Volunteer Sign Up Sheets – Waitlists

Volunteer Sign Up Sheets Waitlists Extension

Never turn away a willing volunteer again. The Waitlists extension adds fully automated waitlist management to your Volunteer Sign Up Sheets. When tasks fill up, volunteers can join a waitlist and be automatically signed up — or notified with a timed offer — the moment a spot opens.

What’s New in Version 2.0

How It Works

1. Create your waitlist email templates on the Sign-up Sheets → Email Templates page — one for confirmations, one for open-spot notifications, and optionally one for chair/admin alerts.
2. Create a Waitlist template under Sign-up Sheets → Waitlists, setting the number of slots, cutoff days, expiration time, and which emails to send.
3. Assign the Waitlist template to a sheet (all tasks) or to individual tasks (overrides the sheet setting). Each task/date combination gets its own independent waitlist.

Key Features

• Automatic or Manual Sign-Up: Choose whether the next eligible person on the waitlist is signed up automatically, or notified by email and given a set number of hours to claim the spot before it moves to the next person.
• Quantity-Aware Matching: When tasks use volunteer quantities, only waitlist signups requesting a quantity equal to or less than the cleared spots are eligible — so spots are never over-filled.
• Unlimited Waitlist Templates: Create as many templates as you need with different slot counts, cutoff days, expiration windows, and email configurations. Assign any template to any sheet or task.
• Per-Task, Per-Date Waitlists: Every combination of task and date gets its own independent waitlist, so filling one date never affects another.
• Flexible Email Notifications: Enable or disable individually: signup confirmation to the volunteer, open-spot notification to the next person on the list, and alerts to the sheet chair and/or site admin.
• Timed Expiration: When not using Auto Signup, set an expiration window (in hours). If the notified volunteer doesn’t claim the spot in time, the waitlist automatically moves to the next eligible person.
• Cutoff Days: Stop accepting new waitlist signups a configurable number of days before the task date, just like the main plugin’s signup cutoff.
• Validation System Integration: Works with the main plugin’s email validation system — volunteers without a WordPress account can view and clear their waitlist signups, or claim an open spot, via secure encoded email links or the validation form.
• Waitlist Signup Rows: Waitlist signups can appear below the regular signup list on the sheet, with configurable background color, text color, text style, and additional label text to distinguish them clearly.
• Custom Fields Support: Works with the Custom Fields extension — custom field data collected at waitlist signup is transferred automatically when a volunteer is moved to the main signup list.
• Customizer Compatible: Works with custom layout templates from the Customizer extension.
• Automatic Cleanup: CRON tasks automatically remove expired waitlist signups, process open-spot notifications, and clean up old waitlist data following the main plugin’s cleanup settings.
• Configurable Public Text: Nearly all user-facing text — messages, link labels, form headings — is editable directly in the plugin settings without touching any code.

Extend Further with Add-ons

The Waitlists extension is part of the Volunteer Sign Up Sheets ecosystem:

• Volunteer Sign Up Sheets — The core plugin (required)
• Calendar Display — Show events in a beautiful calendar format
• Custom Fields — Add custom fields to sheets, tasks, or signup forms
• Customizer — Customize text, colors, and create custom layout templates
• Groups — Organize sheets by category with optional BuddyPress integration
• Mailchimp — Mailing list opt-in during signup
• Automated Emails — Triggered and conditional email campaigns

View Full Documentation →

Admin Screenshots:

Public Screenshots: