VBS
Check Your VBS Is Ready to Open
The short list to work through before you send families the link — and the one rehearsal that catches most mistakes.
Registration is the one part of VBS you cannot quietly redo. Once a hundred families have filled in your form, changing what it asks means chasing the answers you did not collect. Twenty minutes here saves that.
Tip
How VBS works, at the top of the VBS admin rail, is the product’s own tour of the same ground: what is set up, what is waiting, and what your plan includes. Read it alongside this list.
1. The week itself is right
1
Check the dates and the days
Edit Event Details → Date & Time. Confirm the first and last day, then look down the Meeting Days rows: the right weekdays ticked, the right times, and a note on any morning that differs.
2. The rules match your building and your volunteers
2
Open Setup → Registration
Check the guest limit against how many children you can actually take, the eligibility grade range, and whether you want a deadline at all. Decide now whether Friend Preferences and Parent Self Check-In are on — both change what parents see.
Details are in Registration settings.
Warning
Volunteer Applications is the setting churches most often find too late. Left on Disabled, your volunteer link goes nowhere and nobody tells you.
3. You are asking for everything you need
3
Add your questions and waivers before you share
Setup → Custom Fields for the questions — a t-shirt size, a photo permission, who is collecting them — and Setup → Waivers for anything that must be signed. Both are far easier to get right now than to collect afterwards. See VBS custom fields.
4. Somebody can run the roles
4
Name the jobs volunteers can pick
Roles defines what the volunteer form offers — crew leader, station helper, snacks. A role marked On form is one an applicant can choose. See VBS volunteer roles.
5. Register as a parent, all the way to the review step
This is the step that finds the mistakes. Open your event page the way a family will — signed out, on a phone — and walk the whole wizard without confirming.
- Are the dates and times what you meant?
- Does the grade question read sensibly for this year?
- Do your own questions appear, and in an order that makes sense?
- Is the volunteer step offering the roles you defined?
- Does the total say what you expect — free, or the right price?
Note
Stopping before Confirm registration leaves nothing behind. If you do confirm by accident, remove the registration from Registrations → the row’s ⋯ menu → Remove from Event.
6. Share the link you meant to share
5
Use Share Event, not the address bar
Share Event on the overview offers two links: the Registration link for families and a separate Volunteer link straight to the sign-up. Each comes as a short link and a downloadable QR code for your bulletin or a poster.
Tip
Because those links are counted, Analytics can tell you whether the poster worked. If the volunteer link has no clicks a week in, the problem is your promotion, not your volunteers.
What can safely wait
Groups, badges and check-in do not need to exist before registration opens. Groups fill up from the roster once children have signed up, and the check-in board only matters on the morning itself:
- Groups and badges — sort children into crews, usually a week or two before.
- Event-day check-in — worth a rehearsal with your team, not worth doing now.