Overview

The short version:

• An opportunity is the thing people are approved for. Shifts, hours and communication all hang off it.
• A category groups related opportunities together, and gives you one place to see across all of them.

People are assigned to opportunities, never to categories. They are connected to a category only through the opportunities inside it, and that single rule explains most of the confusion between the two.

1. What does an opportunity do?

It is the unit of work, and it carries the three things that make a program run:

• Scheduling. Dates, times and shifts.
• Hour tracking. The hours people contribute against it.
• Communication. Messages and updates to the people on it.

Approval also happens here. Somebody is approved for an opportunity, and that is what lets them see and reserve its shifts.

2. What does a category do?

It groups opportunities, and it has its own Category Dashboard with three tabs:

• Opportunities. Every opportunity in the category, with counts of how many are active, draft and inactive.
• Schedule. The shifts across the whole category in one calendar, rather than opening each opportunity separately.
• Reports. Your reports pre-filtered to that category.

From the same dashboard you can copy the category's public link, edit the category, and add a new opportunity straight into it.

Categories also shape what the public sees, because they organize how your opportunities are presented on your organization page.

3. Can I assign someone to a category?

No. There is no such thing as being assigned to a category.

If you want somebody involved in everything under a category, you assign them to the opportunities within it. This trips people up when they expect one assignment to cover a whole program.

4. How should I decide what becomes a category?

Ask whether you would ever want to report on the group as a whole, or show it as one thing to the public. If yes, it is a category.

A food bank might have a Warehouse category holding sorting, packing and loading opportunities. Each is scheduled and staffed separately, but the board only wants one number for the warehouse.

The common mistake is the reverse: creating a category per event, which leaves you with dozens of categories holding one opportunity each and no useful grouping at all.

5. Do I have to use categories?

Every opportunity belongs to one, so in practice yes. The real question is how coarse or fine to make them, and coarser is usually better than one per event.

Summary

• Opportunities hold scheduling, hour tracking, communication and approval.
• Categories group opportunities and have a dashboard with Opportunities, Schedule and Reports tabs.
• People are assigned to opportunities only, and reach a category through them.
• Make a category when you would want to report on the group or present it publicly as one thing.
• Avoid one category per event, since it defeats the grouping.

Where to go next

• How do I create a new category?
• Do I need to create a category if my opportunity is for a one-time event?