What to Do If You Have to Cancel an Event

It is never ideal when you have to cancel a volunteer event. However, we understand that sometimes it is inevitable and CERVIS has many features that allow you to easily update the event and communicate the changes to your volunteers. See the steps below to cancel an event in CERVIS. 

Step 1 - Mark Event As Canceled 

In order to prevent new registrations on the canceled event, you’ll want to change the “Show on Web Registration Page” setting to “Yes - Canceled”. This will also display the event as canceled to volunteers who are viewing the event online.

Follow the steps below to mark the event as canceled: 

1. Login to your CERVIS account.
2. Click on the "Search/Manage Existing Events" link under the "Event/Project Management" section of the Main Dashboard.
3. Locate the event in question in the list of events in the bottom section of the page and click on the “Update/Edit Event” icon ().
4. Locate the “Show on Web Registration Page” setting near the bottom of the page and change it to “Yes - Canceled”.
5. Click the “Update Event / Project” button to save your changes.

Step 2 - Notify Your Volunteers

You will need to notify your volunteers of the cancellation. CERVIS does not automatically send a message when you change the status of an event. 

You can email all of the volunteers registered for a particular event by following the steps below:

1. Login to your CERVIS account.
2. Click on the "Search/Manage Existing Events" link under the "Event/Project Management" section of the Main Dashboard.
3. Locate the event in question in the list of events in the bottom section of the page and click on the “Register Volunteers/Groups” icon ().
4. Select all registered volunteers by clicking the checkbox in the heading.
5. Click the “Send E-mail to Selected” button.
6. Select the options you desire and fill out the email subject and body.
7. Click the "Send E-mail" button.
8. Click the "OK" button to confirm your E-mail message.

If you have SMS/text messaging enabled in your system*, you could also send a text out to those volunteers by following the steps below:

1. Follow steps 1 through 4 above.
2. Click the “Manage Selected Volunteers” button.
3. You will be taken to the Volunteer Management menu with the volunteers displayed there. Select them all by clicking the checkbox in the heading. 
4. Click the “Display Additional Options” link at the bottom of the page. 
5. Click the “Send SMS / Text Message” button.
6. Compose your message and click the “Send SMS” button.

Step 3 - Unregister Volunteers

When volunteers are registered for an event, they will automatically receive the default number of credit hours assigned to that event. So to make it so that they don’t receive the credit for the canceled event, you will need to unregister all of the volunteers. 

Follow the steps below to unregister the volunteers from this event: 

1. Login to your CERVIS account.
2. Click on the "Search/Manage Existing Events" link under the "Event/Project Management" section of the Main Dashboard.
3. Locate the event in question in the list of events in the bottom section of the page and click on the “Register Volunteers/Groups” icon ().
4. Select all registered volunteers by clicking the checkbox in the heading.
5. Click the “Unregister Selected” button. 
6. Confirm that you would like to unregister all of the volunteers from this event.

Optional Step 4 - Close Event

By setting the “Show on Web Registration Page” status to “Yes - Canceled” as discussed in step 1, the event will still be visible to your volunteers but will not allow them to register. You may want to leave the event listed this way so that potential volunteers can see that this event has been canceled. The system will close the event and archive it after the end time has passed, just like any other events, so that your volunteers can no longer see it and it will be archived on the admin side as well. 

On the other hand, if you don’t need potential volunteers to see that the event has been canceled, you can remove it from their view by closing it manually. 

Follow the steps below to close the event: 

1. Login to your CERVIS account.
2. Click on the "Search/Manage Existing Events" link under the "Event/Project Management" section of the Main Dashboard.
3. Locate the event in question in the list of events in the bottom section of the page and click on the “Update/Edit Event” icon ().
4. Locate the “Event Status” setting at the bottom of the page and change it to “Closed”.
5. Click the “Update Event / Project” button to save your changes.

*If you do not currently have SMS/text messaging enabled in your system, please see our knowledge base article linked HERE for information about how to set it up.