When an event creator sets up an event using the recurring event option, selects the date of the first occurrence of the event, and indicates how and how often the event should repeat, the system automatically populates the Event Ends date in the Edit Schedule tab in Manage Event as the same date as the Event Starts date. This is the expected, correct behavior. Quite frequently, when event creators review their event date details, they see this and incorrectly think the Event Ends date is incorrect and they manually change it to reflect the date of the last occurrence of the event. This results in each occurrence of the event spanning multiple days and in turn, the system auto-credits extreme numbers of hours to the event participants.

When an event creator creates an event using the one-time option, they only provide one date for the event (Note: when creating a one-time event, the event date field still states, “First Event Starts.” This verbiage is inconsistent with a one-time event and confusing.) Once the event is approved and published, if the event is extended and needs to be edited to indicate additional occurrences of the event, an Event Organizer is able to edit the Event Ends date to another date in the Edit Schedule tab in Manage Event (Note: There is no option to change a one-time event to a recurring event.). Similar to the examples above, the one-time event with a single date occurrence then changes to a one-time event that spans multiple days. Again, the impacts are both incorrect participation dates being attributed to a volunteer’s participation, etc.

This is the number one user error issue we see when approving event requests prior to posting. While we are able to have our event creators correct this issue for the initial posting of the event, Event Organizers are then able to go in and edit the event date details, and we are unable to prevent them from making the incorrect event date edits that are described above.

As a result of these issues, we are requesting the ability to edit the Event Ends date that is system generated be locked down or removed both when an event is in a draft form and also after it has been approved and published.