When running the auto-scheduler, harness the powerful options available to fill just particular ministries or service times instead of all open positions at once. If you have some ministries that are filled manually, or scheduled by another person, the auto-scheduler controls make it easy to manage what positions get filled in and at what time.
To auto-schedule just particular ministries or service times:
- From the Schedules pane in MSP create your new schedule.
- Click the "Commence Scheduling..." button and stop at the pop-up window that appears. In this window, MSP is asking: "Which positions do you want to auto-fill right now?"
- Click the "Show more options..." button in the lower left of this dialog to see all options. The second option says, "All empty positions in just particular ministries..." and other options allow you to specify service times, or even just selected days or positions.
NOTES: You or another scheduler can click the "Commence Scheduling..." button later to fill in other ministries or service times. The auto-scheduler will only ever fill empty positions, and will never re-distribute positions that have already been filled.
Keep in mind that once the auto-scheduler has been run for any ministries, volunteers will no longer be able to add can't serve times that fall during the date range of that schedule unless we turn on the ability for volunteers to add can't serve times to dates that have already been scheduled.