Volunteer Hours in Bulk

You have a stack of paper sign-in sheets from Saturday's park cleanup, or a spreadsheet a partner site sent over, and you need all of it in BetterUnite without opening 60 volunteer records one at a time.

BetterUnite does not read volunteer hours out of an uploaded spreadsheet. Hours live on the volunteer's shift record, so the bulk workflow is to get everyone onto the shift, then set their times or credited hours for the whole group in one action from the Engagement list. This article walks through that, plus the two ways to add volunteers to a shift in batches, and it clears up which BetterUnite importer does take a pasted file.

Before you start

Volunteer Management is part of the Volunteer Pro Plan. If you do not see it in your left navigation, it is not on your account yet.
You need the Review Hours access right. Without it the Edit hours button does not appear, even though you can still see the Engagement list.
Every volunteer has to exist as a contact and be signed up for a volunteer sign-up page. Hours attach to a shift, not to a contact on their own.
All times you type are read in your organization's time zone, which is set in Settings. The Engagement filters and the bulk edit window both label the zone they are using.

Set hours for a group from the Engagement list

This is the main bulk tool. It changes hours on volunteers who are already on a shift.

1. Open the Engagement list

Go to Volunteer Management, then Review, then Engagement. This is the default view, so it is usually already on screen. Each row is one volunteer on one shift.

2. Filter down to the people you are crediting

Click Filter to open the filter panel. Narrow by sign-up page, by date range, by keyword, or by a single volunteer's name. Filter tightly before you select anything: bulk edit applies the same times or the same hours to every row you tick, so the list should contain only people who served the same shift.

3. Select the rows

Tick the checkbox on each row. The checkbox in the column header selects every row currently listed, so if your results run across several pages, work one page at a time or widen the page size first. A bar appears above the list showing how many are selected, with Edit hours and Clear selection.

4. Choose what to set

Click Edit hours and pick one of two options.

Check-in and check-out times. Enter a start time, an end time, or both. Use this when everyone worked the same window, for example a shift that ran 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. BetterUnite works out each volunteer's credited hours from those times.
Credited hours. Enter a single number of hours, from 0 to 24, in quarter-hour steps. Type 3.5 for three and a half hours. Use this when you know the total each person is owed but not the clock times, which is the usual case with a paper sign-in sheet.

5. Apply

Click Apply to selected and confirm. BetterUnite reports how many volunteers it updated and refreshes the list so you can check the new figures in place.

What the bulk edit actually changes

Worth knowing before you run it on 200 rows.

It updates the shift record and the volunteer's most recent time entry. If someone has several time entries on a shift, only the latest one is touched.
Original check-in and check-out times are preserved. The first time you overwrite a time, BetterUnite keeps what the volunteer's own sign-in recorded, so the correction stays auditable.
Setting times recalculates credited hours. The calculation caps credited time to the scheduled shift plus or minus the Credited-time buffer from Settings, then Hours and Sign-in. Someone who signed in an hour early is not credited for that hour unless the buffer allows it.
Setting credited hours does not recalculate anything. The number you type is written straight to the record. Use it when you want the figure to stand exactly as entered.
A volunteer with no time entry gets no credited hours. Their scheduled shift times update, but there is nothing to credit against. Log the shift for them first, using either method in the next section.
It never creates volunteers or shifts. Anyone missing from the list stays missing.

Getting a batch of volunteers onto the shift first

If the people you need to credit are not in the Engagement list at all, add them with one of these, then come back and bulk edit.

Log several shifts for one volunteer at once

From a volunteer's row in the Engagement list, open Manage Shifts. You get a calendar for that person. Click a time slot to assign or log a shift, repeat for every date they served, then Save Changes once. This is the fastest route for a returning volunteer with a month of unrecorded dates, and it is the same calendar you reach from their contact record.

Quick add walk-in volunteers

On the sign-up page's participant list, Quick add takes a name and email, checks for an existing contact so you do not create a duplicate, signs them up for the shift, and can check them in at the same time. Built for people who turn up on the day without registering.

People who are not contacts yet

If a name is not in your account at all, import the people first through the standard contact import, then use Quick add or Manage Shifts to place them on the shift.

A worked example

Saturday's cleanup had 43 volunteers on a paper sign-in sheet. Most stayed the full four hours; six left at lunch.

Filter Engagement to the cleanup sign-up page and Saturday's date. Tick all 43, click Edit hours, choose Credited hours, enter 4, apply. Then clear the selection, tick just the six who left early, and run it again with 2. Two actions instead of 43 records.

After the edit

Approvals. Hours a volunteer logged themselves sit as Pending until someone approves them in Hours Review. Hours an administrator sets through bulk edit are applied directly and do not queue for approval.
What the volunteer sees. Updated totals appear in the volunteer portal, and in the hours summary email you can send from Volunteer Communications.
Proof of service. A volunteer's contact record has a Service transcript that produces a PDF of their logged hours, which is what most court-ordered service and school programs ask for.
Checking your work. The actions menu on the Engagement list offers Export Engagement for row-level detail and Export Engagement Summary By Contact for one total per person.

The importer that does take a pasted file

Volunteer Management has one paste-and-upload importer, and it is easy to mistake it for an hours importer. It is Bulk Import Requirement Status, under Setup, then Requirements. It records what your volunteers already hold, such as a background check cleared last March or an orientation attended in November, so you do not have to enter that history by hand.

It takes comma-separated rows with these columns:

Email,Requirement,Status,Completed,Outcome,Notes

Paste the rows or choose a file, click Preview to see how each line resolves against your contacts and requirements, fix anything flagged, then Import. It will not accept hours, and it has no equivalent for them.

Troubleshooting

WHAT YOU ARE SEEING	WHAT TO DO
No Edit hours button on the selection bar	Your user does not have the Review Hours access right. An account administrator can add it under user privileges.
Some volunteers did not get credited hours	Those volunteers have no time entry on the shift, only a sign-up. Log the shift for them through Manage Shifts, then run the bulk edit again.
Credited hours came out lower than the times you entered	Credited time is capped to the scheduled shift plus or minus the Credited-time buffer. Raise the buffer in Hours and Sign-in settings, or set credited hours directly instead of times.
Times are off by a few hours	Bulk edit reads times in your organization's time zone, not the browser's. Check the zone in Settings.
You selected everyone but only part of the list updated	The header checkbox covers the rows currently listed. Page through the results, or filter to a smaller group and repeat.
The hours field rejects your number	Credited hours accept 0 through 24 in quarter-hour steps. Split a longer stretch across separate shift records.