requirement Approvals under Awaiting your approval, where you approve or reject it. We capture the signed name, the date and time, the IP address and a hash of the document as signed, as the audit trail.

Requirements with nothing to sign — Training, Orientation, and similar — can only ever be marked off by you, because there's no signature to collect. Once the volunteer has done it:

Open the record's … menu on the volunteer's Requirements & Signatures tab and choose Mark complete, or
Find it in Requirement Approvals under Assigned but not yet completed and click Mark complete there.

Use Edit on the record instead if you need to backdate the completion or add notes.

Requirements a volunteer picked up from a sign-up page

If a volunteer signed up for a page that requires something, that requirement appears on their Requirements & Signatures tab tagged Assigned. It works the same as one you added by hand: you can mark it complete, or edit it to record a completion date and notes.

Tracking everything in one place

Working volunteer by volunteer gets slow once you have more than a handful. Volunteer Management → Requirement Approvals gives you every outstanding requirement across your whole account in two lists:

Awaiting your approval — documents volunteers have signed that need your review. These are the ones actually blocking someone.
Assigned but not yet completed — everything still outstanding. Document-based requirements sit here waiting on the volunteer's signature; Training and Orientation are marked complete from this list.

Good to know

Requirements can expire. If you set a validity window on the requirement (say 365 days), a completed record expires that many days after its completion date and the volunteer is asked for it again. Leave it as Permanent if it never needs renewing.
Completing a requirement twice keeps the history. Re-signing an expired waiver creates a fresh record rather than overwriting the old one, so you keep the full renewal trail.
Deactivating a requirement doesn't delete records. Deactivating it in the library stops it being assigned going forward; everything already recorded against volunteers stays intact.
Applications work differently. An Application-type requirement is a custom form plus a review step, and submissions land in the Applications tab rather than here. See Volunteer applications and the approval workflow.