Communications

The Communications module enables two forms of messaging between event staff and volunteers: broadcasts (one-to-many announcements) and direct messages (threaded conversations). Both are available when the Communications module is active for the event.

Broadcasts

Broadcasts are messages sent to all enrolled volunteers or a filtered subset. They are delivered as email and/or in-app notifications, depending on each volunteer's notification preferences.

Navigate to Broadcasts within the event to manage them.

Sending a broadcast

1. Click New Broadcast
2. Write the subject and body
3. Optionally filter recipients — for example, send only to volunteers who have arrived, or only to volunteers enrolled in a specific shift type
4. Choose delivery: Send now or Schedule for a specific date and time
5. Confirm — scheduled broadcasts appear in the list with their pending status

Scheduling a broadcast

Scheduled broadcasts are queued and dispatched by the background worker at the configured time. You can cancel a scheduled broadcast before it fires by clicking Cancel on the pending broadcast in the list.

Use scheduling for:

• Shift reminders sent the evening before the event
• Morning briefing messages on event day
• Post-event thank-you messages

Broadcast status

Status	Meaning
Scheduled	Queued, not yet sent
Sending	Currently being dispatched to recipients
Sent	Delivered to all recipients
Cancelled	Cancelled before dispatch

Area Lead broadcast scope

Area Leads can send broadcasts, but only to their own volunteer type(s) — there is no "all participants" option for them. Recipients are automatically restricted to enrolled volunteers who are members of the volunteer type(s) the Area Lead is scoped to manage. This applies to both the recipient preview count and the actual send, so the two always match. An Area Lead with no assigned volunteer type scope cannot send a broadcast at all. If a wider audience is needed, ask a Volunteer Coordinator to send it — Volunteer Coordinators and above keep full, unrestricted targeting including all participants. The broadcast composer also visibly disables the checkbox for any volunteer type outside an Area Lead's scope, not just the "all participants" option.

Direct messages

Direct messages allow one-on-one or small-group threaded conversations between staff and volunteers. Accessible at Messages within the event, and at /events/[slug]/messages.

Starting a conversation

Click New Message, search for the volunteer by name, and send your first message. The volunteer receives an in-app notification and (if enabled) an email notification.

The recipient picker shows each participant's preferred display name in parentheses alongside their full name, and search matches either name.

Reply threads

All replies to a conversation are grouped in a single thread. Both parties can reply at any time. Staff members with the communications:manage permission can see and participate in all threads for the event. The thread list and conversation header also show each participant's preferred display name alongside their full name.

Volunteer perspective

Volunteers access their messages from the same /events/[slug]/messages path. They see only threads they are part of. They cannot initiate a conversation with other volunteers — only with staff.

Questions & FAQ

Volunteers can submit questions on the Questions tab. Staff answer submitted questions from the same tab and can optionally promote an answer to the public FAQ tab. Staff can also create FAQ entries directly on the FAQ tab using Add FAQ entry, without waiting for a volunteer to submit a question first. The "asked by" column on the staff Questions table shows each volunteer's preferred display name alongside their full name.