Sign-up sheets

Making one

Start at Make a sign-up sheet. You don't need an account. Give it a title and your name, and add your email if you'd like the links sent to you and a note at the end of each day about who signed up. Leave it out while you're signed in and the daily note goes to the address you sign in with instead. Leave it out when you're not signed in, and nothing is sent to you at all.

If what you're running is common, like a potluck, a meal train or parent-teacher interviews, "Start from a template" at the top fills in the title and the layout for you. Potluck goes further and puts in the usual dishes. Anything a template fills in can be changed before you share it. The templates page lists them all.

"Add a description, or say what this is for" opens two more fields. The description is plain text, and links you type in it aren't clickable, which keeps the page safe to pass around. "What is this for" matters if it's for a school, a youth team or a faith group. Pick one of those and the note box on the sheet asks people not to include medical or personal details. Keep the sheet itself to adults' names and contact details.

When you press the button you get two links. The first is the one to send to everybody, with a QR code if it's going on a poster. The second is private. It's how you get back in to change the sheet, so keep it somewhere safe and don't send it to the group. We'll email it to you if you gave an address. If you're signed in, the sheet is also on your pages.

Four ways to lay it out

"How is this organized" asks what the rows are. Every row says how many people it takes, from 1 up to 999, and each person takes one place.

Times and shifts are grouped by day on the sheet, and anybody who signs up with an email address gets a calendar file with their confirmation. Things to bring, and the one-a-day rows, have no time on them, so they appear as one list and there's no calendar file.

A sheet on Free holds up to 200 rows, and 500 on a paid plan.

How people sign up

"Change how people sign up" has four switches, all off unless you turn them on.

• Ask everyone for an email address. Otherwise it's up to each person. Anybody who leaves one gets their confirmation and their link.
• One sign-up each. Otherwise one person can take as many rows as they like in one go.
• Don't let people add a note. Notes are on unless you turn them off, and only you see them.
• Hide other people's names. People see how many have signed up for each row, not who. You still see everything.

"Stop taking responses on a date" sets a closing time. Leave it blank and the sheet stays open until you close it yourself. Times on the sheet are in your time zone, which we take from your browser, and the page says which zone it is. If some of your people are somewhere else, it's worth saying so in the description.

What people see

The link opens the sheet with your title, your name, and your description. There's no account to make and nothing to install. It works on any phone, and with JavaScript switched off.

Each row shows who's on it and how much room is left: "Open", "2 left" or "Full". Full rows stay on the list, greyed out, so everybody can see what's covered. To sign up, somebody checks the rows they want, types their name, adds an email and a note if they like, and presses "Sign me up".

The page then says "Saved", and the address in their browser becomes their own link for changing it later. If they left an email, the same link arrives in a confirmation, with a calendar file for anything that has a time. Their phone or computer remembers them for 90 days, so coming back to the sheet on the same device greets them by name.

When two people want the last place

Only one of them gets it, however close together they press the button. A row never ends up with more people than you said it takes. The other person sees "Someone got there first", with everything they typed still filled in, so they can pick something else and save again.

Changing or cancelling a sign-up

Anyone who signed up can come back through their own link, or on the same device, change what they're down for, and press "Update my response". Their new rows are taken before the old ones are let go, so if a new one has just filled, nothing changes and they're told.

"Cancel my sign-up" takes them off everything on the sheet at once, without asking a second time, and their places open up for somebody else. If they left an email, they get one saying it's cancelled, with a way to sign up again.

Once a sheet has closed, whether you closed it or its closing date passed, nobody can change or cancel. If somebody needs to, you can open it again for a while.

You can take somebody off yourself, too: "Remove" on their row under "Who's responded". It asks first, then takes their whole sign-up off, frees everything they'd taken, and emails them if they left an address. It works on a closed sheet as well, and it can't be undone, though they can sign up again while the sheet is open. You can't change what somebody signed up for; that's for them to do from their own link.

Running your sheet

Your private link, or the sheet on your pages if you're signed in, opens everything you need. Anybody you give the private link to can change or delete anything, just as you can, so only give it to somebody helping you run it.

• How it's filling up shows each row and how many of its places are taken.
• Who's responded lists everybody, what they took, their note, and when. You can search it, which looks through names, rows and notes, and sort it by any column.
• Download a spreadsheet gives you all of it, email addresses included. Once a row has a time, Calendar file puts every row that has one into your own calendar.
• Tell people something sends one message to everybody who signed up and left an address. You can send one an hour and 5 a day. Replies come to you, if your email is on the sheet or the sheet is saved to your account.
• Reminders, on a paid plan, let you pick a day and a time to remind everybody what they're down for. Up to 5 can be waiting at once. Sign-up sheets don't send a reminder by themselves on any plan.
• Stop taking responses closes the sheet, and everything stays visible. "Open it again" works for 30 days afterwards. If it closed because its date passed, there's no time limit: "Open it again" takes the date off, or you can set a later one in "Edit the details".
• Make a copy starts a new sheet with the same rows and choices, and nobody on it. The copy keeps the same times, so for next month's times, start a new sheet.
• Delete asks you to type the title first, and takes every sign-up with it. If it was a mistake, write to us within 7 days and we can put it back.

If you gave your email, or the sheet is saved to your account, you get one message at 6 pm, in the sheet's time zone, on any day something changed while it's open: who signed up, who cancelled, and how full it is.

Changing the rows after you've shared it

"The places on this sheet" is where rows change. You can add one, rename one, move it up or down, change how many it takes, or take it off. People who've already signed up stay where they are.

• A row can't take fewer people than have already signed up for it. You'll see how many that is when you change it, and you can remove somebody first to make room, though that takes them off everything they signed up for.
• A row you add has no time on it, so on a sheet laid out by time it goes at the end, on its own.
• Taking off a row that nobody's on happens right away. Taking off one that people are on asks you first, then emails each of them, if they left an address, so they can pick something else. It can't be undone.

Two things are fixed once the sheet exists: the layout you picked, and the time on each row. "Edit the details" changes the rest: the title and description, your name and email, what it's for, the time zone, the closing date, and the four switches. Nobody is emailed about an edit.

Who gets an email, and when

Nobody who signs up gets an email they didn't leave an address for. Emails for you go to the address on the sheet, or, if there isn't one, to the account it's saved to.

Messages, reminders, the daily email, and the emails about a row or a sign-up being taken off all have a "Stop these emails" link. It stops everything like that from us to that address, not only for this sheet. Emails about somebody's own sign-up, your links, and the warning before a sheet is deleted still arrive.

Taking turns from a list of people

If the same people sign up week after week, like a team's snack parents, you can connect the sheet to a list of people. That needs a free account, and Free includes one list of up to 25 people. Press "Who does what" and choose "Anyone, but show a running tally". People then pick their own name from the list when they sign up, and the sheet shows everybody how many each person has done, so nobody ends up doing every Saturday.

A row can count for more than one, under "What each one is worth": the long drive to the away game might count as two. Your daily email also says who on the list hasn't signed up yet.

Anybody with the link can see the names on the list, and could sign up as any of them. Email addresses are never shown.

What's free, and what isn't

Everything on this page is free, except where it says a paid plan. The free plan's limits for a sheet are 200 rows and 200 responses. A paid plan raises those to 500 and 2,000, and adds reminders on a day you pick, your own link ending, a PIN, your colour and logo, and takes the "Made with Whenabouts" line off.

A sheet made without an account is always on Free. Save it to your account and it's on your plan. What's on each plan has the rest.